Embassy sounds alarm over growing dangers in Iraq

Patrick Cockburn
The Independent
30 November 2004

Disintegrating security in Baghdad was underlined in a sombre warning yesterday from the British embassy against using the airport road or taking a plane out of Iraq.

The embassy says a bomb was discovered on a flight inside Iraq on 22 November. It shows that insurgents have been able to penetrate the stringent security at Baghdad airport. The embassy says its own staff have been advised against taking commercial planes.

The warning is in sharp contrast to more optimistic statements from US military commanders after the capture of Fallujah in which they have spoken of "breaking the back of the insurgency". The embassy says that the road between Baghdad and the international airport, perhaps the most important highway in the country, is now too dangerous to use. The advice says starkly: "With effect from 28 November, the British embassy ceased all movements on the Baghdad International airport road." The airport road is littered with evidence of previous attacks: the twisted cars used by suicide bombers and craters from roadside bombs.

There are no safe havens. Since March, 14 British civilians have been killed. Not only have insurgents proved capable of putting a bomb on a plane, but on 14 October two suicide bombers entered the heavily fortified Green Zone and blew themselves up, killing five people and injuring many more.

Danger levels in the capital are also increasing; some of the resistance fighters who were previously in Fallujah have taken refuge in Baghdad. They may wish to launch spectacular attacks to offset the fall of Fallujah, which had been the de facto capital of the insurgents.

The Iraqi government and the US Army suffered losses yesterday from two of the insurgents' favourite weapons: suicide bombs and roadside bombs. No effective defence has been found against either.

A suicide bomb killed seven Iraqi soldiers and police and wounded nine in an attack in the town of Baghdadi, 120 miles north-west of the capital. Two US soldiers were killed and three wounded by a roadside bomb in north-west Baghdad. Hitherto, roadside bombs have consisted of several artillery shells detonated by a command wire or by remote control. But the US military say the insurgents have started using shaped charges which direct the blast towards a target.

The battle for Fallujah was largely successful from the US point of view, because the assault did not provoke the widespread nationalist reaction across Iraq as seen in April, when theAmericans first attacked the city.

Many Shia Iraqis had come to see Fallujah as the headquarters of extreme sectarian Sunnis, whose suicide bombers have slaughtered mostly Shia police and army recruits. Many were pleased to see Fallujah insurgents killed or dispersed.

But the capture of the Fallujah may have less military affect than the US and the Iraqi interim government had hoped, because the Sunni uprising is very fragmented and does not appear to have a central command. Observers in Fallujah during the US attack say the siege was never complete and many fighters slipped out. They add that if the US figure of 1,200 insurgents killed is true, then several thousand others survived to continue the fight.

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Citation: Patrick Cockburn, "Embassy sounds alarm over growing dangers in Iraq," The Independent, 30 November 2004. Original URL: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=588095

US military hospital in Germany treats 21,000 soldiers from Iraq, Afghanistan

Associated Press
29 November 2004

About 21,000 American soldiers, most of them from units sent to Iraq, have been treated at the biggest U.S. military hospital outside the United States since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, the hospital said Monday.

The Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany handles many U.S. combat casualties, but it did not break down the figure into battlefield and noncombat patients. Landstuhl doctors treated 17,878 U.S. soldiers from Iraq and 3,085 from Afghanistan through Sunday, hospital spokeswoman Marie Shaw told The Associated Press. The patients were treated for anything from gunshot wounds to noncombat ailments such as kidney stones, she said.

Since the end of the Cold War, Landstuhl has treated victims of war and terrorism, including those wounded in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998, the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole off Yemen, and, more recently, men and women serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Citation: "US military hospital in Germany treats 21,000 soldiers from Iraq, Afghanistan," Associated Press, 29 November 2004

US Employs Saddam's Old Commandos

Alastair Macdonald
Reuters
27 November 2004

NEAR ISKANDARIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Twenty months after toppling Saddam Hussein, U.S. troops still battling his followers in the heart of Iraq's old arms industry are hitting back with a new weapon -- ex-members of Saddam's special forces. For five months, Iraqi police commandos have been based with U.S. Marines in charge of the region along the Euphrates river immediately south of Baghdad, which roadside bombs, ambushes and kidnaps have turned into a no-go area for outsiders and earned it the melodramatic description "triangle of death."

The performance of these police is a critical test of the ability of U.S. forces to hand security over to Iraqis in order to meet their goal of withdrawing while leaving Iraq stable. U.S. officers in the area say they are increasingly optimistic. "The hardest fighters we have are the former special forces from Saddam's days," Colonel Ron Johnson, commander of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, told reporters late on Friday. Praising their local knowledge and fighting skills, Johnson singled out one man who fought against him at Nassiriya, the hardest battle of last year's brief war against Saddam's army. "If I could have an Iraqi security force guy who's honest, reliable and dependable, it's worth five Marines," he said.

"They're aggressive, they're tough," said Captain Tad Douglas after a raid in the town of Latifiya on Saturday in which the bulk of his force was an Iraqi police "SWAT team." "Ninety-five percent of our intelligence is from the SWAT," he said of the local knowledge that saw nine people detained. "We have been...living with them for five months. We've put a lot of time into working with them."

U.S. raids to capture or kill insurgents are now mounted almost exclusively alongside commandos from the Ministry of Interior and a SWAT team from the provincial capital Hilla. "Our goal since September has been never to go anywhere on our own," said intelligence officer Major Clint Nussbaum. "This is police work, not finding a tank battalion in the desert."

IRAQI PRESENCE This week, Johnson has stepped up raids against insurgents in an operation code-named Plymouth Rock, hoping to maintain pressure on Sunni insurgents in the aftermath of their rout at Falluja, just upstream of his area. More than 100 people have been detained in four days in night-time raids on their homes.

Of Johnson's 5,000-strong force in the region, which was once the heart of Saddam's arms industry and base of the Medina armored division of the elite Republican Guard, some 2,000 are Iraqi, the rest made up of Marines and 850 British soldiers. At the Marine camp near Iskandariya, 30 miles south of Baghdad, the Iraqis are a clear presence, wearing the khaki jumpsuits of Marine scouts and almost ubiquitous black mustaches. Like special forces troops anywhere they are less than forthcoming about their work. None were comfortable speaking with a reporter.

Iraqi forces in other regions have had mixed success. This month, thousands of police in the northern city of Mosul fled or changed sides when Sunni Muslim insurgents took charge. Johnson acknowledges the loyalties of some Iraqis in his force may be divided but says they "want to be on the winning side" and is confident that, in time, U.S.-led troops will end what he sees as limited and decentralized violence by at most a few thousand disgruntled Saddam supporters and local bandits.

Iraqi police here have stuck to their posts despite killings of comrades in bomb attacks and murders of off-duty officers: "They don't cut and run, despite their losses," Johnson said. Citing intelligence that he says shows broad support for democracy, Johnson forecast local turnout of 45 percent or more at an election due on Jan. 30 -- despite probable violence. Clearly exasperated by the "triangle of death" tag, he said: "I'm getting more optimistic every day."

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Citation: Alastair Macdonald, "US Employs Saddam's Old Commandos," Reuters, 27 November 2004; Original URL: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=6933057

Turk Compares U.S. to Hitler; Official says
'genocide' being committed in Iraq

Reuters
27 November 2004

ANKARA, Turkey _ The head of Turkey's parliamentary human rights group has accused Washington of genocide in Iraq and behaving worse than Adolf Hitler, in remarks that underscore the depth of Turkish opposition to U.S. policy in the region. The U.S. Embassy rejected the comments and said they were potentially damaging to Turkish-U.S. relations.

"The occupation has turned into barbarism," the Friday edition of newspaper Yeni Safak quoted Mehmet Elkatmis, head of parliament's human rights commission, as saying. "The U.S. administration is committing genocide _ in Iraq. "Never in human history have such genocide and cruelty been witnessed. Such a genocide was never seen in the time of the pharaohs nor of Hitler nor of [Benito] Mussolini," Italy's World War II-era fascist leader, Elkatmis said. "This occupation has entirely imperialist aims," he was quoted as saying.

Elkatmis does not speak for Turkey's government but is a prominent member of the ruling Justice and Development Party, a center-right group with Islamist roots. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul played down Elkatmis' comments but defended Turks' right to speak freely. A diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara said, "Such unfounded, inaccurate, exaggerated claims are not good for relations, especially at a time of strain when Turkish public opinion is so critical of what the United States is trying to do in Iraq."

The diplomat said Elkatmis had overlooked the fact that insurgents like those in the Iraqi city of Fallouja had abducted and beheaded a number of Turkish truck drivers in recent months. Elkatmis' comments drew barely a flicker of interest in Turkey, where polls point to growing anti-American sentiment. Turkey has been especially disturbed by the recent U.S. offensive against insurgents in Fallouja in which civilians have died and mosques have been damaged.

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"Turk Compares U.S. to Hitler; An official says 'genocide' being committed in Iraq," Reuters,
27 November 2004

Marines Train a Secret Weapon on Babil Province

Bruce Wallace
Los Angeles Times
27 November 2004

JABELLA, Iraq _ The Cobra attack helicopters thumping overhead disrupt the predawn stillness of this rural town, agitating the roosters and the dogs. Through the cacophony and a cold rain, troops wearing the signature uniforms of the U.S. Marine Corps' Force Reconnaissance platoon race down potholed streets, balaclavas hiding their faces. The tan masks not only make the raiders appear menacing. They also disguise the fact that the men behind them are not Americans, but Iraqis.

This is the embryonic Iraqi SWAT team in action, rousing families from their sleep and rounding up men for questioning about the deadly insurgency in towns such as Jabella, south of Baghdad. The policemen leave behind their calling card: a postcard-size photo of the SWAT team in full gear carrying the message, "Are You a Criminal or Terrorist? You Will Face Punishment."

The flashy raid is aimed at creating a daring image for the 125-man SWAT team, an attempt by their American military patrons to turn them into an Iraqi version of the Untouchables. Marine commanders have also thrown the SWAT team into action in raids across northern Babil province, a push to flush insurgents and criminals out of their strongholds. Most of the Iraqis in the SWAT team come from the town of Hillah in Babil, and have lived and trained with Marines at a base near home since August. The close partnership with the Marines is an experiment in inoculating Iraqi troops against the violence and intimidation that make joining the security forces so perilous. SWAT team members argue that their readiness to lead raids is a rebuttal to those who say Iraqis are not prepared to fight for control of their country. "We are like a family, and we don't care if one of us dies, his brother will rise to avenge him," said Col. Salaam Turrad Abdul Khadim, a former Iraqi special forces officer who recruited his team from the ranks of other unemployed soldiers in Hillah. "Every time we go on a mission against the terrorists, we are the ones who start the fight," he said. "We prove our courage."

Braving bomb-rigged roads in unarmored pickup trucks, the Iraqis have conducted 30 joint missions with the Marines since August. They frequently go in first and, since hooking up with the Americans, have not lost a colleague in action. "Before that, we had lots of dead," Khadim said. "Maybe 10." U.S. commanders say they are pleased with the Iraqis. "They fought with us, they bled with us, and they'll stick to my side just as my men do," said Col. Ron Johnson, who commands the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is working with the SWAT team.

The Iraqis were training in Hillah with private-sector security firms when the Marines arrived and Johnson invited them to move in with the Force Reconnaissance platoon, the Marine version of the special operations forces. His goal was to avoid the bevy of desertions and defections to the insurgency. The Iraqis and Americans would eat together and shower in the same facilities, Johnson ordered. He gave the Iraqis American uniforms. He told the Marines to grow mustaches. Living on the base would not only guard against the Iraqis being kidnapped or killed on the way to and from training, he argued. It would guard against the endemic problem of mission plans being leaked to insurgents. "You can't say to an Iraqi force, 'OK, we'll meet you at such and such a place at 10 o'clock for the mission' and then just hope they'll show up," Johnson said.

Johnson did have to override early suspicions among some Marines that they were being asked to baby-sit the Iraqis. The members of the elite force arrived with big ambitions for action and found themselves wondering if their partners would cramp their style. But the integrated approach has led to a bond between the Americans and Iraqis, both sides say, the cultural differences submerged under the daily demands of living and fighting side by side. "We live together, we eat together, and it has made us close," said Capt. Tad Douglas, 28, who commands the platoon. "We care about each other. There was a day when one of the Iraqis went down in a mortar attack, and one of my guys went out right away to pick him up and carry him to safety." Another 125 Iraqis are due to join the SWAT force from police training camps in Jordan this weekend, and the Iraqi government plans to see 500 in uniform.

With their exit from Iraq dependent on having Iraqi forces to replace them, U.S. commanders are pressing the SWAT team into the fight against insurgents. They want it to earn some cachet with the local population. "We need to create some Iraqi heroes," Douglas said. "We need guys who have an elan to them." But the joint operations also benefit the Marines. The Iraqis give the Americans a footbridge across a linguistic and cultural divide that is a major obstacle to acquiring intelligence. In addition, the Iraqis are able to carry out raids on mosques and other sensitive sites that U.S. forces are reluctant to breach.

Their presence also has surprised some of those whose homes they raided, who are shocked to hear Arabic commands coming from under the hoods of men they assumed were Americans. This fall, a rumor went around Hillah that the U.S. had brought in Israeli soldiers _ many of whom speak Arabic. Khadim laughs at the memory. Yet perceptions are important. The worry is that Sunni Muslims may come to see the SWAT team as a Shiite weapon. Shiites make up 94% of the Hillah force, while most of the insurgents in the area are Sunnis. "I don't work that way," Khadim said. He pointed to the casualties his men took during clashes in August with firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr's Al Mahdi militia.

"When the war started with the Mahdi army, we killed 42 of their fighters in Hillah in one day _ all of them Shiite," the colonel said softly. "When people look at me, they don't see a Shiite. Everybody sees an Iraqi."

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Citation: Bruce Wallace, "Marines Train a Secret Weapon on Babil Province," Los Angeles Times, 27 November 2004

Iraqis Call for Delay in Election

Ashraf Khalil and Patrick J. McDonnell
Los Angeles Times
27 November 2004

BAGHDAD _ A group of leading political parties Friday called for a six-month delay of Iraq's Jan. 30 parliamentary election, expressing concern that widening violence would make voting impossible in large swaths of the country. The 17-member group includes Iraq's two main Kurdish parties, which are key U.S. allies. Speculation about the feasibility of a January election has swirled for months, and increased last week when dozens of mainly Sunni Muslim parties endorsed a boycott of the vote. The boycott plan prompted fears that any new parliament would lack credibility.

Friday's request is expected to put more pressure on interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and his U.S. backers to reconsider their refusal to postpone the vote. In Texas, President Bush indicated Thursday that the United States would not support efforts to postpone the election beyond Jan. 30. "The Iraq election commission has scheduled elections in January, and I would hope they would go forward in January," the president told reporters during a public appearance near his ranch outside Crawford, where his family is spending the Thanksgiving holiday.

The debate over whether to delay the election could further divide Iraqis along religious fault lines, and even ignite sectarian tension. Iraq's Shiite majority, oppressed by Saddam Hussein's regime and marginalized for much of this century, has been eager to seize significant power in the vote _ in which Iraqis will select representatives who will draft a new constitution and pick a president. Shiite religious parties have resisted attempts to push back the election, a position in which they find themselves increasingly isolated. The powerful Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has pushed for a speedy election and launched a grass-roots get-out-the-vote campaign. His endorsement would be crucial to any delay.

After their Friday conference, the 17 party representatives released a statement declaring that a delay was necessary pending "changes in the security situation and the completion of necessary organizational, administrative and technical preparations." The meeting was held at the Baghdad home of Adnan Pachachi, an influential politician and the head of the Independent Democratic Movement, a Sunni party.

Organizers say they hope to build domestic and international consensus for a postponement. "Now we must talk to the United Nations, the electoral commission and the government," said Saad Abdel Razzaq, a spokesman for the Independent Democratic Movement. Abdel Razzaq cited security concerns and a desire to bring boycotters into the process as the main reasons for requesting a delay. "We want to take time to have a dialogue and convince them to join the process," he said.

Allawi has repeatedly vowed to proceed with the election. On Wednesday, the prime minister declared the vote to be "on course." On Friday, there was confusion as to whether Allawi's Iraqi National Accord party had endorsed the request. An INA representative attended the meeting, and the party's name was listed among the 17 signatories. But Hani Idrees, a member of the INA's political bureau, said the party's representative had not signed the communique seeking the postponement. The INA continues to support the idea of January elections, Idrees said, but would be willing to support a delay if "there was a wide consensus among all parties involved."

Abdel Razzaq, however, insisted that the INA had "signed and agreed" with the delay request.

Even without the INA's assent, Friday's announcement was a major boost for advocates of a delay. Friday's list of signatories is diverse, including Kurdish and Sunni parties, Christians, socialists, a tribal group and a women's group. A similar group of parties gathered last week for a conference in the northern city of Dukkan that lasted several days. After that meeting, only the Iraqi Islamic Party, the country's largest Sunni religious party, openly endorsed a delay. Kurdish parties were noncommittal, several Shiite parties openly opposed the idea, and the final conference statement asked only that the issue be seriously examined.

An elections expert with experience in Iraq, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the endorsement by the two U.S. allies, the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, represented a crucial shift. "The Kurds were weakly aligned with the Shiites toward elections on time. Now they're weakly aligned with the Sunnis toward a delay," the expert said. "There's a fight brewing and it looks like the Kurds just switched sides_. This could get messy."

The two top Shiite parties, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa Party, didn't participate in Friday's meeting. Nor did the Iraqi National Congress, whose leader is former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi, who has sought to reinvent himself as a Shiite populist after falling out with Washington.

INC spokesman Entifad Qanbar, in an interview on the Al Jazeera satellite news channel, denounced the proposal, saying it would lead to a loss of faith in the fledgling political forces and embolden the country's insurgency. "Iraq's problems can only be solved at the ballot box," Qanbar said.

Hussein Hindawi, chairman of the U.N.-appointed Independent Electoral Commission, said Friday that the delay request would be studied.

Even if consensus for a delay can be reached, Iraqi authorities will have to find a way around Iraq's interim constitution, which stipulates that elections be held by the end of January. The law, approved by the Governing Council and the former U.S. administrator in Iraq, excludes any mechanism to alter the date. "It's one of the few things that can't be changed," the electoral expert said.

But many Iraqis say the country's rulers have no choice because insurgents have extended their reach over large sections of Baghdad and other mainly Sunni areas, making it unlikely that the U.S. and the Iraq's interim government can establish the stability needed for credible elections.

On Friday, violence continued to rack Mosul, a city 225 miles northwest of Baghdad that was a stronghold of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. Insurgents have mounted a campaign there targeting members of the Iraqi security forces and others perceived as collaborators. Associated Press reported Friday that 13 more bodies had been found in and around the city, bringing the number of corpses discovered there to at least 35 in the last week. Eleven of the 35 had been identified as Iraqi security officers, the news agency reported. The identities of the others remained unknown. Mosul, Iraq's third-most populous city, experienced an insurgent uprising three weeks ago after insurgents reportedly fled there as U.S.-led forces moved against the rebel enclave in Fallouja. U.S. and allied Iraqi forces have moved to reassert control of Mosul, but clashes continue there and in neighboring Tall Afar, a city near the Syrian border that has also seen large-scale insurgent attacks.

The U.S. military announced Friday that two more Marines had been killed Thursday during the offensive in Fallouja. More than 50 U.S. troops have been killed and at least 425 wounded during the Fallouja offensive. U.S. forces are now searching houses in the city to ensure that insurgents are no longer present, commanders say. Some militants who are prepared to fight to the death have hunkered down inside houses and other buildings, waiting for U.S. forces to come to them, the military said.

On Friday, Global Risk Strategies, one of many international security firms working in Iraq, announced that four employees had been killed and 12 wounded in a rocket attack a day earlier in the heavily fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad. A company spokesman said the casualties were Nepalese nationals. Private guards patrol many sites inside the Green Zone, a sprawling complex housing the U.S. and British embassies, the interim Iraqi government and other offices. The Green Zone is a frequent target of rocket and mortar attacks, but the strikes only occasionally cause casualties. Last month, two suicide bombers detonated explosives-laden backpacks in a cafe inside the zone, killing six people, including four U.S. citizens, and prompting a tightening of the stringent security rules.

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Citation: Ashraf Khalil and Patrick J. McDonnell, "Iraqis Call for Delay in Election," Los Angeles Times, 27 November 2004

US struggles to find troops for Iraq, Afghanistan

Joseph L. Galloway
Knight Ridder
24 November 2004

WASHINGTON - The Army, which has been hard pressed to find enough soldiers to man the rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, may soon be faced with an urgent request to find another 5,000 to 7,000 troops to increase the number of boots on the ground in Iraq. Commanders there have been quietly signaling an immediate need for at least that many more soldiers to add to the 138,000 Americans already there. This, they say, is the minimum number needed to allow them to pursue the offensive against the insurgents in the wake of the taking of Fallujah.

Far from breaking the back of the insurgency, the capture of Fallujah only served as a signal for the enemy to launch its own offensive in cities across the Sunni triangle and in Baghdad itself. The fighters and leaders who fled Fallujah before the Americans launched their attack simply moved to other cities and went straight to work sowing havoc. The daily number of attacks and incidents in Iraq is now running more than 100 per day, or double what it was before the Fallujah offensive began.

Having taken Fallujah in a violent and bloody campaign that took the lives of more than 50 Americans and uncounted Iraqis and virtually destroyed a city where the insurgents and foreign fighters had had sanctuary and free reign for six months, the Americans now are obliged to rebuild what they destroyed. The city and the reconstruction efforts both have to be secured against a return of the insurgents, thus tying down thousands of American soldiers and Marines when they are needed elsewhere to fight those who escaped Fallujah.

Commanders in Iraq are under pressure to take the war to the enemy and beat them into less of a threat so that the Jan. 30 first round of elections in that country can take place with minimal violence. Washington would love to see an election in Iraq that was something like the success of the Afghanistan voting last month.

Army planners are looking at a number of temporary stop-gap measures to boost the strength in Iraq during January, including extension of the tours of thousands of soldiers nearing the end of their 12-month combat assignment and speeding up the deployment of the 3rd Mech Infantry Division so more of them arrive before January. They are also reportedly eyeing the ready brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division - which stands by at Fort Bragg for rapid deployment anywhere in the world in a crisis - as one way to boost temporarily troop strength in Iraq. Those troops, however, are light infantry and do not come equipped with the Bradley fighting vehicles and M1A2 Abrams tanks that are increasingly needed for urban combat in Iraq.

Finding the rest of the troops that commanders want may be difficult. Getting them to Iraq in time and properly equipped to fight in that dangerous environment may be even more difficult; Army and Marine commanders have already used up most of their bag of tricks to find troops for the usual rotations to Iraq. The Baltimore Sun reports that the Army is hard pressed to find enough officers for staff jobs in Iraq and Afghanistan and will double the length of their tours in those countries from 179 days at present to a full 12 months.

Other extraordinary steps ordered or under consideration include pulling officers out of military schools or delaying entry into such programs. They could also curtail family-oriented programs such as the one that allows soldiers to extend their tours at a stateside base so their children can finish their senior year in high school.

The Army is struggling to fill hundreds of staff jobs for majors and lieutenant colonels in war zone headquarters and in the past month began stripping majors and lieutenant colonels from their Pentagon billets and ordering them to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Although the Pentagon has counted on the rapidly growing Iraqi security forces to begin taking up some of the slack, their hopes may be misplaced in the immediate future. The Iraqi battalions in the field seem to function much better when they come in behind American troops, as in Samara and Fallujah. Until they have a good deal more experience and develop both leadership and confidence they will remain too weak to go after insurgents and foreign fighters in the Sunni triangle.

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Citation: Joseph L. Galloway, "US struggles to find troops for Iraq, Afghanistan," Knight Ridder, 24 November 2004.

Iraqis emerge amid the ruins of Fallujah as Red Crescent delivers first aid

Agence France Presse
26 November 2004

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - Mohammed Chibib pleaded with the marine colonel, coaxing him a little further down the street to another house. Behind him a family of seven stood at their gate, clutching their first fresh food and water in days. "Please colonel, you have just one more family here," said Chibib, a staff member with the Iraqi Red Crescent Society which only Wednesday set up offices in the shattered city of Fallujah.

For the first time since a massive US-led assault was launched against this rebel stronghold, Red Crescent aid has just got to those Iraqis who did not flee in the weeks leading up to the offensive and who were trapped in their homes.

Six houses down, a man emerged with his wife and three children, according to an AFP photographer. More aid boxes were handed out, and then the man pointed towards another nearby house. Colonel Craig Tucker, whose patrol had stumbled on the first family and sent for the Red Crescent to come, paused. This impromptu aid mission was not planned and his marines were strung out along one of Fallujah's still dangerous streets. "Okay, okay. We'll go," he said.

His marines took the lead, securing the road before the Red Crescent ambulance pulled a little further forward. Down the road, an old man emerged with only a shabby bathrobe to protect him against the biting cold. "I am alone. Please, I have no food, nothing, it's very hard for me," he cried as the convoy reached him. Like others before him, the old man knew another house where Iraqis have huddled, waiting out the fighting that engulfed their city. Two young men, brothers, had hung a white scrap of cloth from their gate. "When the fighting started in Fallujah we knew we had to stay in the house. We could not move. If I died, I died in my house," said one of the young men. "We're so happy to see you because we have only flour to mix with water."

The Red Crescent's Fallujah coordinator, Jotiar Nafaa, estimates that between 150 and 175 families are left in the city that once had a population of 300,000. Most residents fled to Baghdad or the surrounding countryside as the showdown between insurgents and US-led forces built towards its inevitable eruption. According to Iraq's national security adviser Qassem Daoud, more than 2,000 people died in the assault.

Nafaa, in his first meeting Thursday with Colonel Gary Montgomery, the officer appointed by the military to help coordinate the Red Crescent's aid efforts, argued that his staffers had to have almost immediate access to the bodies. "There are a big number of people coming to our offices in Baghdad and asking about their missing people... Every 10 or 15 minutes there is a phone call from a different place" asking about the situation, he said. Nafaa pushed for a trip into the city Thursday, saying his staff were frustrated by their inaction. Montgomery did not reject the idea, but it seemed unlikely; the city was still plagued by occasional sniper attacks. Only two days ago residents trying to make their way to an aid distribution center in a mosque came under fire, forcing authorities to impose a 24-hour curfew. Montgomery assured Nafaa the curfew would be lifted soon. Nafaa tried to negotiate the entry of another aid convoy into the city. The colonel would later acknowledge that the Red Crescent was frustrated with the military, but said steps had been made during the meeting.

Both sides had agreed to talk at least twice a day, and establishing a single point of contact with the military would hopefully cut out some of the confusion. "It should start getting better. We weren't getting the answers we needed from them and they weren't getting what they wanted from us and it was making them frustrated," he said.

Out in the street a visibly angered Chibib said the Red Crescent had to try everything possible to see people still hiding in the city, because "no one can go in the street and come to us to ask for help".

"We know there are people who have nothing," he said, calling back to one of the families who the Red Crescent did reach. "Don't worry, we're coming back," he said.

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Citation: "Iraqis emerge amid the ruins of Fallujah as Red Crescent delivers first aid," AFP, 26 November 2004.

Fallujah Leaders Were Local, Not Foreign

Hamza Hendawi
Associated Press
24 November 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Before the assault on Fallujah, U.S. officials described the city as a den of foreign terrorists, but its top commanders were an electrician and a mosque preacher - both natives of the community and now on the run from American forces. Religious fervor and hatred of Americans brought Omar Hadid and Abdullah al-Janabi together in a partnership that played a major role in transforming Fallujah from a sleepy Euphrates River backwater into a potent symbol of Arab nationalism. Their rise to prominence provides insight into contemporary Iraq, where the U.S. presence sparked a religious backlash that gave radical Muslim leaders major roles in filling the void created by the ouster of Saddam Hussein's regime and its replacement by a weak U.S.-backed government.

After U.S. Marines lifted the siege of Fallujah last April, central government control collapsed. That enabled men like Hadid, an electrician who lived with his mother, and al-Janabi, a local imam and member of an important local clan, to emerge as powerbrokers until the Marines took the city back this month. Of the two, Hadid, thought to be in his early 30s, appears to have been the more influential, even though al-Janabi, in his 50s, headed the Mujahedeen Shura Council, which set up Islamic courts that meted out Islamic punishments, executed suspected spies and enforced a strict Islamic lifestyle.

Fallujah residents and Iraqis with close family ties to the city said al-Janabi was more a spiritual leader - deeply respected but without the leverage that Hadid enjoyed over the bands of fighters who patrolled the streets, directed traffic, attacked U.S. positions on the city's fringes and fought the Americans in April and again this month. Hadid led one of the bigger and better armed factions in the city, residents say, but they also stress there were other groups of fighters and all largely operated independently of one another.

Some U.S. and Iraqi officials believe Hadid was close to Jordanian terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whose al-Qaida-linked movement allegedly used Fallujah as a headquarters. Al-Zarqawi's group has claimed responsibility for many of the suicide bombings and beheadings of foreign hostages. But many Fallujans insist al-Zarqawi was never in the city, even though American forces found what they believe was a command and training center for his movement. Residents also insist the number of foreign Arab fighters was small, giving estimates ranging from several dozen to a couple of hundred in a city of nearly 300,000 people. Given the uncertainty about al-Zarqawi's role, it is difficult to determine his relationship with either Hadid or al-Janabi.

Some Iraqis who knew Hadid said he was too independent-minded to have taken orders from al-Zarqawi or anyone else. "Omar is far too powerful to be anyone's deputy," said a neighbor of Hadid, who spoke on condition his name not be printed for security reasons. Those who knew him said Hadid came from a lower middle class Fallujah family. Since his father died a few years ago, Hadid had lived with his mother in the family home in the city's al-Moatasim area until the fighting in April. He's married but without children. About two months ago, one of Hadid's brothers and a nephew were killed by a U.S. airstrike that also injured several other family members, the neighbor said. Hadid escaped with a minor injury, he said.

People who know Hadid differ over the depth and nature of his religious persuasion. Some said he is a Salafi, a conservative sect whose members try to emulate the appearance and behavior of Islam's 7th century prophet, Muhammad. Others said he is a Wahhabi, the austere and radical brand of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia. Al-Janabi, on the other hand, is a Sufi, a mystical version of the faith that seeks closeness to God through the cleansing of one's soul. Sufis abhor violence, but al-Janabi found in Hadid a like-minded partner as Salafis and Wahhabis began to prevail over Sufis in Fallujah. "He's a Salafi in a Sufi disguise," said one native of Fallujah who says he knew both men.

Al-Janabi even joined Hadid in orchestrating the expulsion of a prominent Sufi cleric and mujahedeen leader, Sheik Dhafer al-Obeidi, from the Shura Council after they became alarmed by his growing popularity, say residents who knew the cleric. Al-Obeidi now lives in hiding abroad.

In 1998, al-Janabi, married with five children, was suspended by Saddam's government from delivering Friday sermons because of his public criticism of government policies. He returned to the pulpit of Fallujah's Saad Bin Abi Waqas mosque after Saddam's ouster, devoting most of his sermons to calling on Iraqis to join in a holy war against the Americans. Fearing for his safety, he stopped giving Friday sermons after the April fighting.

Residents said al-Janabi never carried a weapon in public, but was frequently seen during the April fighting talking to front-line mujahedeen, exhorting them to fight on and telling them that those who died fighting Islam's enemies would be rewarded with eternity in paradise.

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Citation: Hamza Hendawi, "Fallujah Leaders Were Local, Not Foreign," Associated Press, 24 November 2004.

Sunni and Shiite imams condemn mosque raid in Friday sermons

Agence France Presse
26 November 2004

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Sunni and Shiite Muslim imams in Iraq (news - web sites) avoided the divisive issue of elections in their Friday sermons, but were unanimous in condemning a deadly raid on a revered mosque in Baghdad last week. "Our mosque suffered a raid last week which was carried out based on erroneous information," Sheikh Moayed al-Adhami, the imam of the Abu Hanifa mosque, which lies in a Sunni bastion of the capital. "Oppression leaves an even more bitter taste when it is perpetrated by those who are close to us than by foreigners," he said, in reference to the fact that Iraqi national guardsmen conducted the search.

Clashes that left two people dead and nine wounded broke out last Friday when they raided the mosque in the Adhamiya neighbourhood.

Speaking in the same mosque Friday, the head of the Sunni Waqf -- or religious endowment -- demanded guarantees that mosques would "never again be desecrated" by Iraqi or foreign troops.

Moqtada Sadr, the firebrand Shiite leader who spearheaded a bloody rebellion against the US occupation which culminated in the siege of Najaf's Imam Ali mausoleum, also condemned the raid on a site he said was holy to all Muslims. Sheikh Abdel Hadi Karbalai, a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani -- the highest Shiite authority in Iraq -- joined the chorus during his sermon in the holy city of Karbala.

The Council of Muslim Scholars, the highest Sunni authority in Iraq, accused the US military of plotting the Abu Hanifa raid during a sermon delivered in Baghdad by Sheikh Abdel Ghafur al-Samarrai. The organisation -- also known as the Ulema council -- has called for a boycott of the January 30 polls, the country's first multi-party elections in half a century.

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Citation: "Sunni and Shiite imams condemn mosque raid in Friday sermons," Agence France Presse, 26 November 2004.

Raid on Mosque Sparks Battles in Baghdad

Hamza Hendawi
Associated Press
21 November 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A U.S.-Iraqi raid on the Abu Hanifa mosque - one of the most revered sites for Sunni Muslims - spawned a weekend of street battles, assassinations and a rash of bombings that changed Baghdad. The capital, for months a city of unrelenting but sporadic violence, has taken on the look of a battlefield.

The chaos has fanned sectarian tension and deepened Sunni distrust of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a Shiite installed by the Americans five months ago. It has also heightened the anxiety of the city's 6 million people - already worn down by years of sanctions and tyranny, then war, military occupation, crime and deprivation.

"Baghdad is now a battlefield and we are in the middle of it," said Qasim al-Sabti, an artist who kept his children home from school Saturday, which is a work day in Iraq. When he sent his children back to school Sunday, the teachers didn't show up. In a sign of public unease, merchants in the outdoor markets, where most people buy their meat, vegetables and household supplies, say crowds are below normal. Many shops near sites of car bombings have closed. Adding to the sense of unease, U.S. military helicopters have begun flying lower over the city. The distant roar of jets has become a fixture of Baghdad at night.

The latest escalation appeared to have been triggered by a U.S.-Iraqi raid Friday on the Abu Hanifa mosque in the Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah as worshippers were leaving after midday prayers. Witnesses said three people were killed, and 40 were arrested. The next day, heavy street fighting erupted in Azamiyah between U.S. and Iraqi forces and Sunni insurgents who tried to storm a police station. The fighting, involving mortars, rocket propelled grenades and roadside bombs, raged for several hours and left several stores ablaze, according to witnesses. Almost simultaneously, clashes broke out in at least five other Baghdad neighborhoods. In all, at least 10 people, including one American soldier, were killed throughout the capital Saturday.

Lt. Col. James Hutton, spokesman for the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division, which is in charge of security in Baghdad, acknowledged that there has been an increase in insurgent activity in the capital. But he linked the increase to the fighting in Fallujah, where U.S. troops are still fighting pockets of resistance after recapturing the city last week, rather than the raid on the Abu Hanifa mosque. The government has said the raid was carried out because of suspicions of "terrorist activity" there. It appears the operation was part of a crackdown on militant Sunni clerics, many of whom are believed to have links to some insurgent groups and who had spoken out against the Fallujah operation.

The Friday raid came at a time when sectarian tensions in Baghdad were already running high over the assault on the mainly Sunni Arab city of Fallujah. Baghdad's population is a potentially explosive mix of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. With frustration mounting over soaring crime, unemployment and poor services, Allawi can ill-afford to allow Baghdad to descend further into chaos. The signs, however, are not encouraging. With the Jan. 30 national election now only two months away, the rivalry between various ethnic and religious groups is intensifying. Adding to the public discontent is a fuel shortage - ironic in a country with some of the world's largest petroleum reserves. Motorists must line up for hours behind hundreds of other cars at gasoline stations throughout the city.

Electricity supplies remain erratic, with frequent outages plaguing the city. Residents of some Baghdad neighborhoods complain there has been no garbage collection for weeks, leaving them no choice but to burn their trash. A nighttime curfew imposed this month under a 60-day state of emergency empties the city shortly after sunset.

The rising tension has prompted many Baghdad parents to keep their children home from school. College students say many of their classmates never showed up for Saturday or Sunday classes. In areas hit by violence, some shops stayed shut. "If I am meant to die, then there is nothing that I can do about it," said Mohammed Rafid, 18, a computer programing student at Baghdad's Mansour college and one of those who showed up for class Sunday. Rafid, however, said nearly half of the 46 students in his class stayed home.

Tensions are likely to sharpen as the Jan. 30 election date approaches. The ballot is expected to confirm the domination of Iraq's Shiite community, estimated at 60 percent of the nearly 26 million population. Victory would allow the Shiites to shrug off decades of oppression by the Sunni Arabs, a powerful minority that had long dominated Iraq. Most Kurds are Sunni, but they are resented by many Arab Sunnis because of their close ties to the Americans and for what are perceived as sucessionist tendencies. Prominent Sunni clerics are calling on supporters to boycott the vote in retaliation for the fighting in Fallujah. A Sunni boycott would greatly undermine the legitimacy of the vote for a 275-member assembly, whose main task will be draft a permanent constitution for Iraq.

The conflicting interests of the Sunnis and Shiites can be seen in the graffiti, banners and posters in Sunni Azamiyah and across the Tigris River in the mainly Shiite district of Kazimiyah. In Azamiyah, graffiti and banners praise Fallujah's insurgents as heroes and denounce the Iraqi National Guard, which some Sunnis call "Allawi's Army" because of the high number of Shiites in its ranks. "Jihad (holy war) is the gift of men," declares one banner.

In Kazimiyah, home to one of Shiism's holiest shrines, Iraqis are urged to register to vote and to take part in the election. "A vote is worth more than gold," read several banners, purportedly quoting Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite cleric who has pushed hard for elections since Saddam's ouster 19 months ago.

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Citation: Hamza Hendawi, "Raid on Mosque Sparks Battles in Baghdad," Associated Press
21 November 2004. Original URL: http://iraq.headliner.org/headliner.php?c=us&id=215048&abbr=ap

Iraqis, GIs Share Uneasy Relationship

Hamza Hendawi
Associated Press
20 November 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - When a hail of bullets hit the car in which Jinan Adnan and her family were riding, she followed her maternal instincts - and paid with her life. Adnan, 37, used her body to shield her three children in the back seat. Her husband and the children survived. She was mortally wounded. Because American soldiers had been in a firefight nearby around the time, it remains unclear if a U.S. bullet killed her, though her husband, Aref Taha, says he saw four American soldiers firing in the car's direction. "That's what Americans do, isn't that so?" Taha said. "They do this all the time in Iraq."

Taha said he did not lodge a complaint with the U.S. military, which had no comment on the alleged incident. It is not clear why American soldiers would fire at a car carrying a family, although similar incidents have taken place when cars failed to stop at checkpoints. The four American soldiers moments earlier had checked the family's car for weapons, Taha said.

But even if it can't be proved that an American bullet killed Adnan, it's the kind of heartbreaking incident that Iraqis routinely blame on U.S. soldiers. Accounts of events such as the Nov. 9 shooting of the Taha family have spread through mosques, coffee shops and markets of this crisis-ridden nation, fueling anger and stoking the insurgency. The credibility Iraqis give to such accounts stems in part from the humiliation felt by many because of the U.S. military presence in Iraq despite the formal end to the occupation on June 28. Many of the stories amount to little more than hearsay or are grossly exaggerated. But some are credible, and they have contributed to an image of American troops as trigger-happy, fond of excessive force and acting with little regard for Iraqi lives.

The recent video of a U.S. Marine shooting a wounded and apparently unarmed Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque, aired frequently by Arab satellite television stations, has only served to reinforce the negative stereotype. "They are criminals," Zaid, Adnan's 15-year-old son, said of the Americans on Friday. His father said he cannot find words to describe his rage at the loss of his wife of 16 years. Making matters worse, U.S. troops surrounded the cemetery in Mahmoudiya, an insurgent-heavy area south of Baghdad, while his wife was being buried on Nov. 10.

Anmar Faleh, who attended the funeral, said the Americans told the 1,000 mourners that they surrounded the cemetery because they believed insurgents killed in a gunfight the previous day were being buried. The U.S. military has investigated virtually every case of unlawful killing or gross abuse by its soldiers in Iraq. Some of these investigations have led to trials and convictions. But Iraqis remain bitter.

Killings are not the only cause of discontent. Other acts that provoke rage include raids of private homes, the detention of women and the perceived humiliation of men in front of women and children. The recent U.S. military campaign to retake the Sunni city of Fallujah has given rise to an entirely new set of dangerous accusations. Residents who fled Fallujah this week speak of U.S. soldiers defacing mosques, destroying minarets to deny insurgents their use as firing positions and causing widespread devastation.

U.S. military commanders say their men operate under difficult circumstances in a country where they don't speak the language, don't share the Islamic faith of most of its people and face the constant threat of attack. Individual American soldiers complain that the rules governing when they can shoot are too restrictive and almost guarantee the insurgents the first shot. Despite the growing insurgent threat, the U.S. military has not stopped making overtures to the local population, distributing toys and school supplies to children and funding thousands of small and medium development projects. "What you have is scared young men and women with the potential to strike hard when faced with any perceived threat," said Marc Garlasco, a former Iraq analyst at the Pentagon who's now with Human Rights Watch, the New York-based rights group.

Garlasco blames some of the unlawful killings of Iraqis by American soldiers on cultural differences as well as the difficulties of identifying threats in populated areas. Adding to the fear and suspicion are methods used by the insurgents: booby-trapping corpses, pretending to surrender and then opening fire and ramming checkpoints with explosives-laden cars or suicide bombers. Nicole Choueiry, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International, says the human rights group has not detected a pattern of such killings by U.S. soldiers, but blames "recklessness" by the Americans for those that come to the attention of the London-based group.

Frank Schaeffer, the American author of the recently published book "Voices from the Front: Letters Home From America's Military Family," says U.S. soldiers in Iraq often long for a meaning for their mission and are eager to do good for Iraqis. "At the least sign of being appreciated by ordinary people in Iraq they are so happy," he wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

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Citation: Hamza Hendawi, "Iraqis, GIs Share Uneasy Relationship," Associated Press, 20 November 2004. Original URL: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20041120/D86FHL4G0.html

On Capitol Hill, Military Warns of Being Under Strain

Esther Schrader
LA Times
18 November 2004

WASHINGTON _ Continued fighting in Iraq is straining U.S. forces nearly to the breaking point, even as the Pentagon pumps more than $5.8 billion per month into sustaining its forces there, the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines told Congress on Wednesday. In testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, the service chiefs said the military would need considerably more money for Iraq over the next year. The chiefs of the Army and Marines in particular stressed the increasing difficulty of recruiting and retaining soldiers, and then equipping them for combat.

"Make no mistake, today we are at war," Gen. Michael W. Hagee, commandant of the Marine Corps, told lawmakers. In the last year, as the insurgency in Iraq has grown, "the demand on the force has increased exponentially," Hagee said. "This demand is especially telling in the strain on our Marines, their families, and on our equipment and materiel stocks."

For the Army, which has 110,000 soldiers serving in Iraq _ five times as many troops as the Marine Corps _ the strain is particularly acute, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker said. Despite racing over the last year to install heavy armor on its fleet of more than 8,000 Humvees in Iraq, it has so far manufactured the armor for only half, he said. And not all of that has been installed on the vehicles. The Army has sent more than 400,000 sets of body armor to its forces in Iraq but needs 373,000 more this year, Schoomaker said. It has equipped soldiers serving in the war with 180,000 sets of top-of-the-line clothing and fighting equipment under an initiative to rapidly equip the forces, but it is short 131,000. The Army is also rushing to provide its troops with 41,600 more radios, 33,500 M-4 carbines and 25,000 machine guns, and to repair thousands of tactical wheeled vehicles, Schoomaker said. "I'm talking about quite a large-scale deal," he told the committee.

Republicans joined Democrats on the committee in expressing dismay about the strain on the forces. Committee Chairman Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon) said the war was "in danger of wearing [the military] out." He added that the unrelenting pace of military operations was "eating up the life span of major equipment, ranging from fighter aircraft to tanks and Humvees." With the Iraq war approaching the two-year mark, Hunter suggested that continuing to fund the overall U.S. military on a peacetime basis _ with periodic "supplemental" war spending _ may no longer be sufficient.

Though equipment costs have been significant, the service chiefs testified, so has the impact on personnel. Recruiters have been forced to offer large signing bonuses to attract new recruits, while the National Guard and Reserve are struggling to retain people.

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Citation: Esther Schrader, "On Capitol Hill, Military Warns of Being Under Strain," LA Times, 18 November 2004. Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fg-troops18nov18,1,4110693.story

Violence Breaks Out All Over Baghdad

Katarina Kratovac
Associated Press
20 November 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq _ Baghdad exploded in violence Saturday, as insurgents attacked a U.S. patrol and a police station, assassinated four government employees and detonated several bombs. One American soldier was killed and nine were wounded during clashes that also left three Iraqi troops and a police officer dead.

Some of the heaviest violence came in Azamiyah, a largely Sunni Arab district of Baghdad where a day earlier U.S. troops raided the capital's main Sunni mosque. Shops were in flames, and a U.S. Humvee burned, with the body of what appeared to be its driver inside. U.S. forces and insurgents also battled in the Sunni Triangle city of Ramadi, where clashes have been seen almost daily. Nine Iraqis were killed and five wounded in Saturday's fighting, hospital officials said. In northern Iraq, U.S. and Iraqi forces uncovered four decapitated bodies as they continued a campaign to crush militants who rose up last week. American and Iraqi forces detained 30 suspected guerrillas overnight in Mosul, the U.S. military said Saturday.

Meanwhile, Germany and the United States reached a deal for forgiving 80 percent of Iraq's foreign debt, capping a months-long U.S. push to lift the country's debt burden as a boost to its economy as it seeks to rebuild and establish a democractic government. The deal will be discussed by the Paris Club of creditor nations, which is owed about $42 billion by Iraq. "Our expectation is that it will be accepted," said Joerg Mueller, a spokesman for the German finance minister. The United States has been pushing for a generous write-off, as much as 95 percent of Iraq's debt. However, other governments, including Germany, have questioned whether a country rich in oil should benefit from huge debt reduction.

The U.S. soldier was killed when his patrol was ambushed in Baghdad early Saturday, coming under a barrage of small arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs, the military said. The statement did not say where the attack occurred, but it came amid clashes in a string of Baghdad neighborhoods.

Insurgents using rocket-propelled grenades and small arms attacked a police station early Saturday in Azamiyah, in the northern part of the city, killing one policeman, according to police officials. Clashes spread in Azamiyah before dawn, with a number of U.S. armored vehicles seen in flames. Footage by Associated Press Television News showed a smashed and burning U.S. Humvee, with what appeared to be the remains of a body in the driver's seat. Smoke rose from burning shops along a commercial street. U.S. helicopters circled overhead and ambulances were driving to the scene of the clashes.

In western Baghdad, heavy fighting broke out Saturday between gunmen and Iraqi National Guards and American troops in the Amiriyah neighborhood, where three National Guardsmen were killed by roadside bombs, said policeman Akram al-Azzawi. Nearby, a roadside bomb exploded as a U.S. patrol passed in the Khadra area, wounding two U.S. troops, according to policeman Ali Hussein of the Khadra police station. The U.S. military had no immediate confirmation.

In downtown Baghdad, a suicide bomber blew up his vehicle just after noon at an intersection on Saadoun Street, a bustling commercial street. One Iraqi civilian was killed and another wounded in the blast, which sent black smoke rising above the city center and set several cars ablaze. And in the western part of the city, gunmen in a car chased down a vehicle carrying employees of the Ministry of Public Works on their way to work Saturday, opened fire and killed four of them, a ministry spokesman said. Amal Abdul-Hameed -- an adviser to the ministry in charge of urban planning -- and three employees from her office were killed, said spokesman Jassim Mohammed Salim.

The spasm of violence came a day after Iraqi forces backed by U.S. soldiers raided the Abu Hanifa mosque -- one of the country's most important Sunni mosques -- as worshippers were leaving after Friday prayers in the Azamiyah neighborhood. The operation appeared to be part of a government crackdown on militant clerics opposed to the U.S.-led attack on Fallujah. Witnesses said at least three people were killed and 40 others arrested. Congregants at the Abu Hanifa mosque said they heard explosions inside the building, apparently from stun grenades. Later, a reporter saw a computer and books, including a Quran, scattered on the floor of the imam's office near overturned furniture. U.S. soldiers were seen inside the mosque compound.

U.S. and Iraqi forces launched an offensive that they say has secured most of Fallujah, hoping to tame the insurgents' strongest bastion ahead of January elections. But many militants are believed to have fled the city to continue attacks elsewhere -- and the operation risks alienating Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, whose participation in elections is seen as key to legitimacy. Insurgents have carried out a wave of violence across Iraq coinciding with the Fallujah offensive. Mosul -- Iraq's third-largest city with more than a million residents about 225 miles north of Baghdad -- has been a center of violence.

Officials were trying to identify the four decapitated bodies found Thursday in the city, said Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, a spokesman for Task Force Olympia. An extremist group, the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, said in a Web statement Saturday that it kidnapped and killed two members of a Kurdish political group in Mosul. It posted a video showing two men being shot. The men wore robes bearing the initials of their group, the Kurdistan Democratic Party. The claim's authenticity could not be verified.

On Friday, a statement posted on an Islamist Web site in the name of Jordanian terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group said it had "slaughtered" two Iraqi National Guard officers "in the presence of a big crowd" in Mosul. The claim included no photos or video and could not be verified. There was no way of knowing immediately whether the decapitated bodies were connected to either claim.

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Citation: Katarina Kratovac, "Violence Breaks Out All Over Baghdad," Associated Press, 20 November 2004. Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/ats-ap_intl10nov20,1,2273448.story?coll=sns-ap-topinternational

Chaos in Iraq Imperils Voting

Esther Schrader and Mark Mazzetti
LA Times
20 November 2004

WASHINGTON -- Despite the recent U.S. offensive to wrest Fallouja from militants, security in many Sunni Muslim-dominated areas of Iraq has worsened, thwarting reconstruction efforts and threatening planned January elections, U.S. officials said Friday.

Security in the so-called Sunni Triangle, as well as the northern city of Mosul, is poorer than it was six weeks ago, said William Taylor, director of the reconstruction office at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. "We're worried that in some areas _ again, not all, in some areas _ it would now be difficult to have elections," Taylor said, adding that it was critical to speed reconstruction so that elections could take place. Launching more recovery projects is considered vital to winning Iraqi support for the elections as well as the U.S. presence in Iraq.

On Friday, a top U.S. commander in Iraq said insurgents continued to operate in many areas and their attacks could imperil the legitimacy of the elections, scheduled for Jan. 27. "I will tell you that the intimidation campaign that is ongoing is very effective," said Air Force Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, deputy commander of U.S. Central Command. "And we see it permeates many levels of the Iraqi government and the Iraqi security forces."
Smith refused to endorse comments made a day earlier by the Marine commander in Iraq, who said the U.S. offensive in Fallouja had "broken the back" of the insurgency. As long as guerrillas retained the power to intimidate, Smith said, they remained an effective force. "It's that part that we have got to be able to handle and take that away from [insurgents], so that people can freely get out _ to vote and not go back and expect their families to be killed just because they go out and vote," said Smith, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon.

On Thursday, Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, offered a more upbeat assessment. "We feel right now that we have, as I mentioned, broken the back of the insurgency," he said at an American base outside Fallouja. "We've taken away this safe haven." But the remarks by Smith and Taylor were an acknowledgment that U.S. and Iraqi officials have major obstacles to overcome before meaningful reconstruction and elections can be achieved. In cities such as Baghdad, Fallouja, Ramadi, Samarra and Mosul, security "is worse today than it was, and we are having greater difficulties" than six weeks ago, said Taylor, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon from Baghdad.

Taylor added that reconstruction was proceeding "without much difficulty" in northeastern and southern Iraq. But rebuilding Fallouja is also considered crucial to U.S. and Iraqi plans to hold elections. Fallouja was left in ruins in the all-out attack by U.S. and Iraqi forces that began Nov. 8. The U.S. is planning to spend $100 million to rebuild the town, which had been considered a key trouble spot since a March 31 mob attack on four U.S. contractors, whose bodies were mutilated and hung from a bridge.

Fallouja was believed to be the base for Jordanian militant Abu Musab Zarqawi, suspected of carrying out beheadings of hostages and attacks on Iraqi and U.S. targets. Taylor said rebuilding teams were still waiting for the military offensive in Fallouja to end. "Within a week or two _ again, depending on when the city is cleared of people opposing what we're trying to do _ we ought to be able to get the first of these small projects going," he said. He said $8 million in U.S. and Iraqi funds was earmarked for water supply improvements in Fallouja and $4 million for the construction of four schools.

Charles Hess, director of reconstruction contracting in Iraq, appeared with Taylor and said that although "security is still a serious concern" in Fallouja and elsewhere, U.S. officials believe they can overcome it. "One of our mechanisms to deal with that, frankly, is to start as many projects as we can, given the fact that we know the insurgents can't be everywhere," Hess said. "Consequently, the more projects we start, we are moving Iraqis out, we're getting them employed, they are doing meaningful labor, they're restoring their country. And, in and of itself, that is a very positive and powerful thing we want to accomplish."

Hess and Taylor said that particularly troubling was the sabotage of the oil industry, which is essential to the Iraqi economy. "The minister of oil is very concerned about _ the security of people repairing oil lines and intimidating truck drivers," Taylor said.

Since President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1, 2003, American officials have been frustrated with their inability to launch and finish reconstruction projects. Of $18.4 billion in reconstruction funds allocated by Congress last year, only $1.7 billion had been spent, Hess said, an increase of about $400 million from six weeks ago. He said 873 construction projects have been started, up from 703 at that time. The goal is to have 1,000 started by year's end.

However, military officials expect the surge of violence through central Iraq to continue at least through the January elections. To counter the violence, commanders are planning to delay the return of some U.S. troops, increasing the number who will provide security when Iraqis go to the polls. "We are intent on trying to provide a secure and stable enough situation to be able to conduct nationwide elections in January," Smith said. "I will not pretend that that's not a challenge at this stage, but we will continue along those lines."

There are 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and Smith said the number could rise by about 5,000 before the elections. The bulk of the increase would come from extending to a year the tours of U.S. troops who had been scheduled to leave Iraq after 10 months.

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Citation: Esther Schrader and Mark Mazzetti, "Chaos in Iraq Imperils Voting," LA Times, 20 November 2004. Original URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-rebuild20nov20,0,7493297.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Resistance looks beyond Fallujah

Syed Saleem Shahzad
Asia Times
19 November 2004

KARACHI - US military superiority has prevailed in Fallujah, but it is certainly not a knockout blow to the insurgency, which will continue its resistance, at the same time working for the establishment of a political movement involving exiles in Arab and non-Arab nations for the liberation of Iraq from foreign domination. In the meantime, according to Asia Times Online information gained from Iraq, the resistance will continue on its present course of limited engagements with US forces in as many different places as possible. Already serious unrest has spread to al-Anbar, Mosul, Samarra, Tikrit, Tamim, Baghdad, Babil and other places.

Command and control of a guerrilla war was mapped out well before the invasion of the country last year. By February 2003, about 35,000 Fedayeen (the paramilitary "men of sacrifice" of Saddam Hussein) had been trained for urban warfare. And Saddam also restored ties with Salafi-based Islamic seminaries in Fallujah, Islamic Sufi groups in Tamim, and coordinated a strategy under which these groups agreed to coordinate with Ba'ath Party security committees.

A key element of the resistance was that officially trained Iraqi militias and Ba'ath Party members would not themselves commit to full battle. They recruited civilians, who were given training and equipped with arms and ammunition. These latter forces, mostly religiously motivated zealots, were the cannon fodder. This was amply illustrated in Fallujah, where the leaders and "professional" soldiers had left long before the US assault on the city began.

The fleeing guerrillas took refuge in other parts of al-Anbar province in which Fallujah is located, while their colleagues in al-Tamim, Baquba and Mosul carried out organized attacks. In Mosul, the Iraqi resistance took control of the city for a time and then melted away. The strategy is aimed at spreading US forces and demoralizing the Iraqi troops which fight with them - there have been reports of widespread desertions.

Political battlefield

A number of important Ba'ath Party members were assigned to Iraqi intelligence missions abroad during Saddam's time. After the US occupation of Iraq these Ba'athists mostly took refuge in Syria, where they at present form a strong political movement. Similar groups are believed to exist in Egypt, Sudan, Russia, China, France and Libya. Their aim is to organize themselves into some form of a "government in exile".

The Iraqi Ba'ath Party and the Syrian Ba'ath Party have a long history of differences that badly dented the pan-Arab dream of a united Arab republic comprising Iraq, Egypt and Syria, as well as liberated Palestine. However, well before the war, Saddam resolved many differences with Syria and the government there strongly opposed the US attack on Iraq. But under immense US pressure, Syria was not in a position to support the Iraqi resistance. Nevertheless, a second tier of the Ba'ath Party in Syria is strongly in support of the Iraqi resistance, so they have given shelter to their Iraqi counterparts.

A significant development in the Iraqi resistance is their Arab-language websites, which release photographs and information on the resistance on a daily basis. Clearly organized groups are behind these sites, for as soon as one website is shut down, another springs up.

Facing reality

In another development, Iraqi Minister of the Interior Faleh Hassan al-Naqib, speaking at a press conference, accepted some ground realities never before admitted by the US administration or even al-Naqib's US-installed interim government. The minister accepted that the resistance is not a scattering of Islamic groups, but rather an organized and very well-coordinated movement with a command structure. He also admitted that it is an indigenous movement, with only 4-6% foreigners. And unlike frequent US claims that Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his group members are kingpins, he accepted that the resistance comprises mostly Saddam loyalists.

Al-Naqib also conceded that the insurgency had developed some form of political leadership operating from Syria. He named the principal coordinator as Mohammed Yunus Ahmad, a former Ba'ath Party security official.

Tribal influences

An important dynamic of the resistance is the role of tribal society. It is a rule in all Iraqi tribal societies that decisions are unified and never defied by individual members of the tribe. This nationalist trend goes beyond Shi'ite and Sunni differences - at present, all Arab-origin Shi'ite clerics from Baghdad, including Muqtada al-Sadr, have raised their voice in favor of the resistance, and Muqtada has suspended his support for the scheduled January elections.

In the south, marshland Bedouin tribes, where the Ba'ath Party was very strong, have also started sporadic attacks on British troops. Groups that remain excluded from the resistance include those in the provinces of al-Karbala and Najaf, where Arab tribal traditions are weak because of the strong dominance of people of Indian and Iranian origin.

Syed Saleem Shahzadis Bureau Chief, Pakistan, Asia Times Online.

Citation: Syed Saleem Shahzad, "Resistance looks beyond Fallujah," Asia Times, 19 November 2004. Original URL: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FK19Ak01.html

Escape from Fallujah: refugees flood nearby towns

Kim Sengupta
The Independent
18 November 2004

While United States forces mount the final military operations to pacify Fallujah, the people of the devastated city have taken refuge in outlying towns, many of them huddled in misery, without adequate food, water, medicine and shelter. More than 80 per cent of the population of 300,000 are living in nearby towns or in Baghdad. The US military has barred aid convoys from Fallujah, insisting they have enough resources to look after the remaining civilians. But the few who have ventured to the distribution centres risk getting caught in crossfire.

Aid organisations say 102,000 Fallujah refugees are in Amiriyah, 50,000 are in Baghdad; about 21,600 are in Karma, 18,000 are in Nieamiyah and 12,000 are in Habbaniyah. Unicef and the aid groups say Amiriyah, an industrial centre, suffers from a serious lack of shelter, and Habbaniyah, formerly a tourist resort, has a severe shortage of clean water. It is also the place most difficult to get to because of the threat from insurgents.

Iyad Allawi, Iraq's interim Prime Minister, has accused the Iraqi Red Crescent of deliberately painting a bleak picture and claimed that several of its senior officials had held posts under Saddam. The organisation, as well as other agencies, is deeply apprehensive of making statements lest it provokes the government into further curtailing agencies' activities.

General Abdul Qadir Mohan, the commander of the Iraqi government forces for the Fallujah assault, said refugee conditions are worsening, particularly in Habbaniyah. "In some cases, there are seven families living in one room and sometimes 300 people have to wait in line to use the toilet. Many are already suffering from diseases. It is a holy duty to return these people home."

Bilal Hussein, a 33-year-old photographer for Associated Press, who escaped the city during the fighting, said: "I decided to swim the river. But I changed my mind after seeing US helicopters firing and killing people who tried to cross. I saw a family of five shot dead. I helped bury a man by the river bank with my own hands." Mr Hussein had planned to stay in Fallujah to cover the fighting. But he said he fled after feeling he was in grave danger. "US soldiers began to open fire on the houses, so I decided it was very dangerous to stay," he said. "Destruction was everywhere. I saw people dead in the streets, the wounded were bleeding and there was no one to help them."

Fayouz Mohammed Abdullah, a 42-year-old trader, had sent his wife and four children out of Fallujah just before the attack. He had stayed to protect his home, not just from the fighting, but the looting he thought would inevitably follow. He managed to get away just as US troops overran his neighbourhood in the north of the city, and is now with his family in Habbaniyah.

Mr Abdullah said by telephone: "I came out with my hands up and holding a white pillow case. The main danger came from Iraqi [government] soldiers. Two of them wanted to shoot me, and I must say it was an American who stopped them. They talked about arresting me, and I was made to sit against a wall with my head between my knees. But then there was more firing and they went away somewhere. "I walked out of Fallujah. There was firing everywhere, but by Allah's will I was not hit. Outside the city there was a bus with women and I got on that. The Americans did not stop us and we got to Habbaniyah. We have relations here and we have somewhere to stay. But everything is in bad supply. There is not enough food. What little food we have, we give to our children. I am also worried that when we go back to Fallujah there will be nothing left of our home."

Ahmed Ali Safah, a teacher, arrived at Habbaniyah with his family before the assault. "We heard the Americans were saying it was the last chance we had to leave. So we came with just a few suitcases; we left everything behind. We are staying in a house with three other families and there must be 30 people here. The children are being sick but there is no medicine. Trucks [from the Red Crescent] came here with blankets and food. They also had tablets for bad water, but they had all finished by the time we got to the trucks."

Umm Haider lost her husband in the Iraq-Iran war. She said: "I left four of my sons behind. They had said they would join me here if the situation became worse. I do not know how much worse it can get."

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Citation: Kim Sengupta, "Escape from Fallujah: refugees flood nearby towns," The Independent, 18 November 2004. Original URL: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=584025

So Far November Ranks 2nd in US Deaths in Iraq

Robert Burns
Associated Press
17 November 2004

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. deaths in Iraq this month are approaching 100, making it the second-deadliest month since American forces invaded the country in March 2003, Pentagon records show.

The worst month was last April, with 135 deaths, when the insurgency intensified and U.S. Marines fought fierce battles in Fallujah, only to be withdrawn from the city. That was part of a failed attempt to put the now-defunct Fallujah Brigade of U.S. and allied Iraqi forces in charge. Until now the second-deadliest month was November 2003 with 82 deaths, and 80 Americans died in May and September this year.

The rising death toll coincides with U.S. military commanders' efforts to pacify areas of Iraq that need to be brought under Iraqi government control before elections scheduled for late January. It also reflects an escalation of attacks by the insurgents, although some U.S. commanders say they believe this may be a last-gasp effort by rebel forces outmatched by U.S. firepower. It is difficult to gauge the effect of the growing death toll on U.S. troop morale. Commanders say their men and women are holding up well, although they caution that more hard fighting lies ahead.

Most of the deaths this month have been in the Fallujah offensive that began Nov. 7. Many Marines and soldiers also have been killed in Ramadi and other cities in Anbar province west of Baghdad, as well as in Mosul in the north, Babil province south of Baghdad and in and around the Iraqi capital.

Support troops also have been killed along supply routes. On Tuesday, for example, a soldier assigned to the Army's 13th Corps Support Command was killed and another was wounded when a roadside bomb struck their supply convoy near Qayarrah West Airfield in northern Iraq.

A Marine officer said Monday that 37 Marines and soldiers had been killed in the Fallujah offensive, plus one nonbattle death. He said 320 had been wounded. American estimates of the number of insurgents killed in the offensive range from about 1,000 to about 1,200. An exact and fully current count of U.S. deaths is difficult to obtain because of time lags between the military's initial reporting of attacks and the subsequent identification of the individual casualties.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the deputy director of plans for U.S. Central Command, said Tuesday that enough of the insurgency's leaders probably got out of Fallujah to keep the violence flaring elsewhere. "What we primarily captured, we suspect, are not the high-level leadership nor the facilitators but really the common foot soldiers, and we would expect that the foreign fighters that didn't fight to the death are probably moving out to start the fight somewhere else (in Iraq)," Kimmitt said in an interview with AP Radio from Central Command offices in Tampa, Fla.

As of Tuesday the Pentagon said 1,210 U.S. service members have died in Iraq since the conflict began 20 months ago. At the beginning of November the Pentagon count stood at 1,119, and it rose rapidly as the Fallujah fighting intensified and insurgents struck back in other cities and towns. Because of the heavy fighting in Fallujah and the insurgents' apparent attempts to respond with stepped-up attacks elsewhere, this month also is seeing one of the highest wounded totals. The number of wounded jumped by nearly 500 this week, according to Pentagon figures released Tuesday.

Since the start of the war, 8,956 U.S. service members have been wounded, of which nearly 5,000 were serious enough to prevent them from returning to duty. At the start of the month the total was 8,287. Of the 91 or more U.S. deaths so far this month, it appears most were Marines. The 1st Marine Expeditionary Force led the charge into Fallujah and did much of the house-to-house fighting. Elements of the Army's 1st Cavalry Division and 1st Infantry Division also participated, along with Air Force attack jets and gunships and several battalions of U.S.-trained Iraqi troops.

The Pentagon has not yet released names and service affiliation for all the casualties reported this month, so it is impossible to tally the exact number of Marines who've been killed. Of the first 71 deaths for which identifications were announced, 48 were Marines. Twenty-one were with the Army, and the Navy and Air Force each had one fatality.

The 48 Marine deaths, halfway through November, are the most for any full month during the war except for last April when the corps lost 52 Marines. None of the 48 Marines was older than 29, and most were in their early 20s. Six of the Marines were 19 years old.

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Citation:

Robert Burns, "November Ranks 2nd in US Deaths in Iraq," Associated Press, 17 November 2004. Original URL: http://iraq.headliner.org/headliner.php?c=us&id=213732&abbr=ap