Daring jailbreak sign of blowback in Iraq

Daring jailbreak sign of blowback in Iraq

Last weekend the al-Qaeda terrorist organisation pulled off a well-planned jailbreak at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, making use of suicide bombers and heavily armed foot soldiers in an operation that went down with military-like precision. Before authorities regained control on Monday morning, about 500 inmates reportedly aligned with al-Qaeda, many of them senior members who had been sentenced to death, had walked away from the facility.

A similar operation was simultaneously launched at another prison but was unsuccessful.

In a sense this jailbreak and the general deterioration of the security situation in Iraq can be viewed as a consequence of a war that was waged under false pretences.

To put things into perspective, it is universally accepted today that when the US-led invasion of Iraq was mounted in March 2003, al-Qaeda was a non-entity in the country, even though it was falsely alleged by those beating the drums for war that al-Qaeda based in Iraq had a major role in planning the September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.

Last weekend's jailbreak was dramatic proof that things are unravelling again in Iraq after the period of relative peace and stability that followed sectarian violence which took on civil war proportions in 2006 and 2007. Back then body counts sometimes reached 3,000 per week as rival Sunni and Shia militias fought for control of neighbourhoods.

The situation today is not as dire, at least not yet. However, death tolls for the past three months have been the highest for five years, with more than 700 already killed in July.

The signs are clear that Sunni Muslim militants are engaging in an open insurgency against the Shia-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Mr Maliki was first elected before the US occupation ended.

On Thursday, Sunni militants summarily executed 14 Shia truck drivers after setting up a roadblock north of Baghdad, stopping trucks and checking the IDs of drivers to first determine their religion.

To lay the current escalation of the sectarian violence entirely on the head of the US-led coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003 is simplistic and would be ignoring a long and complicated history of relations between Islam's two main denominations.

It also ignores short-sighted policies of the al-Maliki government that have left Iraqi Sunnis feeling disenfranchised and allowed al-Qaeda to make a comeback since the dark days of 2006-2007, when Iraqis of all stripes became fed up with their ruthless tactics. But what is clear is that the planners of the invasion had no understanding of the hornet's nest they were poking. War inevitably leaves deep resentments that go a long way in producing militants and terrorists, and it is also great training for them.

It is common to hear of the "blowback" from the training of militant groups in Afghanistan to fight the Russians during their occupation of the country. What we are seeing now in Iraq is to a large extent the blowback from a war that was dishonestly promoted and an occupation that was administered in a confused manner and which obviously didn't take the best interests of the Iraqi people into account.

The ramifications of Iraq's internal struggle, and the escape of 500 al-Qaeda soldiers and senior members, go far beyond the country's borders, and there is particular worry that they will further inflame the civil war in Syria, where there are signs the rebellion is already being taken over by al-Qaeda.

Writing for The New Yorker, Jon Lee Anderson said: "Five hundred al-Qaeda terrorists back on the streets can do a lot of damage wherever they choose to go _ to Iraq, to Syria, to Lebanon, or to the fragile Jordan, where hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees now live in camps along the border."

As United Nations envoy to Iraq Martin Kobler warned last week: "The problems in Iraq cannot be separated from the problems of the region. The battlefields are merging."

Unfortunately he is right. This story looks to be far from over.

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