Iraq and Afghanistan

Sunday's Times gave a good summary of what might be described as the "order of battle" for the insurgents. The current estimate is that there are 11,000 to 20,000 insurgents. Of these 2200 to 3300 are hard core supporters of Saddam and the Baath Party. Many of the leaders are in Syria. They are assisted by 6100 to 10,000 part-time supporters. These are often paid on a per-job basis for their attacks. Their goal is a strong government recreating the authoritarian, Sunni-Arab, Baathists past. The Islamic extremists are mostly Salafists, persons with views similar to the Wahhabi, but not now identified with them. Perhaps 700 insurgents are aligned with al-Qaida and al-Zarqawi, mostly in the Mosul area. One of the main leaders here is Muhammad Sharkawa, formerly a member of Ansar. Perhaps 2000 other extremists or Jihadists operate separately from this structure. The Islamic extremists hope to ensure a weak government that will eventually be replaced by a Taliban type regime. American also estimate that there are 2900 in al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, mostly in Baghdad. It seems doubtful that these should be seen as part of the insurgency now.

Today's paper reported a terrible day yesterday, with more than 60 killed. The targets were ordinary Shi'a in Karbala and Najaf and election officials in Baghdad. It seems clear that the major focus has shifted to killing Shi'a, thereby kindling a sectarian war that they are sure they can win, and killing Iraqis connected with the election effort. An encouraging sign is the fact that the going price for getting a person to fire a grenade at Americans has gone up from $50 to $200. But in all these figures, what one does not get is where the suicide bombers are recruited. This seems now to be the main tool of the insurgents, a tool used mostly against Iraqis. The insurgent decisions to concentrate on Iraqis may have a short-term pay off, but in the longer term it would seem bound to reduce sympathy for their cause.

Th reader may also be interested in looking at the American forces order of battle. It is interesting to reflect that the Coalition forces taken together, and assisted by the newly trained and sometimes feckless Iraqi government forces add up to well over 200,000. Given the stardard 1:10 ratio said to be required when fighting a guerrilla war, this should be an adequate force if deployed intelligently.