The Iraqi insurgency in Baghdad appears to have a central leadership that finances attacks in the capital and gives broad orders to eight to 12 rebel bands — some with as many as 100 guerrillas, U.S. Army generals said Monday.
| That's the hazy outline of the order of battle. Can we fill in any details? |
Decisions on individual attacks against U.S. occupation forces in the capital, however, are left up to the men who carry them out, said Brig. Gen. Martin Dempsey. There is still no sign of a military-style command structure in the city or in Iraq as a whole, Dempsey told a group of reporters in an unusually detailed account of the Iraqi insurgency. ’’I’m increasingly of the belief that there’s central financial control and central communications,’’ said Dempsey, who commands the Army’s 1st Armored Division, which controls Baghdad and the surrounding region. The division’s picture of the insurgency has grown clearer as its intelligence gathering has improved, he said. Last month, the Army rounded up what Dempsey believes is one of the guerrilla cells blamed for attacks in Baghdad, including the Oct. 26 rocket strike on the Al-Rasheed Hotel that occurred during the stay of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Although Dempsey spoke about the Baghdad operation, an ambush Sunday in the town of Samarra north of the capital also showed heightened coordination. U.S. forces successfully routed a group of about 50 fighters who lay in wait at banks and ambushed two American convoys carrying Iraqi currency, killing dozens of Iraqis.
In Baghdad, rebel attacks have come in waves that Dempsey said appear to start when an order is given. The Iraqi capital has been quiet in recent weeks, after a series of attacks in early November. Dempsey said he believes the lull stems from a leader’s ordering guerrillas to lie low during the Army’s current offensive, ’’Operation Iron Hammer.’’
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A yet-unidentified central leadership appears to give guerrilla cells broad orders such as, ’’Go attack the coalition,’’ Dempsey said. He said he believes the manner of attack is left up to the individual cells, as long as the efforts disrupt and discredit the U.S.-led coalition and any progress it has made. Insurgency members and leaders remain unclear — even to U.S. intelligence and military officers. They have said anti-coalition guerrillas showed evidence of regional control; little has been made public about those networks. |