9.4 |
June 2005 to May 2006
“Until we
feel security, you will be our targets. And until you stop the
bombing,
gassing,
imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this
fight.
“We are at
war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this
situation.”32
69.
At its meeting
on 13 July, the JIC reviewed the state of the insurgency in
Iraq
and, separately,
the effectiveness of the ITG’s efforts to bring Sunni Arabs into
the
70.
The JIC judged
that the majority of Iraqi insurgents were Sunni Arabs, to whom
a
significant
proportion of the Sunni community were sympathetic.
Jihadists34
remained
in
a minority
but represented a growing proportion of the insurgency and the
proportion of
Iraqi
jihadists was increasing.
71.
Although Sunni
insurgents and jihadists had some common aims –
opposing
the MNF and
ITG – the JIC judged that most insurgents were not motivated
by
Islamist
zeal and most ordinary Iraqi Sunnis wanted to be rid of the
foreign jihadists.
The Assessment
said:
“Political
engagement with the Sunnis will be key to exploiting this.
Currently Sunni
Arab
insurgents have no strong reason to turn on the
jihadists.
“Actions of
the ITG will be critical. If political progress is slow and Sunni
expectations
not met, a
significant insurgency in Sunni areas will persist and probably get
worse
through
2006 and beyond. To counter this, the Iraqi security forces (ISF)
in hard core
Sunni areas
will need extensive MNF support through 2006 and
beyond.”
72.
The JIC also
considered the wider security situation in Iraq, including the
activities of
the Shia
militia and the situation in MND(SE). It judged that:
“Sectarian
attacks are increasing but the presence of the MNF means that
the
danger of
civil war is currently remote.
“Shia
militias remain largely restrained. Muqtada al-Sadr is content for
the movement
to
concentrate on the political process; any appetite within his
organisation for a
return to
violence is being suppressed. We have no indications that this is
about to
change. A
small minority of other Shia extremist groups continues to attack
the MNF.
Some have
been trained by Iran.
32
BBC
News, 1
September 2005, London
bomber: Text in full.
33
JIC
Assessment, 14 July 2005, ‘Iraq: State of the Insurgency’; JIC
Assessment, 14 July 2005, ‘Iraq:
Outreach to
Sunni Arabs’.
34
The JIC
used the term “jihadists” to describe extremists who believed they
had a religious obligation to
fight the
West and apostate regimes and who described their attacks as
“jihad”.
501