Reply #3: That's far too simplistic.

[Igel]

Shi'ite vs Sunni
Sunni vs Kurd
To a small extent, Shi'ite vs Sunni
But those are just the conflicts between large-scale 'tribes'.

Within Shi'ite-dom, we have Fadlallah's group vs Sadr's group vs Hakim's group, the official army/police versus minor Shi'ite groups and Sunnis.

Within Sunni-dom, we have the often foreign AQ folks that many tribals don't like versus native secular Sunni groups, and a fair amount of tribal warfare that's non-religious in nature. And let's not forget the Ba'thists, which, in principle, cross sectarian lines, but which form a kind of tribe of their own.

Then there are, undoubtedly, criminal gangs in the mix, when they can be fairly stated to be non-political/religious in nature. Remember that Saddam emptied the prisons, and not all prisoners were political in nature; chaos also tends to bring out the gang-membership side of people, since they need a group to provide some sort of order to their lives. Self-selected tribes of convenience and profit.

What do you call a 15- or 18-way tribal conflict? Civil war?