With the full-scale eruption of the sectarian civil war in February 2006, many militant attacks in American-controlled central Iraq were directed at the Iraqi police and military forces of the Iraqi government. The attacks continued during the transitional reconstruction of Iraq, as the Iraqi government tried to establish itself. Civil war and sectarian violence ended in mid 2008 and the insurgency continued through the American withdrawal from Iraq in 2011. After the withdrawal in December 2011, a renewed wave of sectarian and anti-government insurgency swept Iraq, causing thousands of casualties in 2012. Increasing violence in 2013 led to another war.