The moment when Paul Bremer packed up and left Iraq on June 28, the US supervisor might have realized that the country he left behind would be plunged into unrelenting chaos.

Five months after the administrative power was handed over to the interim Iraqi government, the violence-ravaged country fragmented, both geographically and ideologically.

While a temporary constitution underlined the unification of Iraq, it also recognized the self-rule in the northern Kurdish region, a status Iraqi Kurds had long been pursuing but was denied under former Saddam Hussein's regime.

The new government portfolios were shared, in proportion with their population, among Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish, Christian and Turkmenistan, despite a UN effort to install nonpartisan technocrats.

Iyad Allawi, a secular Shiite leader and exile politician, was among the hopefuls to bridge the sectarian gap.

Backed by all parties, Allawi was chosen to lead the caretaker government after a tense political wrangle.

However, the new authority was repeatedly challenged by marginalized factions, some of whom vented dissatisfaction by stirring insurgency which put the nation in limbo.

In the spotlight was Moqtada al-Sadr, a young outspoken Shiite cleric who strongly opposed a US military presence.

The Mehdi Army led by the firebrand cleric mounted deadly attacks in Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala and Basra, among which, Najaf, a southern Shiite holy city some 160 km south of Baghdad, witnessed the fiercest fighting.

This sent the US troops scrambling to launch an all-out military assault on the flashpoint city to put down the resurgence of resistance.

Pressed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and shunned by other leading Shiite leaders who wished to benefit from the political process, Sadr's followers laid down arms, returned to the negotiating table and struck out a peace deal.

However, the stability in Najaf was far from sapping the insurgency of strength and a more tenacious rebellion across the Sunni heartlands flared up west and north of Baghdad.

While US and Iraqi officials maintained that former officials of the defunct Baath Party and Arab extremists, infiltrating back into the country from porous borders, were behind the insurgency, many insiders said the resentment harbored by average Iraqis against US occupation also contributed to the resistance.

Claiming that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born Islamist linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, was holed up in Fallujah, US marines and Iraqi security forces launched a full-scale assault on the city on Nov. 8 to rid it of Zarqawi loyalists.

SHADOWY ZARQAWI

After 10 days of fierce street battles, Fallujah, a Suuni stronghold some 50 km west of Baghdad, was turned into a virtual ghost city with swollen bodies scattered among debris and human flesh parts soaked in pools of blood.

The Iraqi government claimed about 2,000 insurgents were killed and 1,600 others detained.

As US-Iraqi forces combed the tiny city on the Euphrates, the whereabouts of Zarqawi, America's most wanted man in Iraq with a 25-million-dollar bounty on his head, remained shrouded in mystery.

Qassim Dawood, advisor to the Iraqi National Security, said the 12,000-strong troops only netted small potatoes while the terror master himself simply vanished into thin air.

At the same time, violence continued to grip the country as statements purportedly from Zarqawi's group kept emerging, which claimed responsibility for several most deadly bombing attacks and gruesome hostage beheadings.

However, it almost became consensus among ordinary Iraqis that Zarqawi was no more than a shadowy figure, exploited by the US forces as a pretext to justify their hard-line operations in Fallujah.

On the ground, as Fallujah lapsed into fresh chaos, the breakdown in law and order also prevailed in Mosul, Baquba and Ramadi, where insurgents overran police stations, sent Iraqi police fleeing, taking weapons and freeing prisoners.

Meanwhile, Sunni cleric Abdullah Janabi, who had been leading Mujahedeens (holy warriors) in Fallujah and ruling the city with Islamic laws for months, declared the accomplishment of reorganization elsewhere in Iraq.

Mohammed Yunis, an ex-Baath official, and Ibrahim al-Douri, Saddam's right-hand man, were said to be leading the regrouped Baath Party and its operation in Iraq. The duo had a 15-million-dollar bounty on their heads.

The Fallujah battle also spilled over well beyond the military sphere, and its political fallout was felt by those relatively moderate Sunni clerics, who were marginalized in the US-backed government.

This directly led to a boycott to the scheduled general elections called by the influential Suuni body, the Muslim Scholars Association, together with some other 60 parties.

UNCERTAIN ELECTIONS

Slated for Jan. 30, 2005, the landmark election, the first since the topple of Saddam Hussein in 2003, came as a last-ditch effort by Washington to bring a representative government favored by both Iraqis and Americans.

However, a dozen of leading political parties, including that of Allawi, Kurdish magnates and veteran Sunni politician Adnan Pachachi, called for a six-month delay of the vote.

Unquenchable violence was a major concern, raising misgivings about how fair and free the elections could be in a country where large bands of insurgents were nowhere to be found but capable enough of striking civilians and military alike.

Muhsin Hameed, head of Iraqi Islamic Party, demanded more respect and support to Sunni Muslims. "There should be some in-depth dialogues between the government and the Iraqi people," he told Xinhua. "A reconciliatory dialogue is badly needed now, and it would bring opinions closer," he added.

CRIPPLED ECONOMY

At a time when the unity of Iraq was sorely tested, the country's economy has fallen victim to the escalating turbulence.

Unemployment rate surged, inflation went sky-high, industries shrank and most donations went to the security instead of reconstruction.

Iraq's fledging police and security forces have proven so far not ready to fulfill their job at a time when oil pipelines were frequently sabotaged.

Oil exports, Iraq's only cash-cow, were choked off as the country's economy suffered growing pain.

Moreover, foreign companies and international investors were scared away by the rampant kidnappings. Over 150 foreigners were abducted since April 2004, and more than 50 killed by their kidnappers.