MILNET Analysis: Iraqi Violence, July 2004

MILNET Brief
Analysis: Iraqi Violence May 1, 2003 to July 30, 2004

"The law ... is really designed to protect lives in Iraq, whether these lives are Iraqis or friends of Iraq who are operating here in Iraq..."

- Prime Minister of the Iraqi Interim Government, Iyad Allwai, July 7, 2004.

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Unfortunately, the rule of law doesn't stop those who can't survive in a nation of laws from trying to tear everything down. Both European and the North American nations have lived through similar events in their history. And while the damage eventually heals, the scars left behind are not easily or quickly forgotten.

So goes Iraq. This newly re-invented nation, a rather unique blend of Sunni, Shia and Kurds is struggling to survive. If left alone and allowed to blossom it could be an all too impressive testament to diplomacy, leadership, and vision. However, those who cannot live in such a nation, or cannot have such a nation in their midst, are waging an all out war againt the citizens of Iraq in an increasingly violent and cruel wave of insurgence.

And if you happen to doubt that Iraq itself is the target, what with U.S. and other Coaltion soldiers or civilian contractors being killed, take a look at the death tolls carefully. Included in nearly every attack now are government officials, innocent Iraqis nearby, or someone aiding the new Iraqi government to create infrastructure, revenue or give aid to their people ¹.

For example, in July there have already been three attacks on government officials. Those attacks have killed members of protection details as well as "street muslims" -- the fabled "real people" of Iraq who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The latest attack on the Justice Minister in Iraq, as well as nearly simultaneous attacks around the nation killed a rough total of 25. Interestingly there are no news stories decrying collateral damage when Terrorists bomb someone. Prior to that, the Defense Minister was the target. It should be noted that these two ministers in particular lived in exile from Iraq during Saddam Hussein's reign and have plenty of enemies -- both from former Baathists and the displaced Saddam "friendlies".

Attacks against oil facilities of any type are a regular staple of the bombing pyschopaths. In June and July, the insurgents killed both field workers and Iraqi oil company leadership. These attacks are clearly intended to eliminate revenue and make the job of stabilizing the country impossible. When the killers are through, there will be few Iraqis alive who can operate the oil industry, and more tantalizing targets will be brought in from the outside. And then the attackers will claim they are simply killing foreign capitalists who are stealing their wealth. One report (Baywave of the U.K.) indicates:

"...Iraq 's oil and gas reserves potential of 330 Billion barrels of oil and 324 Trillion standard cubic feet of gas. It also shows how an estimated $ 100 through 150 Billion worth of investment is required in Iraq 's Oil and Gas and Infrastructure sectors to enable some of this potential to be unlocked." ⁵

Another analyst has quoted the Iraqi Oil authorities in saying that they have lost a $1 billion in oil revenue due to sabotage. ¹¹

Who will invest that $100 billion to unlock the potential is the big question when violence targeted specifically at the industry continues. The terrorists are winning this phase of their battle, and frankly are being extremely clever in this pursuit.

And of course, attacks against.those aiding that authority continue at a feverish pitch. At the top of this list are Coaltion members -- troops and civilians -- who are courageously attempting to help the new Iraqi government The waves of kidnappings and beheadings provide a clear insight into the terrorist's roadmap. Each success increases the number of kidnappings and killings. Every government that gives in to the kidnappers simply inspires the continuance of the killer's policy. The latest is the kidnapping of a Belgian and Phillipino, with the latter's nation vowing to pull out its troops in order to get their victim back alive.

Overall, the tactics are so typical to international terrorism. Car bombings, bombs left in buildings, bombs on oil pipelines, automatic weapons attacks against officials and their entourages, kidnappings and beheadings. The asinine phrase "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" was quoted again recently in the mainstream media.

What we are seeing in Iraq is not freedom fighting. Unless of course freedom means the right to conduct mayhem. The only freedom being oppressed in Iraq at the moment is the freedom to live a stable life, and the insurgents are the oppressors, not the government. Don't confuse a barely existent government with one oppressing its people. The Iraqi interim government barely has control over its daily operation, let alone the ability to oppress anyone. And the coalition forces are focusing on the violence, not the Iraqi people.

Sadly, each new attack raises the common Iraqi citizen ire. Things were so peaceful before the war. There is a natural desire to return to those pleasant days with Saddam. Right? And sadly, the gut reaction of the Iraqi citizen is to scream at his new government, "how can you let this happen, you must fix this. Send the Americans home!"

All of this is a natural reaction to the conflict, and unfortunately the mainstream media, perhaps fixated on a U.S. election, loves to point at the mourning Iraqi public and have begun to question any Coalition presence. Unfortunately, our free societies in Europe and North America allow the rhetoric that fuels the terrorists propoganda machine. Al Jezerra is prediciting the war will pull down the U.S. President and replace him with a man more atuned to helping the "valiant forces of islam." Now that is an interesting endorsement.

In the end, Al Qaeda alone might have the forces necessary to continue the conflict well beyond the next few years. According to a somewhat shaky report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, Al Qaeda trained some 20,000 terrorists in Afghanistan before the U.S. attacked and chased the Taliban out. Associated Press gleefully quoted the number, however, the so called "Straegic Survey 2003-2004" ⁷ had some major flaws in its logic. While there is a potential for 18,000 Al Qaeda terrorists even after some 2000 have been killed, the factor defining how many went home and became actual fighters is widely disputed. Some may have melted into the hills bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan, others have simply gone home to melt into their populations. Especially those trained who returned to places far away from Afhganistan, for instance those living in Indonesia. While many are active, perhaps half may have simply decided to wait or forget their experience. The "Sources" section below has a link to the IISS report, you may purchase your own copy and come to your own conclusions.

The concern surrounds perhaps half of theat figure -- how many will be primed for a future action should the right rhetoric and cause reinflame their indoctrination in Taliban and Al Qaeda training camps. Certainly Indonesia received a share of the Afghan trained Al Qaeda. If the factor were only a third, then some 6,000 could be true Al Qaeda fighters.

With a large breeding ground of Baathists just on the border of Iraq in Syria, that country could source enough of its number to exceed anything Al Qaeda could send to Iraq. In any case, there does not seem to be a shortage of terrorists willing to enter Iraq and fight against an emerging free nation favoring the West. See the MILNET report on the sources of insurgents in Iraq from earlier in July of 2004.

The Latest

UPDATE: 2/13/2005

Following the inprecedented elections in Iraq, the inurgents have made their intentions clear -- attacks against Shia Iraqis jumped by some 300%, thought to be retaliation for the Shia elected ticket. Not only are the insurgents against democracy in Iraq, which threatens their power base and radical secular Islamic ideology, they clearly hate the Shiites.

"Violence swept Iraq yesterday as insurgents switched the focus of their attacks from the security forces to Shia civilians, killing at least 12 in a bombing outside a mosque and gunning down nine in a Baghdad bakery.
The massacres appeared designed to raise sectarian tension as the country prepared for the results from last month's election which will cement the ascendance of the Shia majority and the political marginalisation of the Arab Sunni minority.

In the bombing, a pick-up truck laden with vegetables parked in front of a Shia mosque in Balad Ruz, a town 45 miles north of Baghdad. As worshippers emerged on to the street, Iraqi troops approached the vehicle to investigate when it blew up. The police reported 13 dead and 40 wounded while the national guard reported 12 dead and 23 wounded.

In a brazen assault in the capital, several car-loads of gunmen sealed off a street in a predominantly Shia neighbourhood and opened fire at a crowd inside a bakery, killing at least nine. Witnesses said walls plastered with posters of Shia clerics were splattered with blood." ¹⁶

The attacks put a lie to the earlier claims that insurgents are for the Iraqi peopel and against U.S. and coaltion "occupiers".

The following is a table of key attacks since the end of the war (May 1, 2003). Note that between 300,000 to 500,000 people were killed in Iraq during Saddam's 23 years as dictator.

Iraqi Violence from May 1, 2003 to July 31, 2004

Date	Where	Details
Attacks Against Infrastructure
7/19/2004	Police Station, Baghdad	White tanker truck drive by bomb - 9 killed, 50+ (52-57) injured, all Iraqis, most policeman but also including one child, damaged station, mechanical and electrical workshops.
7/19/2004	Fire Station, al-Salihiya, Baghdad	1 Iraqi wounded when RPG fired at station
7/15/2004	Near Police Station/ government buildings	Car bomb
7/11/2004	Oil Pipeline	Blast severed pipeline
7/4/2004	Oil Pipeline, north/south	Blast severed pipeline
6/16/2004	Public market in Kirkuk	Ghazi Talabani, the top security official for the state-run Northern Oil company was killed by a car bomb, many also injured by the blast
6/16/2004	Faw, Iraq	Pipeline bomb explodes severing oil pipeline. Pipeline transports approximately 750 million barrels of crude oil per day to oil terminals in Persian Gulf.
6/15/2004	Dibis, Iraq, 20 miles west of Kirkuk	Pipeline bomb explodes on pipeline. Pipeline transports approximately 750 million barrels of crude oil per day to oil terminals in Persian Gulf.
6/13/2004	Baghdad	3 Iraqis working on restoring electricity are among those dead from car bomb.
4/24/2004	Persian Gulf Oil Platforms	3 small boats exploded killing uncounted Iraqi and foreign oil workers. Damaged were two important Iraqi oil terminals used to supply ships transporting Iraqi oil out of the country. One report says the stoppage created a 1 billion barrels of oil from being exported per day, about $28 million dollars..
Note: Our sources in Iraq indicate that few reconstruction projects go unscathed. While workers may not be targeted, the construction itself will be. Sources indicate no Iraqi reconstruction project has not had to either restart from scratch, or experinced large delays due to damage from overnight attacks that don't warrant press attention, i.e., not due to a large explosion. Fire, water, spoilage, or simply deconstruction damage and other sabotage continues at an alarming rate.

Attacks Against Iraqis
7/28/2004	Baquoba	Massive homicide car bomb exploded killing 68-70 Iraqis and injuring 30-58, leveling a portion of neighborhood. All Iraqis killed and injured. Reuters reports the blast was from a minivan, 21 of the those killed were travelling in another minivan next to the one that exploded.
7/27/2004	Saliyha District, Baghdad	Mortar shell fired into neighborhood killed 1 injured another 5
7/27/2004	Mosul	Car bomb killed 3 (a woman, child and guard) outside a U.S. base near Mosul, chevrolet packed with explosives detonated 50 yards outside the base's gate.
7/27/2004	South of Baghdad	7 Iraqis killled by gunbattle, patrol backed up by U.S. and Ukranian troops
7/27/2004	Baghdad	Iraqi Government official gunned down outside his home
7/26/2004	Baghdad	Car bomb injuries three Iraqis
7/19/2004	Fallujah	Kidnapped Police Chief Lt. Col. Nafi al-Kubaisi's body found, kidnapped on the 7/17/2004
7/18/2004	Baghdad	Reuters reported eight killed car bomb attack against Iraqi National Guard facilities.
7/17/2004	Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad	Car bombing against civilians killed 2 soldiers
7/16/2004	Jamia, northwestern Baghdad.	Justice Minister's convoy attacked, killing 5 in entourage, but leaving minister unscathed.
7/14/2004	Baghdad	Auditor for Industry Minstry killed in drive by shooting outside his office
7/14/2004	Nineveh Province, Mosul Between Beji and Tikfit	Jordianian militants loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi took credit for killing the Governor of the province (Governor of Mosul General Osama Youssef Kashmoula), mentioned in the claim was " military wing of Tawhid wal Jihad". ¹²Also killed were two guards. Kashmoula was wounded, taken to hospital and then died there. Attack consisted of hand grenades and machine gun fire at the General's convoy.
7/14/2004	Baghdad	10 killed by car bomb
7/14/2004	Baghdad	Head of Iraqi Olympic Committee Ahmed al-Hijeya convoy attacked by RPG which injured two of his bodyguards.
7/3/2004	South of Baghdad	Bomb kills 10 Iraqi soldiers at checkpoint
6/29/2004	Western Iraq	10 killed by car bombing, Allwai creates special security force.
6/27/2004	Baghdad	Deputy Major of Baghdad
6/25/2004	Falluja, Ramadi, Baquba, Mosul and Baghdad	Attacks all across Iraq claimed the lives of over 100.
6/24/2004	Baqubah	Attempt on life of Mayor Faris Assam assassinated by two terrorist gunmen in a restaurant
6/14/2004	Fallujah	6 Shia truck drivers killed when they couldn't pay ransom. They had sought refuge from Iraqi Police who turned them over to insurgents supposedly who spoke with non Iraqi accents. Another identified the killers as Syrians. ³
6/12/2004	Ghazaliya, Baghdad	Cultural Affairs Officer Kamal al-Jarah in the Iraqi Education Ministry killed outside his home by gunmen
6/12/2004	Kirkuk	Kurdish clerice killed by gunmen
6/12/2004	Baqouba	Iraqi General Majeed Almani Mahal attacked and wounded
6/12/2004	Baghdad	The chief of Iraq's border police, Maj. Gen. Hussein Mustafa Abdul-Kareem wounded by gunmen firing on his convoy.
6/11/2004	Azimayah district, Baghdad	Bassam Salih Kubba, one of Iraq's most senior diplomats assasinated by gunmen
5/23/2004	Nationwide, Baghdad, Tikrit, Kirkuk	Associated Press reports that some 5,548 Iraqi civilians have died in Iraq in three provinces and Baghdad since the conclusion of the war. The A.P. article also cites the figure of some 357 violent deaths each month in the previous six months to the story. It also compares this to a death rate of 79 per 100,000 people, with the New York City violence rate at 7.5 deaths per 100,000. Tikrit's rate estimated at 17 per 100,000 per month with a total of 205 deaths in that region druing the same period. Kirkuk's 401 deaths worked out to 34 per 100,000. ⁶
5/17/2004	Baghdad	Head of Iraq's Governing Council Izzedin Salim (Saleem) is killed by a suicide bomber ⁴
5/8/2004	Yusufiya, south of Baghdad	Head of town council killed as he drove down main street
5/1/2004	South of Baghdad	Local tribe leader and his daughter killed by stick of dynamite at the door of his home
4/24/2004	Baghdad	Mortar fired into Shiite market killing 7 to 10 Iraqis
4/24/2004	Haswa, 30 mi. south of Baghdad	13 killed by roadside bomb which destroyed the back of a bus, 17 wounded.
4/24/2004	Near U.S. base in Iraq	Iraiq man and wife, the wife an employee of Coalition killed in their car by gunfire.
4/24/2004	Tikrit	2 Iraqi policeman and 2 civilians killed by roadside bomb, 16 Iraqis wounded.
4/9/2004	Nationwide	460 Iraqis killed along with some 40 Americans in one of the worst weeks of violence in Iraq reports NBC news correspondent Larry Mullens. 8 U.S. soldiersare reported dead on the 4th (see below) ⁹
4/5/2004	Basra	Two simultaneous car bombings combine to kill dozens, "foreign" Islamic terrorists blamed.
4/4/2004	Samarra, north of Baghdad	3 Iraqi security officers killed and 1 injured by bomb at checkpoint
4/4/2004	Kirkuk	2 Iraqi police and 3 civilians killed by car bomb
3/17/2004	Baghdad	7 killed in the Mount Lebanon Hotel blast downtown, 30 injured by suicide car bomb, however the hotel might not have been the intended target.
3/2/2004	Nationwide	NBC reported that since August 3, 2003 there have been 40 attacks and nearly 500 Iraqis killed linked to Al-Qaeda and linked organizations like Ansar Al-Islam or the so called umbrella group Ansar al Sunnah. This figure did not include those killed in a devasting attack against Shiite muslims in Baghdad and Karbala in Iraq the previous Tuesday. NBC states their analysis indicates Ansar Al-Islam is killing 100 people per month over the six months prior to their news story. Directing many of the attacks, according to unnamed officials in NBC's story, is Abu Mousab (a.k.a. Ayman) al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant linked to Al Qaeda and supposedly the leader of Ansar al-Islam. ²
2/15/2004	Iraqi Prison	27 Policeman and Jailors killed
1/18/2004	Tikrit	2 Iraqis killed by explosive device in car, possibly due to a bomb being transported.
1/17/2004	Baghdad	Attack on U.S. Headquarters by truck bomb kills some 20 Iraqis, while being targeted at Coalition forces
1/1/2004	Offices of KUP and KDP, Northern Iraq	109 dead Sunni in the combined attacks, two suicide bombers killed by the blast, later Ansar Al Sunnah claimed responsibility
12/18/2003	Baghdad, Ayim district	Muhannad al-Hakim an Official in Iraq's largest Shia based political party shot dead near his home.
12/14/2003	Khaldiyah, west of Baghdad	17 people killed by suicide bomber
12/9/2003	Mosque in Hurriyah district of Baghdad	Terrorist rocket attack kills 3 Iraqis and injured 2 in the courtyard of Mosque
12/1/2003	Samarra, near Imam Hadi shrine	Hospitals reported 8 Iraqi dead brought in, probably not the terrorists, as well as some 50 wounded, 10 critically. Many of the wounded were Iranian pilgrims attending the shrine.
11/20/2003	Kirkuk	Truck bomb killed 5 Iraqis, Ansar Al Sunnah later claimed responsibility
10/12/2003	Baghdad	Baghdad Hotel blast wounds 15, even as reporter is interviewing Mowaffak Rubaie, a member of Iraq’s U.S.-appointed Governing Council (he and the reporter survived, Rubaie with a slightly injured arm).
10/10/2003	Sadr City section of Kirkuk	8 Iraqis killed by car bomb along with two U.S. soldiers
10/9/2003	Sadr City section of Kirkuk	2 Iraqis and 2 U.S. serviceman killed by Sadr militiamen
10/7/2003	Kirkuk, HQ for SCIR	1 Iraqi watchman killed by mortar round
9/29/2003	Kirkuk	1 U.S. Soldier killed by rocket propelled grenade
8/29/2003	Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf	Between 80 to 109 Shia including the Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim the leader of SCIRI (Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq) killed by huge car bomb. The shrine houses the remains of Ali Ali at Naja the founder of the Shia sect of Islam, and is thought to have been built by Azoud ad Dowleh in 977. ⁸
4/30/2003	Samawah, further south of Baghdad	Head of town council and three ran off road and killed by gunmen
4/29/2003	Sadr City section of Kirkuk	1 coalition employee, an Iraqi, was shot and a note was left warning against holding a funeral
4/28/2003	Baghdad	3 men hanged by terrorists as "spies for the enemies of Islam"

Attacks Against Coalition Forces or Non-Iraqi Population
7/27/2004	Mosul	3 U.S. Soldiers and 1 Iraqi guard injured (3 Iraqis killed, see 7/27 above) when bomb in chevrolet sedan exploded 50 yards outside gate of U.S. base.
7/27/2004	Baghdad	Four Egyptian contractors kidnapped
7/27/2004	Baghdad	Bulgarian hostage taken a month earlier -- claim that he wasbeheaded
7/17/2004	Baiji near Mosual	1 U.S. serviceman killed, 3 wounded
7/11/2004	Baghdad	Roadside bomb and hail of gunfire kills U.S. Soldier in ambush of patrol
7/7/2004	Western Iraq	3 U.S. Marines killed by improvised explosive device while conducting anti-terror operations.
6/26/2004	Iraq	3 Turkish soldiers captured and threatened to be beheaded if Coaltion forces did not leave Iraq.
6/24/2004	Baghdad	Lt. Col. John Buehring, PSYOPs specialist, killed by rocket fire into his room at the Rashid hotel
6/24/2004	Iraq	South Korean Soldier beheaded by terrorists after South Korea's government refused to withdraw its forces.
6/24/2004	Somewhere in Iraq	2 U.S. soldiers killed in ambush
6/14/2004	Highway overpass in Baghdad	2 killed and 3 wounded
6/6/2004	Near Baghdad Airport	4 security company contractors killed (2 Americans, 2 Polish)
5/28/2004	Iraq	2 Japanese Journalists killed when their car exploded due to gunfire.
5/8/2004	Baghdad	Nicholas Berg, a recently kidnapped American was found beheaded, his murder videotaped and shown on various arab websites. Berg had vanished on April 10 under conflicting reports of his status, including a verified contact with U.S. military and Department of State consular officials. The DoS reported that U.S. Coaltion and Military officials offered save transit out of Iraq which Berg refused before his disappearance.
4/30/2004	Two attacks (a second two days later) in Iraq	Seebee's Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 14 attacked by mortar fire killing 4 and wounding six while building roads or repairing schools
4/24/2004	Taji, 4 mi. north of Baghdad	6 U.S. soldiers killed by rocket fire at U.S. base, 35 wounded
4/24/2004	Iraqi Oil terminal in Persian Gulf.	U.S. Coastguardsman killed in the attack, 3 other Americans wounded.
4/23/2004	Near Coalition Base, Karbala	1 Bulgarian soldier killed by gunfire
4/11/2004	Iraq	Danish national kidnapped, then found dead on April 12. Name not released.
4/9/2004	Outside Baghdad	Tomas Hamill of Halliburton kidnapped and four others (Stephen Hulett, 48, of Manistee, Mich.; Jack Montague, 52, of Pittsburg, Ill.; and Jeffery Parker, 45, of Lake Charles, La., and said their bodies were among four found in a shallow grave a few days after the ambush.) Halliburton reported at this time that some 30 (out of thousands) contract employees had died in Iraq since the end of war.
4/8/2004	Between Abu Ghraib and Baghdad	Mohammed Rifat, a Candian contract worker in Abu Ghraib prison taken hostage. Another Canadian worker Fadi Fadel had been captured the same day but was due home in Canada within the week.
4/4/2004	Baghdad, Najaf, Nasiriyah and Amarah.	8 U.S. and 1 Salvadorian soldiers killed in four Iraqi city rioting instigated by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr (also called al-Sayed - "our master"). Over 33 were also wounded
4/2/2004	Baghdad	4 Italian citizens kidnapped, one was killed by the kidnappers, three others were expected to be released. The kidnappers demanded Italy withdraw its 2700 troops from the Coaltion, which the government refused to do.
3/31/2004	Fallujah, west of Baghdad	4 U.S. contractors killed and their bodies mutilated by crowds
1/18/2004	Baghdad	24 U.S. servicemen killed, 60 to 120 persons of various nationalities injured by a truck bomb outside U.S. Headquarters in Baghdad.
1/12/2004	Near Fallujah	Lady helicopter pilot Lieutenant Kimberly Hampton killed in crash of her Kiowa helo, crash caused by groundfire
12/19/2003	Outside Baghdad	2 U.S. soldiers killed by a bomb [planted next to a military tanker truck.
12/9/2003	U.S. Base near Talfar 20 miles west of Mosul, northern Iraq	41 U.S. servicemen wounded glass and debris by suicide car bomb. The attack was thwarted by guards at the gate and watchtower.
12/2/2003	Habaniya, southwest of Sammara, Iraq	1 U.S. soldier killed
11/30/2003	Spanish Convoy	7 Spanish Intelligence officers
11/17/2003	Mosul, Northern Iraq	17 U.S. serviceman killed when two blackhawks collided in mid-air, crash caused by ground fire
11/2/2003	Fallujah	16 U.S. serviceman killed when their Chinook helicopter crashed after taking ground fire.
10/26/2003	Baghdad	2 Civilians and 2 wounded when a bomb planted in an ambulance blew up outside a International Red Cross hospital facility
10/10/2003	Sadr City section of Kirkuk	2 U.S. Soldiers killed by car bomb when Iraqis attacked in
10/9/2003	Sadr City section of Kirkuk	U.S. Patrol ambushed by 100s of Sadr militants killing 2 Americans and 2 Iraqis. Attack was begun by Iraqi women and children gesturing for help from U.S. Forces which led to rooftop and building fire raining down on U.S. forces.
10/7/2203	Kirkuk	Attack on U.S. Base, unknown number of casualties
9/9/2003	U.S. Intelligence HQ, Irbil	Unknown number of U.S. and Iraqis killed by suicide car bomb
8/19/2003	Baghdad	U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others killed by 2200 pound car bomb. After a second attack occured and Kofi Annan withdrew the U.N. mission and fired two over their failure to adequately protect the U.N. people in Iraq. In September, he pulled back even more as security became even more tenuous.
5/28/2003	Baghdad	2 U.S. Soldiers killed, 9 wounded in hour long firefight with terrorists

NOTE: The research for this report consists of live interviews and news stories searches. The news story "stockpile" consisted of 500 plus stories, with an approximate one in five "hit" for Iraqi attacks, and from this pool were gleaned the data in the table above. Thus the table does not show every attack, rather reflects a reasonable search of the months since May 1, 2003. We have matched multiple sources for dates and number killed or wounded to ensure accuracy. Where a conflict in statistics is significant, we chose to leave the attack out or reflect that difference by using a range of casualties. While there have been an enormous number of small attacks on U.S. forces, and soldiers killed in the one to three range per story, the largest single casualty figure for an attack is in the 25 killed range. This would be expected in the type of urban attacks utilizing improvized explosive weapons or a quick shoot and scoot ambush that the Coalition forces have run into. Concerted assaults have mostly been in strongholds such as Sadr City area of Kirkuk. In these cases, the population in a small area participates in luring Coalition forces in, and then ambushes, with the "street" filling in as the soldier's numbers and firepower is reduced, much like that which occurred in Somalia. To date, the largest death toll for Coalition forces remains at 24 killed, the largest nubmer of wounded in a single attack stands at 41. No signifcant military battle has occurred in Iraq since the end of the war, however, large firefights in urban settings have taken place.

The attacks chosen may also reflect an unconcoius bias from the researcher who was tasked with finding stories emphasizing Iraqi deaths, however was also instructed to input every story found that included or was actually about non-Iraqi deaths. News stories used were taken on what appears to be a generic search, "Iraq Attack Deaths" between May 1, 2003 and July 19, 2004, and the only room for bias was on the choice of what headlines would be "mined" by the researcher. The researcher reports 5 of 25 reports per page of news stories which reported on one or two deaths of U.S. soldiers, usually a "local" story reporting on funeral or body returning. Most of these were not included in the data above due to no Iraqi citizen involvement or because of the small number of deaths in a particular article. As of this writing, the total number of U.S. serviceman killed since May 1, 2003 has added up over the weeks, with the total remaining not far below 1,000.

While MSNBC stories were used as the basis for search, Fox News, Associated Press *, the New York Times * and Washington Post * archives were also used to confirm or validate statistical data including reasonable date ranges. In some cases a story found in the other archives was used with specific keywords to find a story on the same event in the other archives.

* = A.P. news is usually found hosted in public archives on other media sites -- to actually search AP News Wire archives requires a subscription to their service. Occasionally they host the latest headline on their site which links to one of their media outlets. Most newspapers will allow you to register and then receive a 50 to 100 word extract, however to receive the full story you must subscribe to a low cost archive servie, stories costing between $1.95 and $3.95 each on the average.

UPDATE: A number of key killings and injuries have been added since mid July, and can be found in the charts above with dates newer than July 19, 2004. Also we corrected the date of the assassination of the Governor of Mosul which occured on July 14, not July 15 as earlier reported. Visitors should note that fixing a date is sometimes difficult when events are reported across international date lines and when the event occurs around the world in a time zone that is already "tomorrow".

Sources:

Note: Where quotations are used, the text is verbatim from a particular source, whereas no quotes indicates a paraphrasing of the statement or news story.

MILNET Sources in the Middle East, 4/2004 to 7/2004
Ansar Al-Islam Eyed in Iraq Bombings, Robert Windram and Bob Rivas, NBC News, MSNBC Online, 3/2/2004
Attacks Halt Cruide Oil Exports, Associated Press, MSNBC Online, 6/16/2004
Pessimism Grows About Iraqi's Future, Washington Post, MSNBC Onlne, 6/17/2004
Bayphase Limited, Online, undated
AP: 5,558 Iraqi civilians killed under occupation, Associated Press, MSNBC Online, 5/23/2004
Strategic Survey - 2003-2004, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), London, England, May 2004
Imam Ali Mosque, GlobalSecurity.ORG, undated
Fort Hood Reeling from Heavy Losses in Iraq, Larry Mullins, NBC News, 4/9/2004
Jordanian claims suicide attacks on Iraqi terminal, NBC News, MSNBC Online, April 25,2004
Sabotage Costs Iraq $1 Billion in Lost Oil Revenue, Alwai Says, Bloomberg (as appears on Endgame.ORG) June 20, 2004
More Killings in Iraq: Group Claims Governer's Assassination, Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times online, July 16, 2004.
Two Bombings in Iraq leave 6 dead, New York Times online, July 18, 2002
Truck Bomb kills at least Nine in Iraq, Associated Press, Fox News Online, July 19, 2002
New Iraq government accuses Iran and Syria of backing insurgents, News Telegraph, 4/7/2004
Secetarian Massacre Shakes Iraq, The Guardan U.K., 2/12/2005