Word: sectarianism
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...incompetence of Iraqi forces helps to explain why, after a sharp drop in the early weeks of the surge, the civilian death toll from sectarian violence has begun to climb. Nearly 2,000 Iraqis were killed in May, the highest since the start of the security crackdown. The familiar signs of Shi'ite militia activity have returned: grossly mutilated bodies of Sunnis are turning up in the streets and Sunni residents in mixed neighborhoods are again being forced out of their homes. Sunni suicide bombings have multiplied...
...morning during a firefight with insurgents, roped him to the back of one of their blue and white trucks by the feet and then dragged him through the city for all to see before stringing him up. The Americans, who've been working with the national police to check sectarian tensions here, cut the corpse down, wrapped it in a body bag and sent it to a morgue on the main U.S. base in the area outside the city...
...Samarra, a flashpoint of sectarian and insurgent violence in years past, is dangerously close to erupting again. Insurgent violence driven by Sunni extremists is on the rise in the city. In the past two months, insurgent attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces in Samarra have nearly doubled, U.S. commanders say, rising to an average of roughly two per day. And U.S. troops who patrol the city say insurgents are operating in greater numbers than in months past...
Second, he said there has been a drop in sectarian violence since U.S. forces increased their numbers in the Iraqi capital. He noted that the trend line for violence before the surge was pointing steeply up. Now, he said, that trend has not only leveled off but has dropped. "The question before was whether the civil war could be slowed," said Kagan. "Now the question...
...everyone agrees with those claims. Pentagon officials recently told Congress that many Iraqi units are operating at only partial strength and that their numbers dwindle with each successive rotation through Baghdad. And while sectarian violence is lower than it was before the surge, there has been a spike upward lately. U.S. casualties, meanwhile, are rising. And there is widespread agreement that other Iraqi security forces, notably the police, are infiltrated by insurgents...