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Mosul's militants fight mostly from shadows

Nov-28-2004 » Filed Under: 1/25 SBCT

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By C. Mark Brinkley, Army Times

MOSUL, Iraq — These days, the violence in Iraq's third-largest city is more like The Sopranos than Black Hawk Down.

About 40 dead bodies turned up across Mosul last week. Most of them had been bound and shot in the head in hit-man fashion, then left in public for local residents to see. Nearly a dozen of the dead were identified as members of Iraq's fragile security forces. Some of the others were contract workers for the U.S.-led coalition. Many are still unidentified.

The message from insurgents to the public was simple: We're here, and we're watching.

An ethnically diverse city of about 1.7 million in Iraq's mostly peaceful north, Mosul has steadily grown more violent. On Nov. 11, as U.S. and Iraqi government forces were fighting insurgents in Fallujah, militants in Mosul attacked police stations. The insurgents were pushed back, but most of the city's 4,000 police officers retreated.

The violence came amid new concerns that the organization of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may now be operating in Mosul. Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for numerous kidnappings, hostage beheadings and large bomb attacks in Iraq.

A statement posted on an Islamist Web site in the name of Zarqawi's group, al-Qaeda in Iraq, claimed responsibility for killing 17 Iraqi security officers and a Kurdish militiaman in Mosul, the Associated Press reported Sunday.

Insurgents in Mosul generally don't confront U.S. or Iraqi government forces directly. Instead, they are pursuing a campaign of assassinations and terror. It's a shadowy war that U.S. military officers say is difficult to fight.

"This is not easy, but progress is being made, especially by the special police," says Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, a military spokesman, referring to Iraqi security forces.

Good intelligence is even more important than firepower in fighting this type of insurgency. Insurgents intimidate the population, and it's not always easy for U.S. and Iraqi government forces to provide the kind of protection that would make civilians feel safe coming forward with tips.


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