Non-military and Civilian Targets
There have also been many attacks on non-military and civilian targets, beginning in earnest in August 2003 and steadily increasing since then. These include the assassination of Iraqis cooperating with the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Governing Council, considered collaborators by the guerrillas, and suicide bombings targeting the United Nations headquarters, the Jordanian Embassy, Shi'a mosques and civilians, the International Red Cross, Kurdish political parties, the president of the Iraqi Governing Council, hotels, Christian churches, diplomats and restaurants. Armed and unarmed Iraqi police and security forces are also targeted, because they are also considered collaborators. Sometimes they are killed in ambushes and sometimes in execution-style killings. Militants have targeted private contractors working for the coalition as well as other non-coalition support personnel.
The origin of the large-scale bombings is considered by many observers to most likely be foreign fighters, former Iraqi secret service operatives, or a combination of the two. It is believed that most of the actual suicide attackers are from outside Iraq, although they most likely are facilitated by Iraqis. The network of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is frequently blamed by the U.S. and the Iraqi government for suicide attacks on non-military targets.
Coalition officials and some analysts suspect that the aim of these attacks is to sow chaos and sectarian discord. Coalition officials point to an intercepted letter suspected to be from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in which he makes the case for attacking Shi'a in order to provoke an anti-Sunni backlash and thereby galvanize the Sunni population in support of the insurgents, as evidence. While hardcore Wahhabi mujahideen among the insurgency may indeed desire a sectarian civil war, other insurgents (both Sunni and Shia) charge that the coalition is attempting to instill a fear of civil war as part of a divide and conquer strategy.
Though attacks on civilians tend to kill much larger numbers of people in comparison to attacks on coalition forces, US Department of Defense data show that the Iraqi insurgency has, since at least April 2004, overwhelmingly targeted occupation forces and collaborators, rather than civilians. According to a recent open editorial in the New York Times, between April 2004 and May 2007, attacks directed against occupation forces comprised 74% of all significant insurgent attacks. 16% were directed against collaborationist elements and only 10% were directed at civilians.
This US data, although significant, have not been widely reported in the mainstream. There have been exceptions, however. For instance, in February 2006, Fred Kaplan, writing for Slate, noted that
the vast majority of the Iraqi insurgents' attacks are aimed at Iraqi security forces or at civilians, rather than at U.S. and coalition troops. In other words, as much as was the case a year or two ago, the Iraqi insurgency is primarily an anti Iraqi government insurgency.
Kaplan also noted the disparity between the ‘facts on the ground’ and mainstream media reporting, observing that it was a ‘surprising finding because so many news stories from Iraq have been reporting a rise in attacks on Iraqi security forces and in clashes between Sunni and Shiite factions.’
In February 2007, the Pentagon’s quarterly report, Stability and Security in Iraq, found that "Although most attacks continue to be directed against coalition forces, Iraqi civilians suffer the vast majority of the casualties". In late 2006, the BBC News website covered the issue, noting that although "about 80% of insurgent attacks are targeted against coalition forces, the Iraqi population suffers about 80% of all casualties, according to US officials in late 2005." This page, which includes an illustrative bar graph, was last updated November 2006.
This overall pattern has changed following the surge a reduction in troop deaths has followed for the past several months, according to a report by the US General Accounting Office.
A 2005 Human Rights Watch report analyzes the insurgency in Iraq and highlights "the groups that are most responsible for the abuse, namely al-Qaeda in Iraq, Ansar al-Sunna and the Islamic Army in Iraq, which have all targeted civilians for abductions and executions. The first two groups have repeatedly boasted about massive car bombs and suicide bombs in mosques, markets, bus stations and other civilian areas. Such acts are war crimes and in some cases may constitute crimes against humanity, which are defined as serious crimes committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population."
Read more about this topic: Tactics Of The Iraqi Insurgency