ALISSA J. RUBIN
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 who 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 movement, some of them former insurgents who switched sides for pay, are rising, as are fears that some of the members are joining Islamic extremists 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, some innocent, but many of them former insurgents long held in American military custody, are being set free every day, potentially increasing the insurgency’s numbers. The American-Iraqi security agreement requires the release of all detainees in American custody unless there is sufficient evidence to bring charges in an Iraqi court.
At least one former detainee has already blown himself up in a suicide attack.
Most of the latest attacks, at a time when overall violence is at its lowest level since the beginning of the war in 2003, have singled out Iraqis, but one development affects the Americans. A new weapon has appeared in Iraq: Russian-made RKG-3 grenades, which weigh just five pounds and, attached to parachutes, can be lobbed by a teenager but can penetrate the American military’s latest heavily armored vehicle, the MRAP. The grenades cost as little as $10, according to American military officials, who would not say how often they have killed soldiers.
To some experts, this amounts to ugly, but unavoidable, background noise, the deadly but no longer destabilizing face of violence in Iraq. In this view, there will be attacks, but no longer ones likely to topple Iraq’s government. Military officers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the news media, say they have reduced the number of jihadi militants to under 2,000, from about 3,800.
“In most places there isn’t an insurgency in Iraq anymore,” said an American military intelligence officer in Washington, who was not authorized to be quoted by name. “What we have now is a terrorism problem, and there is going to be a terrorism problem in Iraq for a long time.”
Other officials, Iraqi and American, are more worried. They observe jihadi and other insurgent groups activating networks of sleeper cells, which are already striking government and civilian targets. Insurgent groups linked to the rule of Mr. Hussein are also reviving.
Among the most powerful now is Nashqabandi, which is believed to have ties to a former Hussein deputy, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri. The organization, which gets money from Iraqi exiles in Syria, formed an alliance with religious Sunni extremists, according to American and Iraqi military intelligence.
“Al Qaeda and the hard-core Saddamists are the main threats to the national security of Iraq,” said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq’s national security adviser.
“Nashqabandi is the cradle; they are providing logistical support for Al Qaeda,” he said. “What we are seeing is the resurgence of the hard-core Saddamists, but using Al Qaeda in Iraq as a front and as suicide bombers.”
American military officials believe they have checked the insurgency, but liken it to a spring. “It can come up quickly as soon as it is released, but the longer you keep it down the less it rebounds,” said Col. James Phelps, an insurgency expert attached to the multinational force in Iraq. “Some Al Qaeda in Iraq leadership did go to ground,” he said.
In interviews with 14 leaders of the Awakening movement, which has been credited with helping to reduce violence, all said they believed that the jihadi presence in their areas had increased, as American troops began to close combat outposts or hand them over to the Iraqi Army, a first step toward withdrawing entirely. The Awakening leaders reported signs of trouble: assassination attempts, homemade bombs placed near their homes or under their cars, leaflets urging them not to work with the Iraqi government.
“We notice when there is a bomb buried on a back road where there has not been one before,” said Sheik Awad al-Harbousi, whose Awakening group works in Taji, north of Baghdad, much of it empty country traversed by rugged dirt roads. One of his fighters was killed three weeks ago and two were wounded.
Undermining the stability of the last few months is rising friction between the Awakening Councils and the Iraqi Army and the police, much of it with a sectarian edge. The tensions turned violent in Baghdad on Saturday, when members of the Awakening Council in the Fadhil neighborhood of Baghdad had a shootout with a combined American and Iraqi force.
The Awakening Councils are largely Sunni, while the security forces are dominated by Shiites. Many Awakening members are angry because promises of jobs in the Shiite-dominated government have not been kept.
In Dhuluiya, in eastern Salahuddin Province, deep in the Tigris River Valley, Mullah Nadhim al-Jubori, a onetime insurgent linked to Islamic extremists who became an Awakening leader, worries that the situation is fraying.
He ticked off seven troubling events over the last month, including the abduction of four of his men. Two were executed and two were released after a ransom was paid.
“The ransom was picked up in Baghdad,” he said. “That tells me there is good coordination and organization among Al Qaeda members.”
A few of his followers have changed sides. During the last four months, 12 Awakening members were arrested as double agents, accused of killing Awakening leaders, Mr. Nadhim said.
Farther east, in Diyala Province, the situation is worse. The insurgency has never been fully eradicated there, according to the American and Iraqi military. The province’s geography favors those who know its dry high hills, empty patches of desert and thick groves of date palms.
While the province is far more secure than in 2006 and 2007, when the provincial capital, Baquba, was known locally as “the city of death,” attacks are now increasing. Forty-three people were killed in Diyala in March, up from 29 in February and 6 in January, according to the Diyala Operations Command.
Ali Al-Tamimi, the chief of the Provincial Council’s security committee, predicted an increase in violence both in Baghdad and in Baquba because the security commanders had not acted on warnings about the growing activities of armed groups within an hour of Baghdad.
“We have told them that Al Qaeda is still present in some neighborhoods and villages,” he said. “They have not done enough to stop them.”
Suadad al-Salhy and Mohamed Hussein contributed reporting from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Diyala Province.
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