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SULAIMANIYA, Iraq, Feb. 21 - Radical Islamist
groups that originated in Iraqi Kurdistan are
responsible for most of the attacks now taking place
in the northern insurgent stronghold of Mosul,
senior Kurdish officials say.
The activities of the related jihadist groups, Ansar
al-Sunna and Ansar al-Islam, have overshadowed those
of the nationalist insurgent cells in Mosul led by
members of the former ruling Baath Party, the
officials say. The nationalist fighters have quieted
down since December, when the Americans increased
the number of troops in Mosul to clamp down on the
insurgency in advance of the Jan. 30 elections, the
Kurdish officials say.
Though the two Ansar groups have little connection
to the Baathists, the officials add, they are
forging strong ties to the network of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
the Jordanian militant who has claimed
responsibility for bombings, beheadings and ambushes
that have killed hundreds across Iraq.
"Smaller cells have spread throughout Iraq and have
concentrated in Mosul," said Bafel Jalal Talabani,
the head of a counter-insurgency wing of the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Kurdish party that
rules eastern Iraq Kurdistan. "It needs to be
controlled because it has the capacity to spiral and
grow."
Mr. Talabani is one of two sons of Jalal Talabani,
the head of the party and the leading candidate for
president of the new Iraq. The counter-insurgency
group is a branch of the party's militia, called the
pesh merga, and was founded about four years ago to
combat Ansar al-Islam. At that time, Ansar al-Islam,
made up of mostly of hard-line Islamist Kurds, had
established a stronghold along the rugged Iranian
border several hours north of Sulaimaniya, the
capital of eastern Kurdistan.
In March 2003, after the American-led invasion of
Iraq got underway, pesh merga fighters and American
Special Forces soldiers stormed the mountain
villages held by Ansar al-Islam and broke up the
group.
Some members later reorganized to form Ansar al-Sunna,
which recruited fighters from conservative Sunni
Arab cities like Falluja and Ramadi.
It was thought the parent organization, Ansar
al-Islam, had been fractured or crippled. Mr.
Talabani, though, said Ansar was regrouping and able
to carry out attacks in Mosul.
"The nature of the threat has changed," he said.
"Instead of military operations, they carry out
smaller operations."
Mr. Talabani declined to specify what operations
Ansar al-Islam might have conducted in Mosul, but
said the group was responsible for an entire range
of attacks seen in the city, from detonating
roadside bombs to seizing police stations. The group
paled next to Ansar al-Sunna, though, which has
grown tremendously since it was founded, he said.
The American military said today that an American
soldier was killed by small-arms fire in an attack
in Mosul last Saturday afternoon. That was the same
day that Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, commander of Task
Force Freedom, took over operations in the area of
Mosul from Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of Task
Force Olympia. The soldier killed was under General
Bergner's command.
Members of the command staff of Task Force Freedom
belong to the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, based
in Fort Erwin, Calif.
The American military also said today that a tip
from an Iraqi citizen led to the capture on Sunday
of a suspected foreign insurgent in central Mosul.
The man, found with an Egyptian identification card
on his body, is suspected of being a bomb maker and
tested positive for explosive residue on his hands,
the military said in a written statement.
Mosul, a city of nearly two million and the third
largest in Iraq, is in a precarious situation.
Virtually the entire police force quit in November,
when insurgents overran police stations across the
city and seized weapons, body armor and squad cars.
The governor of Ninevah Province, whose capital is
Mosul, was forced to call in two Kurdish battalions
of the Iraqi National Guard to help put down the
uprising.
The Americans and Iraqi government have been trying
to rebuild the decimated security forces ever since.
In December, insurgents killed about 150 people in
Mosul, most of them Kurdish fighters, said Sadi
Ahmed Pire, the head of the Mosul office of the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Kurds live mostly in
the east of Mosul, while many Sunni Arabs - the
group most hostile to the Americans and the Iraqi
government - occupy the western half. Small groups
of Assyrian Christians, Turkmen and others are
scattered throughout the city.
Senior American officers, including General Ham,
have said repeatedly that they believe high-ranking
Baathists are behind most of the attacks in Mosul.
The city was a training ground for senior officials
who swelled the ranks of Saddam Hussein's military
and security forces.
But Mr. Pire said that Baathist activity has been on
the decline since the Americans increased their
troop presence by several thousand and since the
arrival of the additional Kurdish battalions.
As many as 65 people were killed in fighting in
January, most of them insurgents, Mr. Pire
estimated. On Jan. 30, the day of the elections,
insurgents detonated a roadside bomb by the convoy
of the deputy governor, Khasro Goran, killing one of
his guards.
Mr. Talabani, the head of the Kurdish
counter-insurgency group, said that at this point,
the working relationship between Baathists and
jihadists was "very negligible."
"I don't think the Baathists are nearly as active,"
he said. "They're much less likely to blow
themselves up in terms of jihad."
http://www.nytimes.com
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