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Attacks grow bolder, better
organized
By Valentinas Mite
The raid on the al-Fallujah police station at
the weekend was the most sophisticated attack on Iraqi
security forces since the announcement of the end of
"major combat" operations last May. Police at the
station were caught unaware and underequipped when a
group of nearly 50 men wearing masks stormed the
building, freeing a number of prisoners, shooting mortar
rounds and spraying the rooms with bullets.
The
attack left more than 20 policemen dead. Ibrahim
Muhammad, who was injured in the raid, says that the
attack caught him and his fellow officers completely by
surprise. "At 8.30 am, as we were about to go on patrol
to set up checkpoints, we suddenly felt shooting from in
front [of the building] and behind, so we dispersed and
took positions near the fence."
The assailants
later went from room to room, lobbing hand grenades.
Five of the gunmen were reportedly killed or injured,
but the rest escaped unharmed and unidentified. The
coordination and efficiency of the deadly raid has
prompted several theories about who was behind the
attack. Al-Qaeda has been named as a possible culprit,
as have the Lebanese Islamic militant group Hezbollah
and the Kurdish Ansar al-Islam.
L Paul Bremer,
the US administrator for Iraq, told the American ABC
television network that he believed the attackers had
come from outside Iraq. At least one of the attackers
killed in the raid was a Lebanese-born Iraqi citizen.
The US military says that the tactics used in
the al-Fallujah attack do not resemble those of al-Qaeda
or other known terrorist groups. A US military official,
speaking to the Agence France Presse (AFP) news agency
on condition of anonymity, said that a group skilled in
"small-unit tactics" conducted the raid. These "would
not be the same tactics that al-Qaeda would employ", the
official said. "These are military tactics. It points to
former military members."
There is no shortage
of such people in al-Fallujah. The town, located at the
heart of the Sunni triangle, is home to many former
Ba'ath Party officials and military officers loyal to
the Saddam Hussein regime. AFP cites the US military
official as saying: "We keep bumping into former
generals and colonels in Fallujah. We see them every
day."
But could local Saddam loyalists have
organized the raid? Yahia Said of the London School of
Economics and Political Science says yes - but not
without the support of a large part of the local
population. "My instinct on these events, on activities
like that in Fallujah in particular, is that these are a
combination of Saddam Hussein remnants - or, if you
like, more precisely, disgruntled local Fallujah
citizens, unhappy with the [US-led] occupation, being
organized by some remnants of the Saddam Hussein
regime."
Al-Fallujah has long been at the heart
of the anti-American resistance. The enmity started as
early as late April, when jittery US soldiers shot dead
15 Iraqis protesting the US presence at a local school.
The town is a center of both deep tribal alliances and
Sunni religious life. There are nearly 200 mosques in
al-Fallujah and surrounding villages, and since the
beginning of the US campaign residents have resented the
presence of foreign soldiers in what they call the "holy
city of mosques".
But US forces left al-Fallujah
after striking an agreement with local authorities. And
this attack targeted not foreign soldiers, but local
residents. Said says that the raid may spur a cycle of
revenge killings, which in turn could weaken local
support for the anti-American resistance. "This time, of
course, if the killing of Iraqis continues, it may
actually dampen support - or, if you like, tacit
non-opposition - by the citizens of al-Fallujah to the
resistance. So it may actually work against them."
Reports from al-Fallujah seemed to support the
prediction. Only hours after the raid, armed men,
reportedly seeking revenge, gathered outside the
hospital where the injured assailants were being kept.
RFE/RL correspondent Sami Alkhoja says that in
Baghdad rumors are circulating that the Americans were
responsible for orchestrating the raid. Many Iraqis
believe the Americans hope to scuttle the upcoming
elections and assure that the US-led coalition does not
hand over power to local authorities anytime soon.
Alkhoja says that the absence of US forces in
al-Fallujah has only heightened suspicions among those
Iraqis who say the US was responsible for last week's
attacks in Iskandariya and Baghdad as well.
"We
have exactly the same thing in Fallujah happening," he
said. "There were about 40 fighters, let's say,
attacking this police station. [It] took them lots of
time to do [the job] - release the prisoners. And there
were no signs of Americans."
Such theories will
only heighten many Iraqis' desire for elections to be
held soon. But Yahia Said says that to the contrary, the
recent string of attacks (more than 100 Iraqis killed)
are only likely to convince Western observers that the
situation is too chaotic to proceed with the vote.
Copyright (c) 2004, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted
with the permission of Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut
Ave NW, Washington DC 20036
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