Iraqi insurgents

**Iraqi insurgents** were an umbrella group of Iraqi resistance fighters that fought against the United States during the Iraq War and against the government of Iraq after 2011 during the Iraqi Civil War. They included Ba'ath Party loyalists/Iraqi nationalists, Sunni insurgents from the Islamic State of Iraq, Ansar al-Sunnah, and other terrorist groups, Shi'ite rebels of the Mahdi Army, or groups that resisted the coalition forces. The insurgents fought mainly in the "Sunni Triangle" north of Baghdad, where most of the war took place. During the Iraq War, there were 70,000 Sunni insurgents and 60,000 Shi'ite insurgents, and after the US withdrawal from Iraq, the insurgency gradually turned into a civil war between the insurgent Islamic State and the government, with resistance movements being assimilated into ISIS or disbanding.

## History

Although al-Qaeda in Iraq was founded in 1999, insurgents in Iraq were idle until after April 2003, when the United States and United Kingdom deposed the leader of Ba'athist Iraq, Saddam Hussein, after a quick invasion. Saddam's downfall led to chaos in the country as former Ba'ath Party loyalists, upset with their loss of power, led an Iraqi nationalist insurgency. In addition, Sunni clerics incited their students to wage war against the perceived enemies of Islam, including the United States, United Kingdom, and the other Multinational Force - Iraq allies. Shi'ite clerics also mustered up resistance against the coalition, with Iran sending guns and funding to these "Special Groups". After the downfall of Saddam on 1 May 2003, the Iraqi government made peace with the coalition, and a democratic government ruled by the Shi'ite majority (rather than the Sunni elite that included Saddam) and by the Kurdish ethnic group was installed. The new government, aided by the occupying coalition, fought against the insurgents in several search-and-destroy operations, fighting a prolonged and asymmetrical war.

The insurgents grew to 70,000 Sunnis and 60,000 Shi'ites, who fought against the coalition and government forces in various ways. They used IEDs (improvised explosive devices), ambushes, and suicide bombings against both military and civilian targets to demoralize their enemies, but the Coalition forces carried out several anti-terror operations in the "Sunni Triangle" north of Baghdad, where much of the fighting took place. The cities of Fallujah, Ramadi, Baghdad, and the surrounding areas were hotbeds of insurgent activity, so the Coalition launched several attacks on insurgents in those areas.

In 2006, the insurgency took on a new form as the al-Qaeda in Iraq group under the deranged Jordanian killer Abu Musab al-Zarqawi grew into a powerful group, carrying out several terrorist attacks. The United States launched drone strikes on terrorist leaders and assassinated Zarqawi, but AQI grew into the Islamic State of Iraq under Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who led several attacks against the coalition. The insurgency grew, and in 2007, President George W. Bush sent more troops in a "troop surge" to Iraq in order to combat terrorism. For a while it seemed to work, but the war continued to be hard as the insurgency grew. The insurgents, bolstered by foreign fighters, continued to resist the occupation, and by 2009 the United States was the last country with a significant amount of troops in Iraq. The US withdrew from Iraq in 2011 after slowly withdrawing their soldiers, and the insurgents won a propaganda victory. The Iraqi insurgency continued over the next few years with minor clashes between the mostly-Shia or Kurdish government and the mostly-Sunni Arab insurgents, but the insurgents from the US occupation era were sidetracked as the Islamic State became the largest threat to the government. Former Sunni insurgent groups were assimilated into IS or disbanded, and the Iraqi insurgency turned into the 2014 Iraqi Civil War as their insurgency became a fight between the self-proclaimed Islamic State in the north of the country and Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

## Weaponry

Iraqi insurgents are typically equipped with low-grade military equipment and cheap weapons. Most of their guns are Soviet-made assault rifles or light machine guns, using the AK-47 assault rifle, the SKS rifle, the Makarov pistol, AKS-74u assault rifle, L1A1 SLR battle rifle, and RPK-74 light machine gun. Their grenades were either smoke grenades or fragmentation grenades, with no flashbangs or special grenades that the Americans were equipped with. Iraqi insurgents have recently acquired American-made weapons captured from the Iraqi Army, and have used these weapons in combat. These include the M4A1 carbine and FGM-148 Javelin missile launcher.

## Gallery

Iraqi insurgentSaddam poster in BaghdadWanted posters for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi