A recent upsurge in insurgent attacks primarily against Iraqi security forces and recruits, civilians, and Shia and Kurd communities may have been borne of a strategic shift by al-Qaeda?s terrorist mastermind in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. This shift may have occurred after Zarqawi grew frustrated by the flagging pace and ?success? of the insurgency seems to have coincided with his recent communiqu? that rationalized attacks against innocent Iraqi citizens and the Shia community. Thus, it would seem that Zarqawi may be placing greater emphasis in his network?s terrorist operations on stoking sectarian conflict among Iraq?s ethno-religious communities. Zarqawi and his leadership may have felt threatened by the traction of the Iraqi government?s strategy (See May 11 WAR Report) to entice swaths of alienated Sunnis into abandoning the insurgency in return for political empowerment within the mainstream Iraqi political structures. Many of the insurgency’s Sunnis are motivated by Islamist extremism, nationalism, and/or a desire to rebel against a Shia-Kurd-dominated government that is perceived to persecute the Sunni community. Elements of the Sunni insurgent community have demonstrated a degree of willingness to enter the Iraqi political landscape and abandon insurgent activity. By pursuing this strategy, the Iraqi government hopes to strip the insurgency of its operationally robust Sunni base of fighters and local sympathetic support networks. This migration would degrade the insurgency?s overall operational capabilities and would tactically and politically isolate the more hardcore foreign jihadist fighters, Sunni religious extremists, and former high-level Hussein regime elements.

Thus, Zarqawi may be seeking to head off this Sunni defection by stoking a sectarian civil war?centered on a Sunni versus Shia-Kurd constellation?that might serve as a fait accompli in consolidating the Sunni insurgents and their network alongside Zarqawi?s terrorist network. Attacks by Zarqawi?s network would seek to exploit ethno-religious sectarian paranoia to cultivate animosity among the Sunni insurgents against the now doubly menacing rival Kurd-Shia communities that dominate the Iraqi government and are perceived as seeking to crush the insurgency and the Sunnis as a distinct population. The Shia-Kurdish government and security forces would then be thrust into a starkly polarized battle against a predominantly Sunni insurgency and thus would reinforce the sectarian divides. In addition to leveraging the Sunni insurgent fighters and networks to the service of the insurgency, Zarqawi likely is seeking to exploit the ensuing instability and chaos of a civil war to more easily conduct terrorist operations and wrest power from the Iraqi government and US presence.