New Worries on Insurgency as U.S. Readies Exit From Iraq

By ALISSA J. RUBIN
NYT

BAGHDAD — As the American military prepares to withdraw from Iraqi cities, Iraqi and American security officials say that jihadi and Baath militants are rejoining the fight in areas that are largely quiet now, regrouping as a smaller but still lethal insurgency.

There is much debate as to whether any new insurgency, at a time of relative calm in most of Iraq, could ever produce the same levels of violence as existed at the height of the fighting here. A recent series of attacks, however, like bubbles that indicate fish beneath still water, suggest the potential danger, all the more perilous now because the American troops that helped to pacify Iraq are leaving.

Several well-planned bombings, one on a street recently reopened because it was thought to be safe, have killed 123 people, most of them in and around Baghdad. Three were suicide bombings, signatures of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown Sunni extremist group with some foreign leadership.

Assassination attempts on members of the Awakening, some of them former insurgents who switched sides for pay, are rising, as are fears that some are joining Al Qaeda or other insurgent groups. On Saturday an important Awakening leader was arrested on charges, among others, of being a member of the military wing of the outlawed Baath Party, formerly led by Saddam Hussein.

Detainees long held in American military custody are being set free every day, potentially increasing the insurgency’s numbers. At least one has already blown himself up in a suicide attack.

(More here.)