Bombings were a regular occurrence during theIraq War. They resulted intens of thousands of casualties throughout the country, killing and wounding civilians and combatants alike. ManyIraqi insurgents favoured the tactic ofsuicide bombing, which was used at a particularly unprecedented scale against the American-ledMulti-National Force – Iraq (MNF–I).[1] Additionally, during the2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States and theUnited Kingdom collectively dropped 29,199 bombs on the country.[2] This article does not list these aerial attacks, and instead concentrates on the smaller number of direct insurgent bombings during the sectarian conflict, whenShia Muslims andSunni Muslims fought each other on the one hand and the MNF–I on the other hand.
Most of the organized bombings were carried out by Sunni insurgents affiliated withJama'at al-Tawhid wal Jihad,Al-Qaeda in Iraq,Jama'at Ansar al-Sunna, and theIslamic State of Iraq, among others. The main targets of these bombings were MNF–I troops andprivate military contractors, as well as local Iraqi collaborators. Upon the outbreak of theIraqi civil war in 2006, the various Sunni and Shia militant groups fighting in the country had effectively shifted their focus away from the MNF–I and began increasingly targeting Iraqi civilians on the basis of their sectarian affiliation.
A 2005 report byHuman Rights Watch analyzed theIraqi insurgency and highlighted: "The groups that are most responsible for the abuse, namelyal-Qaeda in Iraq and its allies,Ansar al-Sunna and theIslamic State of Iraq, have all targeted civilians for abductions and executions. The first two groups have repeatedly boasted about massive car bombs and suicide bombs in mosques, markets, bus stations and other civilian areas. Such acts arewar crimes and in some cases may constitutecrimes against humanity, which are defined as serious crimes committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population."[3]
A 2008 research brief by theRAND Corporation on the subject of counter-insurgency tactics in Iraq between 2003 and 2006[4] depicts a chart that shows that in June and July 2004, Iraqi insurgents began to shift their focus away from attacking coalition forces with roadside bombs and instead began targeting the Iraqi population with suicide bombers and vehicle-borneIEDs. By increasing the number of suicide bombings against civilians and accepting their targeting in retribution, the insurgents sought to expose the weakness of the coalition's and Iraqi government's security and reconstruction apparatus, threaten those who collaborated with the government, generate funds and propaganda, and increasingly enact sectarian revenge. The U.S. failure to adapt to this shift had dramatic consequences. By June 2004, U.S. deaths represented less than 10% of overall deaths on the battlefield and Iraqi deaths represented more than 90%—a figure that remained constant for the next 18 months of the war.
An analysis byIraq Body Count and co-authors published in 2011 concluded that at least 12,284 civilians were killed in at least 1,003 suicide bombings in Iraq between 2003 and 2010. The study states that suicide bombings killed 60 times as many civilians as they did soldiers.[5][6]
This article does not list airstrikes and other bombings by the USA and allied invasion forces. According to theUSAF (Operation Iraqi Freedom–By The Numbers, April 30, 2003), as analysed byHuman Rights Watch, the first phase of the military campaign included 41,404 sorties by 1,801 aircraft dropping over 29,000 munitions and 247,000 submunitions (from cluster bombs) in the three weeks between March 20 and April 9, 2003.[2][7]
| Designation | Name or Nickname | Type | Number |
| BGM-109 | Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) | Cruise Missile | 802 |
| AGM-114 | Hellfire | Laser-Guided Missile | 562 |
| AGM-130 | Television- or Infrared-Guided Missile | 4 | |
| AGM-65 | Maverick | Television-, Infrared-, or Laser-Guided Missile | 918 |
| AGM-84 | Stand Off Land Attack Missile-Extended Response (SLAM(ER)) | Cruise Missile | 3 |
| AGM-86C/D | Conventional Air-Launched Cruise Missile (CALCM) | Cruise Missile | 153 |
| AGM-88 | High Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) | Anti-Radar Missile | 408 |
| AGM-154 | Joint Stand Off Weapon (JSOW) | GPS/Inertial Navigation System-Guided Glide Missile | 253 |
| EGBU-27 | Penetrator | Laser- and GPS-Guided Missile (2,000 lb) | 98 |
| GBU-10 | Paveway II | Laser-Guided Bomb (2,000 lb) | 236 |
| GBU-12 | Paveway II | Laser-Guided Bomb (500 lb) | 7,114 |
| GBU-16 | Paveway II | Laser-Guided Bomb (1,000 lb) | 1,233 |
| GBU-24 | Paveway III | Laser-Guided Bomb (2,000 lb) | 23 |
| GBU-27 | Penetrator | Laser-Guided Bomb (2,000 lb) | 11 |
| GBU-28 | Bunker Buster | Laser-Guided Bomb (5,000 lb) | 1 |
| GBU-31 | Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) | GPS-Guided Bomb (2,000 lb) | 5,086 |
| GBU-32 | JDAM | GPS-Guided Bomb (1,000 lb) | 768 |
| GBU-35 | JDAM | GPS-Guided Bomb (1,000 lb) | 675 |
| GBU-37 | JDAM | GPS-Guided Bomb (5,000 lb) | 13 |
| Various | U.K. Guided Munitions | 679 | |
| Total | 19,040 | ||
| Designation | Type | Number |
| M117 | General Purpose Bomb (750 lb) | 1,625 |
| Mk-82 | General Purpose Bomb (500 lb) | 5,504 |
| Mk-83 | General Purpose Bomb (1,000 lb) | 1,692 |
| Mk-84 | General Purpose Bomb (2,000 lb) | 6 |
| Various | U.K. General Purpose Bombs | 58 |
| Total | 8,885 |
| Designation | Name | Guidance | Number | Submunitions per Weapon | Total Submunitions |
| CBU-87 | Unguided | 118 | 202 | 23,836 | |
| CBU-99 | Rockeye | Unguided | 182 | 247 | 44,954 |
| CBU-103 | WCMD | 818 | 202 | 165,236 | |
| CBU-105 | Sensor Fuzed Weapon | WCMD, Infrared | 88 | 40 (10 submunitions with 4 skeets) | 3,520 |
| CBU-107 | Passive Attack Weapon System | WCMD | Non-explosive | ||
| UK RBL-755 | Unguided | 70 | 147 | 10,290 | |
| Total | 1,276 | 247,836 |
This article lists bombings by the insurgency during theIraq War, which took place between 2003 and 2011. For bombings that occurred following the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, see:List of bombings during the Iraqi insurgency (2011–2013).
