Four years into the battle for ideological and military dominance in Iraq, al-Qaeda in Iraq has adopted a new tactic. Beginning on April 12, 2007, al-Qaeda is targeting the primary bridges linking Baghdad to Iraq’s principal northern and southern cities. Since this first attack, eight bridges have been damaged in a barrage of improvised explosive devices (IED) and suicide bombings:
• On April 12, Baghdad’s historic al-Sarafiya bridge connecting the Sunni Waziriyah district and the Shia Utafiyah was cut in two by a truck bomb.
• On May 11, both the old and new Diyala bridges were damaged in near simultaneous suicide car bombings.
• On May 16, the Badoush Bridge near Mosul was destroyed by a remotely detonated car bomb. The bridge spanned the Tigris River northwest of Mosul connecting the provincial capital of Nineva to Talafar and Rabia to the Iraq-Syria border.
• On June 2, the Sahra Bridge spanning the al-Adham River connecting Baghdad to Kirkuk and the northern governates.
• On June 10, a primary bridge six miles south of Mahmoudiya connecting Baghdad to the southern governates was destroyed by a suicide car bomber.
• On June 11, the bridge spanning the Diyala River connecting Baquba, the capital of Diyala, to the northern villages of Diyala.
• On June 12, following up on the June 2, 2007 attack a bomb targeted the flow of southern traffic into Baghdad destroying the primary bridge connecting al-Qariya al-Asriyah and al-Rashayed in northern Babil.
• On June 13, the Zgiton Bridge, a second bomb targeted the flow of north-south traffic from Kirkuk to Baghdad. The bridge connecting Kirkuk to Tikrit was destroyed by an IED attached one of the bridge’s pillars.
Target Selection Aimed at Isolating Baghdad From Its Provinces
Initiated at the beginning of ‘the surge’ when the US troop buildup in Baghdad was in its infancy, al Qaeda commenced its campaign by striking the Sarafiya bridge, essentially dividing Baghdad in two. Both a strategic and symbolic blow, the Sarafiya bombing was a challenge to US forces entering Baghdad to implement the ‘Baghdad Security Plan.’ The Baghdad Security Plan’s implementation and the security lockdown that followed forced insurgent groups to shift their targets to bridges on the inroads to Baghdad, rotating its strikes between targets in the north and south in succession.
With the majority of US troops stationed in Baghdad, al-Qaeda hoped that, by cutting off the primary arteries into the nation’s capital, it would inhibit the US military from supplying and aiding its peripheral bases during an assault. Supply lines into the Anbar Province were the first to be targeted because it is home to the Anbar Salvation Council. Next, the main routes into Diyala were destroyed to prevent the US from supplying local, anti-al-Qaeda tribes with weapons. Then, bridges linking Baghdad to the south and the north were struck in order to isolate US troops battling elements of the Mahdi Army in the south and those guarding the Kurdish cities of the north. Renewed insurgent bombing campaigns against Shia targets in Samarra and Najaf and Kurdish targets in Kirkuk, now isolated command posts then followed these strikes.
Effectively dividing Iraq into three separate regions, by destroying Iraq’s primary bridge infrastructure al-Qaeda is isolating not only the US military but large segments of Iraqi society from the state’s economic center. The US military reported that its operations were unaffected by the bridge bombings. This is by and large due to its increased utilization of air transport. Iraq’s merchant class, on the other hand, has been highly affected by the bombings. Merchants from Baghdad’s suburbs who marketed their goods in the city have lost revenue as a result. These merchants are now traversing the rivers by boat, causing the speed of goods shipment into the city to slow exceedingly. Resulting in increased supply shortages in Iraq’s primary cities, the lack of solid infrastructure for the shipment of goods and services will further devastate Iraq’s fledgling provincial economies; contributing to internal displacement.
Continued Use of Bridge Bombings
A significant strategic weapon, bridges connecting Baghdad and the Iraq’s major cities will continue to be targeted. It is both an effective weapon for slowing the transportation of weapons into provinces that support the US military in its fight against Sunni insurgencies and a means to increase popular calls for the withdrawal of US forces. If the insurgents are true to their pattern, we should expect the next bridge bombing to be south of Baghdad, or to the west on the road to Fallujah and Ar Ramadi, since these routes have yet to be targeted and are a necessary inroad for the US military’s campaign to subdue the ‘belt’ regions, which are al-Qaeda strongholds in Baghdad’s suburbs.
Despite the military’s acute awareness of the increased threat to bridges, insurgents will continue to be successful in suicide bombing operations simply because it is a tactic against which it is to defend.
