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When the 3,000 men of
the mainly Kurdish 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Division
of the Iraqi Army go on patrol it is at night, after
the rigorously enforced curfew starts at 8pm. Their
vehicles, bristling with heavy machine guns, race
through the empty streets of the city, splashing
through pools of sewage, always trying to take
different routes to avoid roadside bombs. "The
government cannot control the city," said Hamid
Effendi, an experienced ex-soldier who is Minister
for Peshmerga Affairs in the Kurdistan Regional
Government.
He is influential in the military affairs of Mosul
province with its large Kurdish minority, although
it is outside the Kurdish region. He believes: "The
Iraqi Army is only a small force in Mosul, the
Americans do not leave their bases much and some of
the police are connected to the terrorists." In the
days since a suicide bomber killed 43 young men
waiting to join the Iraqi army at a recruitment
centre near Mosul last week soldiers in the city
have been expecting a second attack.
"We are not leaving the base in daytime because we
know other bombers are waiting for us," said a
soldier at a base near Mosul's city centre.
Saadi Pire, until recently the leader of the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Mosul, says bluntly
that the 12,000 police "are police by day and
terrorists by night. They should all be dismissed
and other police brought in from outside."
He thinks that Mosul, the northern capital of Iraq
with a population of 1.7 million, could erupt at any
moment. He points out that it is difficult to pacify
because so much of Saddam Hussein's army - some
250,000 soldiers and 30,000 officers - was recruited
from there.
General Muthafar Deirky, the ebullient commander of
the 3rd Brigade, is more confident about the
government's grip the city. He has been stationed
there since 11 November 2004 when, in one of the
least publicised disasters of the US occupation of
Iraq, insurgents captured the city as the police and
army deserted en masse. Some 11,000 weapons and
vehicles worth $40m (£23m) were lost.
The American media was almost entirely embedded with
the US Marines who were engaged in the bloody battle
for Fallujah, population 350,000, so the outside
world did not notice that the anti-American
resistance had captured a city five times as large.
General Deirky, a peshmerga veteran, was called in a
panic by the army commander in Baghdad who told him
that "Mosul was under the control of terrorists". He
gathered 700 men and, having fought off two
ambushes, advanced into the city just in time to
prevent the capture of the television station. He
was dismayed to discover that out of an 1,800-strong
Iraqi Army unit all but 30 Kurds had deserted.
After a brisk counter-attack by the 3rd Brigade and
American troops the guerrillas evaporated having
chosen not, as in Fallujah, to stand and fight.
General Deirky says most of the resistance cells
were later eliminated.
He claims that the situation is very different today
when the people of Mosul "welcome us, hate the
terrorists and give us information about them". But
the general's own account of recent events in the
city show the depth of the divisions between Arabs
and Kurds as well the Arab hostility to the
occupation.
For instance at the end of last year the Arab chief
of police Ahmed al-Jibouri, appointed after the
uprising, was dismissed with 40 of his officers for
aiding the insurgents. "He was telling people that
every family should have one of its members in the
resistance," recalled the general.
In reality, Mosul city, like so many places in Iraq,
is an ethnic minefield which the US has sought to
negotiate with varying success since the overthrow
of Saddamin 2003. At first US commanders did not
want Kurdish forces in the city fearing the reaction
of the Arabs.
General David Petraeus of the 101st Airborne tried
to bring on board the Sunni Arabs but when he left
this policy languished. Since November 2004 Arabs in
the province claim that the US has simply joined
forces with the Kurds after the mass desertion of
the Arab police and army.
"The Americans are now just one more of the tribes
of Mosul," said one Arab source alleging that the
CIA got all its information from Kurdish
intelligence.
Most soldiers have an ethnic map of Mosul imprinted
on their brain. "I feel safer now because there is
nothing but Kurdish villages from now on," said a
driver, with a sign of a relief, as we drove away
from the city.
For the moment nobody is wholly in control and most
expect more fighting.
independent.co.uk
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