Can Iraqi Politics Find A Solution To The Causes Of The Insurgency? Interview With Prof. Ahmed Hashim

Dr. Ahmed Hashim is an Associate Professor of Strategic Studies and Deputy Coordinator of the Military Studies Program at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. His 2006 book Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq was ahead of its time not only for its insight into the insurgency but identity politics as well. In 2009 he wrote a follow up book on the topic Iraq’s Sunni Insurgency. This is an interview with Prof. Hashim about why the insurgency emerged, how it operates, and whether there are any political solutions to resolve it.

New Official Casualty Reports By Iraqi Authorities

Since the fall of Mosul in June 2014 the Iraqi government has largely kept its losses secret. Small incidents like improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are commonly covered, but set battles with the Islamic State (IS) rarely lead to casualty reports. Starting in 2015 however, the Peshmerga Ministry and Kurdish officials began releasing information about its dead and wounded, and they were just joined by Iraq’s Interior Ministry.

On November 23 the Interior Ministry released a number of statistics on the fighting in Iraq from November 2014 to November 2015. That included 1,096 deaths for its forces and 3,633 wounded. When compared to what was already in the public record the number of fatalities was an undercount, but there were 1,322 more injured then had been reported before.

The next day the Peshmerga Ministry said that 1,288 of its fighters had died and 7,554 were wounded fighting IS. That was 124 more injured than what had been in the media. Over the last few months Kurdish officials have admitted to 1,979 Peshmerga deaths and 9,919 wounded that it had not disclosed before.

Both of these new reports highlight the fact that the Iraqi authorities have kept thousands of casualties secret from the public. That’s because both the central and regional governments are concerned about keeping up public morale and therefore do not want to admit the heavy losses they are taking fighting the militants. The Kurdistan Regional Government alone has now said that it kept 12,022 casualties a secret. The 1,322 injured police is only the tip of the iceberg as Baghdad has done a lot more fighting against IS than the Peshmerga. Hopefully over time the authorities will begin releasing more information so that a full accounting of the war can be calculated.

SOURCES

eKurd, “Iraqi Kurdistan News in brief – November 24, 2015,” 11/24/15

Sotaliraq, “Interior: the killing and wounding of 4729 security members in terrorist attacks during the year,” 11/23/15

Saddam’s Faith Campaign & Iraq’s Tribes Two Pillars Of The Insurgency, Interview With Iraq Historian Prof. Amatzia Baram

Iraq’s insurgency has drawn from many different groups in Iraq, but two major ones were the tribes and Salafis. Many sheikhs turned against the United States in 2003 due to the actions of the military and the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). In the 1990s Saddam Hussein started his Faith Campaign, which led to the growth of Salafism in the country. That ideology fueled many to join Islamist insurgent groups later on. To help explain these two phenomena is Dr. Amatzia Baram Professor Emeritus at the Department of History of the Middle East and Director of the Centre for Iraq Studies at the University of Haifa. He has authored several books on Iraq, his most recent being Saddam Husayn and Islam, 1968-2003: Ba’thi Iraq from Secularism to Faith.

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