[Shadow_Group] Iraqi Insurgents Loot Thousands of Police Uniforms

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/11/19/uuniforms.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/11/19/ixportaltop.ht

The Telegraph (London)
"We are in a various, precarious security
environment."

Insurgents Loot Police Uniforms
(Filed: 19/11/2004)

Insurgents have acquired thousands of police uniforms
after officers deserted their posts when rebels
attacked stations in Mosul.

About 3,200 of the Iraqi town's 4,000 police officers
dropped their weapons and ran off, intimidated into
submission by groups of armed insurgents during a
48-hour period, it has emerged.

American-led troops will now potentially face rebels
wearing police uniforms making it extremely difficult
to distinguish them from policemen.

At least seven police stations were overrun and looted
of their weapons, radios, uniforms and vehicles,
before being set ablaze or, in at least one case,
destroyed by dynamite.

Lt Col Michael Gibler, commander of the 3-21 Infantry
Battalion, based in Mosul, said: "We are in a various,
precarious security environment."

US troops found headless and dismembered bodies near
one police station, while the group led by Jordanian
al -Qa'eda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi made an
unconfirmed claim that it beheaded two national guard
officers in public in Mosul yesterday.

The police chief on duty when the mass desertion
occurred on Nov. 10-11 has been fired and a new chief
drafted in. He is now carrying out an audit of the
remaining 800 or so police to assess who is really
loyal and who is a potential deserter.

The police force was set up by US authorities last
year and promoted as a symbol of the new Iraq. The
police were supposed to be the backbone of Iraq's new
security forces, reinforced by the national guard and
the army. 





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