Beyond Baghdad, Beyond 'The Surge,' War Still Simmers

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
February 25, 2007
Pg. WK4

By Marc Santora
SAMARRA, Iraq--THE letter from Al Qaeda in Iraq to the members of the local police was clear.
Come to the mosque and swear allegiance on the Koran to Al Qaeda, the letter warned, or you will die and your family will be slaughtered. Also, bring $1,200.
It had the desired effect on American efforts to build an Iraqi security force here.
Nearly a third of the local police force went to the mosque, paid the money and pledged their allegiance. Another third was killed. By late October, only 34 local police officers were left to try to maintain order in this city of 100,000.
Events in Baghdad have dominated the news as American troops move aggressively to quell the sectarian violence that has set Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods at war with each other. But a visit to this restive city is a reminder not only of the many fronts of the war, but also of its many complexities.
While sectarian warfare dominates Baghdad, and southern Shiite cities like Basra contend with criminal gangs and tribal violence as splinter groups compete for power, a different dynamic is at work in this predominately Sunni city on the Tigris River between Baghdad and Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein.
Samarra, 65 miles north of Baghdad, is home to the Mosque of the Golden Dome, one Iraq’s most sacred Shiite shrines. A year ago, Sunni insurgents bombed the mosque, ripping a hole in the dome and unleashing sectarian violence in the country.
Even so, there has been little of the sectarian violence here that has engulfed Baghdad, where scores of tortured bodies turn up every day and suicide bombers claim dozens in attacks directed at civilians.
Here, and in other cities to the north and west of Baghdad, where Shiites are a distinct minority, Sunni militants continue to wage war on Americans and terrorize the civilian population into submission.
The coordinated attack on an American combat outpost north of Baghdad on Monday by Sunni militants, which left two soldiers dead and some 30 wounded, is an example of the kind of stepped-up attacks the American military fears could become more common.
Lt. Col. Viet X. Luong, the commander of the 2nd Battalion of the 505th Parachute Regiment in the 82nd Airborne Division, said he was seeing an increase in militant activity to the south of Samarra. That, he said, is partially a result of the Americans’ successes in the city, but also likely the result of Sunni militants moving out of Baghdad to escape the American offensive there.
“We are getting attacked between the seams,” he said.
Over the past five months, his soldiers in the city have conducted more than 1,000 raids, been attacked by improvised explosive devices 69 times and come under direct fire attack at least 85 times, the colonel said.
There are at least two different forces here battling the Americans: the Islamic Army of Iraq, a homegrown militant group made up largely of former Baathists, and Al Qaeda in Iraq, which is aided and sometimes directed by foreign fighters.
Some members of the Islamic Army of Iraq, the main Sunni militant group here, said in interviews that they were pressing Al Qaeda to focus on Shiite militias and not the Americans, whom they see as a temporary buffer in their fight against the Shiites.
Local residents say that Al Qaeda is so bold as to even run a training camp within the city, managing to avoid the American patrols and intimidating the local population through murder and kidnapping.
American soldiers were supposed to pull out of Samarra by March, but the Iraqi security forces are still nowhere near ready to take charge. Colonel Luong says it will likely be another 6 to 12 months before the Iraqis could hope to stand on their own.
The risks of pulling out too soon have already been demonstrated. Twice in the past four years, the city has fallen to militants. And twice, it took major American offensives to reclaim the city.
Even now, many consider it unsafe. “No judge can come to Samarra because he will be killed,” said Lt. Col. Abdul Jalil Hanni, the commander of the local police force, which now numbers 114. Many new recruits come from Sunni cities farther north.
There are another 201 National Police officers in the city, but nearly 70 percent of them are Shiite, presenting a host of additional complications in this Sunni city. While their commander is Sunni, residents interviewed over the past two weeks said they did not have the slightest faith in them. The Iraqi Army does not patrol in the city.
Capt. Buddy Ferris, who leads Company C at a small outpost on the edge of the city, said that if Americans left tomorrow, the effect on Iraqi security forces would be like “sudden infant death syndrome.”
Captain Ferris and his soldiers see the problems clearly, but the company is proud of its achievements, like bringing the police force back from near collapse.
In six months, the company has established a network of local informants and recently captured a Qaeda member who was sent to Guantánamo because of his connections to suspected terrorists outside Iraq. Captain Ferris acknowledges they have not yet won the loyalty of the population but says he thinks they have a strong leader in Colonel Jalil, whose son, Hassan 18, was assassinated by militants.
Colonel Jalil, whose camouflage uniform covered the scar of a bullet wound in his right arm, says the Americans are too soft. “They do not let me slap them,” he said of the militants, in an interview. A former officer in Saddam Hussein’s feared Mukhabarat, the colonel talked about how he would like to have a free rein to beat prisoners and kill them without trials if they are guilty.
As he spoke, a television in the corner of his office was showing the movie “Annie.” The little orphan was singing, “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow.”
An Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed reporting.
 
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