Iraq’s Renewed Violence Exacerbates Sectarian Mistrust

Iraq’s Renewed Violence Exacerbates Sectarian Mistrust

In Iraq, the civilian death toll so far this year is nearly double what it was last year, with car bombings and other attacks by al-Qaida-linked militants on the rise.

The violence has been described as reminiscent of Iraq’s sectarian civil war, which peaked in 2006-2007 as Sunni and Shiite militias fought one another. But Doug Ollivant, a senior national security fellow with the New America Foundation, noted that Iraq’s recent violence is being waged almost exclusively by the Sunni extremist group al-Qaida in Iraq, which “is striking primarily Shiite civilians, government targets and their own political enemies among the Sunnis.”

The al-Qaida affiliate in Iraq has taken advantage of the security vacuum left behind after the withdrawal of American troops as well as its alliance with jihadists in neighboring Syria.

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