Military authorities believe that the rising violence in Iraq was due to the power struggle between sectarian groups and criminals and trying to quell it will be the major aim of the allied troops in the country. An independent report released by the US National Intelligence Estimate in January had opined that Iraq was slowly slipping into civil war.

However Pentagon has come out saying that "civil war" will be too harsh a comment but admitted that the some elements of the struggle could be viewed as civil war.

In the report Pentagon said, "The conflict in Iraq has changed from a predominantly Sunni-led insurgency against foreign occupation to a struggle for the division of political and economic influence among sectarian groups and organized criminal activity."

According to the report, 80 percent of the total fighting in the country was concentrated on three other provinces excluding Baghdad, which sees a average of 45 attacks a day. Anbar, Diyala and Salah ad Din had around 70 attacks a day in the three months from November to December.

Pentagon added that the average number of attacks per week has rose to 1,047 attacks during the month of January and early February, compared to 904 attacks per week from late May 2006 to the end of the year.

But describing the Iraqi conflict as a civil war between sectarian fight between two religious groups could back fire on the government, with many critics condemning the presence of American troops in Iraq if the fighting is between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims.

However the Bush administration said that most of the sectarian fighting has been fuelled by al-Qaeda and quelling it will deal a hard blow for the terrorist organization. United States currently has over 142,000 troops in Iraq, with over 3,200 troops dead since the US invasion of the country in March 2003.

Pentagon added that terming the conflict in Iraq as a civil war will not be anyway near to describing the complexity of the fighting going on. "Some elements of the situation in Iraq are properly descriptive of a 'civil war,' including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities and mobilization, the changing character of the violence and population displacements", the report added.
 

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