Home » Archives » "Fragmented leadership of the Iraqi insurgency"

Fragmented leadership of the Iraqi insurgency

Dec-20-2004 » Filed Under: Iraq News

Mosul is mentioned throughout the following article.

Link to Full Article
By Annia Ciezadlo, The Christian Science Monitor

SULAYMANIYAH, IRAQ – For six weeks, the US military pounded Fallujah in an effort to crush the core of Iraq's insurgency - and kill or capture its putative leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

But two top Kurdish intelligence officers say that even before the campaign destroyed that base, insurgents were scattering, evolving into dozens of small cells determined - and empowered - to disrupt security ahead of the country's national elections Jan. 30, with or without Mr. Zarqawi. [...]

Those who know better - two top security and intelligence officials - say he is just as likely to be spending time in and around Iraq's third-largest city, Mosul, as in Fallujah.

The two top officials are Mr. Majid, and Sadi Ahmed Pire, the head of security for the PUK's Mosul office. According to them, Zarqawi is traveling frequently around the region, slipping in and out of the country as he chooses.

"Who says Zarqawi was ever in Fallujah," says Majid, smiling enigmatically. "He's a person who can move around any number of Iraqi areas. He can change his appearance. He can change his papers. He can move around freely. Zarqawi is a single man, and it's always extremely difficult to capture a single person." [...]

One of the insurgency's main strongholds is the triangle just south of Mosul, in northern Iraq.

Historically a key crossroad on the ancient Silk Road, Mosul today is where the different strains of Iraq's insurgency come together: Veteran Afghan-era jihadis meet new recruits from places like Chechnya and Yemen, and hardcore Islamic militants meet Baath Party cadres.

Mosul was relatively stable until April and May of 2004, when former top Baath Party officials held a summit in the Syrian town of Al Hasaka. At that meeting, according to intelligence sources, the party reorganized itself, expelling anyone who had flirted with the US, international aid groups, or the Iraqi Governing Council. [...]

Mosul was the natural meeting place for the newly resurgent Baath Party. The former headquarters of the Iraqi Army Fifth Corps, it was still full of former solders and officers.

According to intelligence sources, the new leaders are Mohammed Younis al-Ahmad, a former top aide to Hussein, and Ibrahim Sabawi, Hussein's half-brother and former security director. The US is offering a $1 million reward for information leading to Mr. Al-Ahmad.

Because Mosul was taken over without any fighting in the original US invasion in 2003, the Baath Party structure was preserved intact. After the war, insurgents were able to meld with the old Baath institutions. "The insurgents are using the infrastructure of the old Iraqi army," says Mr. Pire. "They used the forests for training and hiding themselves, on both sides of the Tigris.... They have a good base of support inside Mosul."


Advertisements