Iraqi Insurgents

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Who are the insurgents in Iraq?

The BBC News website examines the main groups and motives behind the insurgency.

Diverse groups have been drawn into the ranks of Iraq's insurgency, with little in common beyond a commitment to attack US forces or their perceived allies.
The insurgency has no single spokesman, nor any shared long-term aim. Where some groups, for instance, are fighting for a Sunni Muslim caliphate, others foresee a Shia theocracy for Iraq.
The incentives driving individual insurgents are equally disparate - from religious zeal to economic gain, nationalist fervour and anger at the loss of income or loved ones to the conflict.
There is little agreement on the numbers involved. Estimates vary from 30,000 to some 200,000 fighters - a figure cited by Iraqi intelligence in 2005.
Central Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland is regarded as the crucible of the insurgency - scene of the bloodiest attacks and source of most of the fighters.
Iraq has also seen an influx of foreign "jihadi" fighters, most of whom have joined the Sunni Muslim insurgency.
Their number is small - estimated at no more than 3,000 - but their profile is high.
Washington points to their presence as proof that neighbouring nations such as Iran and Syria are trying to destabilise Iraq.
Organisations such as al-Qaeda meanwhile praise the foreign fighters as ideal recruits, the vanguard of a global, pan-Islamic uprising.
Below is a list of some of the main insurgent groups.
The Shia Badr Brigade and the Kurdish peshmerga are not included, as these are militia groups that do not have a record of attacking US targets or their Iraqi government allies.

AL-QAEDA IN IRAQ

Al-Qaeda is Iraq's most successful insurgent group, blamed for many of the country's bloodiest bombings and beheadings.
The group's prominence is partly down to a media campaign that exploits the exposure - and the anonymity - offered by internet and television channels.
The group's local commander is said to be the Jordanian militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The US military regards him as its biggest foe in Iraq, though many analysts question whether he alone is directing all the violence attributed to him.
As commander of a jihadi training camp in Afghanistan in 2001, Zarqawi is said to have regarded himself as a rival to al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
He made his debut in Iraq as the alleged head of the Tawhid and Jihad group, claiming credit for the beheading of foreign hostages.
In late 2004, Zarqawi reportedly merged his network with Osama Bin Laden's, renaming it al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq's hallmarks include synchronised bomb attacks and the abduction and murder of foreign hostages.
The bombs have had a range of targets - from US military personnel to Iraq's fledgling security forces and its Shia community - derided as apostates in messages attributed to Zarqawi.
Igniting sectarian conflict is central to al-Qaeda's strategy in Iraq, according to a letter purportedly authored by Zarqawi and released by the US military in early 2004.
Hostages said to have been murdered by the group include the US citizen Nick Berg and the British contractor, Kenneth Bigley.
US and Iraqi government sources say al-Qaeda has recruited foreign fighters for its operations in Iraq.
A September 2005 report released by US think-tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said foreign volunteers account at most for 10% - some 3,000 fighters - of the insurgency, the remainder being Iraqi Sunni Arabs.
According to the report, most of the foreign insurgents have come from Algeria, Syria, Yemen and Sudan.
Saudis form an influential minority in the foreign contingent because of the money they bring and because of the media coverage their deaths generate, the report says.

THE MEHDI ARMY

Led by the radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr, the Mehdi army has been involved in several confrontations with US-led forces.
The group's recruits are mostly young men from southern Iraq and the Shia neighbourhoods of Baghdad, notably the slum district of Sadr City, named after Moqtada Sadr's father, a revered cleric murdered by Saddam Hussein's security forces.
Mehdi fighters armed with light weapons clashed with US soldiers in April 2004, after taking over police stations in Shia neighbourhoods across Iraq. The unrest was sparked by a US ban on a newspaper loyal to Mr Sadr.
Mr Sadr again mobilised his gunmen in August 2004. The fighting climaxed in the holy city of Najaf - the Shia Vatican - with US soldiers laying siege to hundreds of Mehdi fighters who had sought cover in the shrine of Imam Ali.
The intervention of top Shia cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani led to a truce and the withdrawal of Mr Sadr's fighters from the shrine.
Mr Sadr varies his stance towards the Baghdad leadership, sometimes offering it his tacit support, at other times urging his followers to oppose it.
The Mehdi Army takes its name from a historic imam who, according to Shia tradition, will reappear among the faithful.
In his sermons, Mr Sadr has said US forces are aware of the Mehdi's imminent return and invaded Iraq in order to capture and kill him.

SADDAM LOYALISTS

While in power, Saddam Hussein's secular regime suppressed many of the radical Sunni and Shia elements now at the forefront of the insurgency.
However, since their overthrow, allies of the former leader have been delivering funds and expertise to Sunni Arab insurgents, according to US intelligence.
In September 2005, an Iraqi court convicted a nephew of the deposed leader of funding insurgents.
Insurgents are also reported to have made good use of weapons and training they received in Saddam Hussein's army.
US forces have faced their greatest challenges in areas of central Iraq - such as the city of Falluja - that had a strong tradition of military service.
Commentators have also blamed much of the violence on the decision by former US governor Paul Bremer to disband the Iraqi army in 2003, without disarming it.

ANSAR AL-ISLAM

Ansar al-Islam is a radical Sunni Muslim group with its base in mountainous northern Iraq.
It draws its recruits from Kurds who oppose the US-backed Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, according to US intelligence website globalsecurity.org.
The group suffered a severe setback during in early 2003, losing many bases to the US bombing campaign.
In February 2004, it claimed responsibility for simultaneous suicide bomb attacks on the offices of the two US-backed mainstream Kurdish political parties.
The group's leader, Mullah Krekar, has been under house arrest in Norway for several years.
The US has accused Ansar al-Islam of ties to al-Qaeda.