Sunni-based insurgency and "sectarian clashes," says NYT.

Iraqi Casualties Are Up Sharply, Study Finds - New York Times:

Still, the study says the fighting in Iraq does not meet the “stringent international legal standards for civil war,” without further explanation. Even so, the sectarian fighting has been bloodier than ever.

Well. The last thing we'd want would be an illegal civil war.

"Stringent international legal standards"? What are these turkeys talking about, anyway? A Pentagon document, cleverly (and predictably) released just before a holiday weekend so as to minimize discussion documents what a Pentagon mouthpiece calls "particularly acute and disturbing" in Iraq. Sort of more like a gang war than a civil war, according to the brass, with "Sunni and Shia extremists seeking to control key areas in Baghdad, create or protect sectarian enclaves, divert economic resources, and impose their own respective political and religious agendas.”

In discussing daily casualty rates, the report did not distinguish between the number of dead and wounded. But it noted that execution-type killings, in particular, reached a new high in July. “The Baghdad Coroner’s Office reported 1,600 bodies arrived in June and more than 1,800 bodies in July, 90 percent of which were assessed to be the result of executions,” the report states.

Some clashes, all right.