 Violence has spiked against Iraqi and US forces in the battleground provinces of north-central Iraq, with less than three weeks to go before landmark national elections. US Army officers at their headquarters in Saddam Hussein's old palace in Tikrit describe an insurgency that has grown since last March despite the best efforts to win over the Iraqi people living in the northern provinces of Salahuddin, Diyala and Tamim, home to Iraq's alienated Sunni Muslims. "What we've seen was the insurgency gather steam since last April and May. It probably would have gained steam a whole lost faster if it were not for courageous Iraqi National Guard and police standing up for their country," said Maj. Gen. John Batiste, commander of the First Infantry Division (1st ID). Despite the insurgency's ability to recruit new members, Batiste believes the US Army is winning in Iraq. He points to the training of 11,000 Iraqi national guardsmen in his area of operations which he considers a success story. "These things take time. You have to take a long view," Batiste said.
| I'm waiting for the Iraqis we've been training to turn the Bad Guyz' tactics against them. It's not like Iraqis don't know how to be vicious with each other. But we're trying to train them out of that, which is both a good thing and a bad thing... |
Batiste said Iraqi officials are determined to hold elections in the 1st ID provinces of Salahuddin, Diyala, Tamim and Kurdish Sulaimaniyah and hope for a 50 percent turnout at the polls. Security plans will rely on the Iraqi army and police, with US forces in a back-up role, Batiste said. But his officers warn that violence is expected to mount in the contested provinces, where a strong turnout among Sunni voters would bestow some legitimacy on the contentious polls. "We do expect the violence to steadily increase as we get close to elections," one officer said on condition of anonymity.
| I don't expect a strong Sunni turnout, either. But I also expect they're just going to have to suck it up. |
Since December, there had been 63 attacks causing casualties among US and Iraqi troops, double the number from the previous month, the officer said. The officer said anywhere from 20 to 40 armed cells existed in the four provinces and described the entire region as a danger zone. Forty-four suicide car bombs have been carried out since last March, along with 39 car bombs detonated by remote control. Last week, a suicide car bomb killed 18 guardsmen traveling on a bus near Balad. "There is an increase in localized recruitment. We attribute that to a very frustrated populace especially in the Sunni triangle."
| Yeah, they're the same guys who were in a position to kick people around under Sammy. As an army they were crap. As a citizenry, they're even crappier, but it's Capone crappy. |
A case in point is Hawija, west of Kirkuk. The city has a rate of 80 percent unemployment among men, many of them veterans of Saddam's old army, the officer added. "Right here straight through the Sunni triangle, pick about any metropolitan center, you're going to find a high concentration of attacks."
Insurgents are being sheltered by rural farmers as well as entire city neighborhoods, the officer said. The list of those still on the run includes Saddam lieutenant Izzat Ibrahim Al-Douri, Kamal Al-Aswadi, a fighter from Samarra, Rashi Taan Kazim, a former governor in Al-Anbar, and former Saddam bodyguard Mohammed Hadosh. Besides Douri, who has a $10-million price on his head, the others illustrate the depth of the resistance movement that has evolved in little over a year since Saddam was captured, hiding in a shithouse small foxhole on a farm. Aswadi, aka "Kamal the Tailor", was a businessman with ties to Saddam's entourage, but wrapped himself in the cloak of radical Islam after the dictator's regime collapsed. The military believes he relies on funding from Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi's movement and built his armed wing around tribal connections. Shortly before US forces stormed Samarra last October, his rebel clan fought with another insurgent-linked tribe, the Al-Nissanis, over bragging rights in the city. Kazim, who has a million dollar price on his head, is the point man for Baathist activity in Diyala. The military believes he funds groups, supplies weapons and "uses religious ideology to recruit extremists", in an example of the insurgency's blurred lines. Hadosh was Saddam's top bodyguard in Tikrit and the military believes he funds rebel activities in Baiji, home to Iraq's largest refinery. |