It is also important to note that the events of the last few days are not a new pattern, but rather the intensification of sectarian and ethnic clashes that some insurgent groups have long provoked in an effort to create a level of civil conflict that would paralyze political progress, divide the new armed forces, and either drive the United States out or deprive U.S. forces of domestic American political support.

As the United States and Coalition phased down its role, and a sovereign Iraqi government increased its influence and power, insurgents increasingly shifted the focus of their attacks to Iraqi government targets, as well as Iraqi military, police, and security forces. At the same time, they stepped up attacks designed to prevent Sunnis from participating in the new government, and to cause growing tension and conflict between Sunni and Shiite, and Arab and Kurd.

There are no clear lines of division between insurgents, but the Iraqi Sunni insurgents focused heavily on attacking the emerging Iraqi process of governance, while Islamist extremist movements used suicide bombing attacks and other bombings to cause large casualties among the Shiite and Kurdish populations -- sometimes linking them to religious festivals or holidays and sometimes to attacks on Iraqi forces or their recruiting efforts. They also focused their attacks to strike at leading Shiite and Kurdish political officials, commanders, and clergy.

Targeting other groups like Shiites and Kurds, using car bombings for mass killings, hitting shrines and festivals, forces the dispersal of security forces, makes the areas involved seem insecure, undermines efforts at governance and offers the possibility of using civil war as a way to defeat the Coalition and Iraqi Interim Government's efforts at nation building.

For example, a step up in Sunni attacks on Shiite targets after the Jan. 30, 2005, election led some Shiites to talk about Sunni ethnic cleansing. This effect was compounded by bloody suicide bombings, many of which had some form of government target, but killed large numbers of Shiite civilians. These attacks included the discovery of 58 corpses dumped in the Tigris, and 19 largely Shiite National Guardsmen bodies in a soccer stadium in Haditha. They also included a bombing in Hilla on March 1, 2005, that killed 136 -- mostly Shiite police and army recruits.

Similar attacks were carried out against the Kurds. While the Kurds maintained notably better security over their areas in the north than existed in the rest of the country, two suicide bombers still penetrated a political gathering in Irbil on Feb. 1, 2004, killing at least 105. On March 10, 2005, a suicide bomber killed 53 Kurds in Kirkuk. On May 3, 2005, another suicide bomber -- this time openly identified with the Sunni extremist group Ansar al-Sunna -- blew himself up outside a recruiting station in Irbil, killing 60 and wounding more than 150 others. At the same time, other attacks systematically targeted Kurdish leaders and Kurdish elements in Iraqi forces.

By May 2005, Shiites had begun to retaliate, in spite of efforts to avoid this by Shiite leaders, contributing further to the problems in establishing a legitimate government and national forces. Sunni bodies were discovered in unmarked graves, as well as Shiite ones, and killings struck at both Sunni and Shiite clergy.

In addition to assassinations aimed at disrupting the judicial and political process, insurgents have carried out assassinations of religious leaders as part of their larger goal of using sectarian violence to provoke a civil war. There appeared to be an up-turn in these assassinations in late summer and early fall 2005:

-- July 19, 2005: Gunmen assassinate Sheikh Ahmad al-Juburi, the imam at Al-Taqwa Mosque in Al-Dawrah in southern Baghdad.

-- Aug. 17, 2005: Gunmen assassinate Ali al-Shimmari, a local imam and a member of the Association of Muslim Scholars, in northeastern Baghdad.

-- Sept. 1, 2005: Gunmen kill Sheikh Salim Nusayyif Jasim al-Tamimi, the imam of Al-Mustafa Mosque in Baghdad and a member of the Association of Muslim Scholars.

-- Sept. 15, 2005: A bomb exploded at Rawdat al-Wadi mosque in Mosul killing Sheikh Hikmat Husayn Ali, the imam of the mosque.

-- Sept. 16, 2005: Insurgents kill Fadhil Amshani, a Shiite cleric and follower of Moqtada al Sadr.

-- Oct. 2, 2005: Gunmen in southeast Baghdad killed Salah Hassan Ayash, a Sunni imam.

-- Nov. 14, 2005: Insurgents kill the administrator of Al-Hamid Mosque in the Al-Saydiyah neighborhood of Baghdad.

-- Nov. 23, 2005: Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms burst into the home of Khadim Sarhid al-Hemaiyem, a Sunni and the head of Iraq's Batta clan, killing him along with three of his sons and his son-in-law.

-- Nov. 26, 2005: In Basra, Iraqi police discover the body of Sheikh Nadir Karim, the imam of a Sunni Mosque. Karim had been abducted from his home the previous night.

-- Nov. 28, 2005: Gunmen kidnapped Shihab Abdul-Hussein, a member of the Badr Organization, in Baghdad.

-- Nov. 29, 2005: In Fallujah, armed men kill Sheikh Hamza Abbas Issawi, a Sunni cleric who had called for Sunni participation in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

-- Dec. 4, 2005: In Baghdad, gunmen killed Sheik Abdul-Salam Abdul-Hussein, a Shiite Muslim candidate running in the upcoming general elections and a follower of Muqtada al-Sadr.

-- Jan. 1, 2006: In Mahmudiyah, Sunni Arab insurgents shot and killed a Shiite cleric, a member of Moqtada Sadr's movement.

-- Jan. 25, 2006: A prominent Sunni Arab cleric, Karim Jassim Mohammed, 39, was shot dead Wednesday by police at a checkpoint heading into the northern city of Samarra.

According to some reports, more than 60 Sunni imams have been killed since the start of the insurgency. Insurgent attacks on mosques and religious gatherings also intensified in the run up to the Dec. 15 elections:

-- Oct. 29, 2005: A suicide bomber struck a small marketplace near a Shiite mosque in Huweder, six miles north of Baquba, killing at least 25 and wounding 45.

-- Nov. 3, 2005: A suicide bomber driving a minibus detonated his explosives outside a Shiite mosque in Musayyib, south of Baghdad, killing 20 and wounding 64. The mosque was the site of a previous explosion in July, when a suicide bomber blew up a fuel tanker nearby, killing 54 people.

-- Nov. 9, 2005: Two car bombs exploded near a Shiite mosque in Baghdad, killing six people.

-- Nov. 18, 2005: Suicide bombers struck two mosques in the largely Kurdish town of Khanaqin, near the Iranian border. The attacks, against the Sheik Murad and Khanaqin Grand mosques killed at least 80 Shiite worshippers and wounded more than 100. A third would-be suicide bomber was arrested shortly after the attacks.

-- Nov. 19, 2005: A suicide bomber struck a crowd of Shiite mourners in the village of Abu Saida, near Baquba, killing at least 36 people. More than 120 Shiites have been killed in the last 48 hours.

-- Nov. 28, 2005: In Dora, a neighborhood in southwest Baghdad, insurgents ambushed a bus carrying British Muslims to Shiite shrines, killing two and wounding four.

-- Nov. 30, 2005: Gunmen kill nine Shiite laborers near Baquba.

-- Nov. 30, 2005: Gunmen fired on the home of Salama Khafaji, a prominent Shiite politician.

Although the upsurge in violence in late November was a deliberate attempt by insurgents to disrupt the upcoming Dec. 15 parliamentary elections, the largely sectarian nature of the violence was also partly due to the U.S. discovery on Nov. 13 of 173 mostly Sunni malnourished and abused detainees in an Interior Ministry prison in Baghdad. Related Links
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