Attacks in Iraq hit all-time high

From correspondents in Washington

March 15, 2007 08:08am
Article from: Agence France-Presse

THE number of attacks in Iraq during the last three months of 2006 was the highest for any such period since 2003, a Pentagon progress report to Congress said today.

"Although most attacks continue to be directed against coalition forces, Iraqi civilians suffer the vast majority of the casualties,'' the report said.

The quarterly report - Stability and Security in Iraq - did not reflect security conditions since the start of the year when the United States increased the number of troops in Baghdad to try break a spiral of sectarian violence.

Echoing a recent US intelligence estimate, it said the term "civil war'' did not capture the complexity of the conflict, which included "extensive'' sectarian violence but also attacks on coalition forces and criminality.

"Some elements of the situation in Iraq are properly descriptive of a 'civil war,' including the hardening of ethno-sectarian and politically motivated violence, and population displacements,'' it said.

"Illegally armed groups are engaged in a self-sustaining cycle of sectarian and politically motivated violence, using tactics that include indiscriminate bombing, murder and indirect fire to intimidate people, and stoke sectarian violence,'' it said.

A chart showed a surge in sectarian incidents from September through December with murders spiking to about 1300 in December alone, from less than 100 in January.

During the last three months of the year, Baghdad experienced a record 45 attacks a day, it said.

"The total number of attacks on and casualties suffered by coalition forces, the ISF (Iraqi Security Forces), and Iraqi civilians for the October-December reporting period were the highest for any three-month period since 2003,'' it said.

"Casualties from these attacks decreased slightly in January, but remained troublingly high,'' the report said.

A chart in the report, however, showed average weekly attacks between January 1 and February 9 exceeded 1000, compared to a weekly average in the last six months of 2006 of about 900.