Tactics of the Iraqi insurgency

The tactics of the Iraqi insurgency have varied widely. Insurgents have targeted U.S. forces and Iraqi government forces using improvised explosive devices, ambushes, snipers, and mortar and rocket fire, in addition to using car bombs, kidnappings or hostage-taking, and assassinations. According to US Government data, since 2004 an average of 74% of all insurgent attacks have been directed against coalition forces, and 10% against civilians.

For most attacks, the Iraqi guerrillas operate in small teams of five to ten men in order to maintain mobility and escape detection. Larger attacks involving as many as 150 men have appeared on occasion since April 2004 (although larger units had also appeared in a few instances beforehand, such as a battle near the Syrian border town of Rawa on June 13, 2003 and a large ambush of a U.S. convoy in the town of Samarra on November 30, 2003).

All of the following methods of attack are designed to allow insurgent teams to strike quickly and escape detection afterwards.

Many Iraqi insurgent attacks have made use of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

In the chaos [1] after the war, mass looting of infrastructure, including munitions, occurred. According to the Pentagon, 250,000 tons (of 650,000 tons total) of ordnance were looted, providing an almost endless source of ammunition for the insurgents.[2]

Methods of detonation include simple pull-wires and mechanical detonators, cell-phones, garage-door openers, cable, radio control (RC), and infrared lasers among others.

155-millimetre artillery shells rigged with blasting caps and improvised shrapnel material (concrete, ball bearings, etc.) have been the most commonly used, but the makeshift devices have also gradually become larger as coalition forces add more armor to their vehicles, with evidence from insurgent propaganda videos of aviation bombs of 500 lb being used as IEDs, as well as the introduction of explosively formed penetrator (EFP) warheads.

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