[Shadow_Group] Killings in northern Iraq confound U.S. forces

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

!!! TERRORISM (on all sides) IS DISGUSTING AND I HATE
ALL OF IT !!!

I cry for our soldiers and all who suffer trying to
help the Iraqis get a good foothold in democracy, but
anyone who knows the situation in Iraq between the
Kurds and the Sunnis and the Shi'ites and knows
anything about nation building knows that this is just
the beginning and a vote ain't gonna really solve
anything.

I'll try to find some articles about it all. But
consider one thing. The richest oilfields in Iraq are
where the Kurd's (these are the folks Saddam gased in
1987 if I remember correctly) are the most plentiful
and there has been talk and rumours that if they don't
like the constitution and government they may try to
seceed from Iraq and form their own country.

The problem with this is Turkey would not like this at
all and there is a real good possibility of war
breaking out between them.

I'm off a huntin' for some more Iraq 101 stuff...
===========
Monday November 29, 8:48 PM
Killings in northern Iraq confound U.S. forces
By Luke Baker 

FROM: http://in.news.yahoo.com/041129/137/2i694.html<http://in.news.yahoo.com/041129/137/2i694.html>
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Some have been chopped up and
dumped by the side of the road, others shot through
the head and piled in a cemetery, victims of a
campaign of killings U.S. forces are struggling to
contain. 

For the past two weeks, insurgents in the northern
city of Mosul have been steadily eliminating members
of Iraq's security forces and civilians. 

It is not clear what the killers' objective is --
apart from to strike fear into the public and the
fledgling security authorities ahead of elections at
the end of January. 

By creating a climate of fear, the insurgents seem to
hope Iraqis will be too scared to cast their votes and
the election will lose its legitimacy. In that
respect, the campaign of intimidation in Mosul may be
a test case for the rest of Iraq. 

In all more than 50 bodies have been found since Nov.
15, mostly on the more violent western side of Mosul,
which sits on the Tigris river 390 km north of
Baghdad. 

Around two dozen have been identified as members of
the Iraqi National Guard or Iraqi army, while others
are believed to be civilians who may have worked with
U.S. forces or for the U.S.-backed Iraqi authorities. 

"What is happening in Mosul is a campaign of
intimidation," Air Force Brigadier General Erv Lessel,
the deputy director of operations in Iraq, told
Reuters in Baghdad on Sunday. 

"Intimidation of the security forces, intimidation of
the people to drive them away from support of the
government and potentially disrupt elections." 

A group linked to Jordanian militant Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, the most hunted man in Iraq, has claimed
responsibility for many of the killings, including the
deaths of 17 people in the past three days, all of
them Iraqi security personnel. 

In a statement posted on the Internet, the group,
calling itself Al Qaeda Organisation of Holy War in
Iraq, said it had killed 14 members of the Iraqi
National Guard and three members of a specialist rapid
reaction force since Nov. 25. 

The authenticity of the statement, posted on Sunday,
could not immediately be verified. But the U.S.
military believes Zarqawi and many of his followers
probably fled Falluja, west of Baghdad, ahead of a
U.S. offensive there earlier this month and may now be
hiding out in cities like Mosul. 

In the wake of the Falluja offensive there was a surge
in insurgent-related violence throughout Sunni Muslim
areas of Iraq, particularly Mosul. 

In a two-day rampage on Nov. 10-11, rebels overran
dozens of Mosul's police stations, looted them of
weapons and then torched or blew up many of them.
Police were threatened ahead of the assault and fled,
with 3,200 of the 4,000 force deserting in a day. 


ZARQAWI LINK? 

Days later, U.S. forces made their first gruesome
discovery -- at least four dismembered and mutilated
bodies dumped by the side of a busy road in Mosul's
northeast, in full view of passers-by. 

The nature of the killings, particularly the
dismemberment, put U.S. intelligence officers in mind
of the decapitation of hostages taken by Zarqawi and
his followers over recent months. There was no hard
evidence, but there appeared to be a link. 

Zarqawi's group later claimed credit for the murders,
saying it had killed the people in a busy public
square near a mosque. 

Since the rebels rampaged through Mosul on Nov. 10-11,
U.S. and Iraqi forces have hit back. In a series of
raids on Nov. 27 they detained 43 people suspected of
insurgent activity. But they appear no closer to
halting the killings. 

The sense of fear created by the killings has spread. 

At one U.S. base, more than 50 Iraqis employed as
kitchen and laundry workers, builders and cleaners,
stopped coming to work. Similar desertions occurred at
other camps. "They're scared and you can see why,"
said one U.S. officer. 

The biggest concern now is that the climate of fear
will persist and darken as the Jan. 30 elections near.
The desertion of 80 percent of Mosul's police force
has already created problems that can't be resolved
before election day. 

"The Iraqi police, by design, were the cornerstone of
security for the elections," Brigadier General Carter
Ham, commander of U.S. forces in and around Mosul,
told BBC Radio. 

"Without the numbers of Iraqi police that we would
like to have, it significantly increases the level of
difficulty of establishing the environment that we
need for elections."



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