|
|
|
|
From Fallujah to
Qaim
By Charles Recknagel and
Kathleen Ridolfo
"This is the wild
wild west. This is Qaim, at the western edge of
Anbar province, bordering on Syria. It is a dusty,
arid and lawless region, with large towns by the
Euphrates River, which snakes into Iraq from
Syria. Americans are attacked on a daily basis by
a recalcitrant community..."
- Every time the wind
blows, an Asia Times Online series by
Nir Rosen, October 2003
About 1,000 US Marines supported by armor
and attack helicopters began the major offensive
in west-central Iraq on May 7. Since then, the
sweep, dubbed Operation Matador, has seen some of
the heaviest fighting since US forces took control
of Fallujah in November.
US General James
Conway told reporters in Washington that  three Marines had
been killed in western Iraq and fewer than 20
wounded. News reports say that some 110 insurgents
have also been killed in the fighting.
Conway said that the operation was
intended to rout insurgents from new strongholds
they have established in western Anbar province
since being pushed out of Fallujah in the east of
the majority Sunni province some six months ago.
"Recently, I think, it is fair to say that
commanders have evaluated that the center of
resistance in Anbar [province] has moved further
west since the fall of Fallujah and is now in the
Ramadi-Hit corridor, extending westward, as
opposed to Ramadi-Fallujah," Conway said.
Intense fighting has taken place in a
string of towns toward the Syrian border at the
western edge of the province. The area is part of
the insurgents' smuggling route for weapons,
supplies and foreign fighters believed to be
arriving via Syria. The region is also thought to
be a safe haven for al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi.
US forces have
encountered well-organized resistance on both
sides of the Euphrates River, which runs through
the area. In one measure of the scale of the
offensive, US forces completed construction of a
pontoon bridge across the Euphrates on May 9 to
bring heavy armored vehicles over to the south
bank. Previously, there had been no easy way to
deploy armored vehicles throughout the area.
Conway said that the insurgents were well
trained and equipped and had put up fierce
resistance. "There are reports that these people
[insurgents] are in uniforms, in some cases are
wearing protective vests, and there is some
suspicion that their training exceeds that of what
we have seen with other engagements further east,"
he said.
News reports say that fighting
has taken place in the towns of Obeidi, Rommanah,
Karabilah and Qaim as insurgents are reported to
have fired at Marines from rooftop positions and
bunkers.
Analysts say the level of
fighting raises new questions about how much
progress Washington and Baghdad are making in the
now two-year-old effort to quell the insurgency.
US commanders had hoped that routing the
insurgents from their earlier stronghold in
Fallujah would knock the insurgency off balance.
In that operation, some 1,500 insurgents were
killed and another 1,500 captured. But the
insurgents have since shown themselves to be
highly flexible in moving their operations to
other parts of central Iraq.
Jeremy
Binnie, Middle East editor of the London-based
Jane's Sentinel Security Assessments, says it is
still too early to know whether the insurgency is
maintaining its strength or gradually waning. He
says both sides can point to successes and
setbacks. "Whilst clearly the situation isn't
great for the Iraqi [government] and the US
military in that country, it's not going all that
well for the insurgents either," he said.
But Binnie says there are signs that new
political initiatives in Baghdad could divide and
weaken the insurgency in ways that military
pressure alone has yet to do. "There are rumors
that some of the Ba'athist factions [in the
insurgency] are talking to the government and
there might be some possibility of an amnesty,
especially now that a Sunni tribal defense
minister has been appointed," he said. "He might
be able to bring some people in from the
insurgency. And the insurgents, in some of their
rhetoric and statements they publish on the
Internet, seem to be concerned over the
possibility of some of these factions going over."
Still, the fight both on the political and
military front shows no signs of ending soon.
Wednesday, insurgents struck a direct blow against
the new government by kidnapping Anbar Governor
Raja Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi. The governor, who
was appointed to his post just a few days ago, was
abducted while traveling to view the US assault in
the west of the province.
The region has
seen sporadic fighting for months, but since late
February, insurgents appear to have undertaken a
campaign to forcefully engage US forces. Iraqi
media in February reported repeated attacks by
insurgents aimed at ambushing, then engaging US
Marines in and around Qaim. The US military
reportedly dropped leaflets over the town asking
citizens not to cooperate with the insurgents and
to report insurgent hideouts.
The
escalation,
and a buildup of US forces outside the town,
prompted local notables and clerics to form a
city council to run the city's affairs in case of
an incursion, al-Jazeera reported on March 2. Tanzim
Qa'idat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn, the al-Qaeda-affiliated
group led by Zarqawi, posted at
least two statements on jihadi websites on March 3
and 7 claiming successes against US forces in the
towns and villages around the border. The bodies
of some 30 Iraqis were discovered in Qaim on March
9, and while all of the dead were dressed in
civilian clothes, some Iraqi officials claimed the
dead were Iraqi soldiers who disappeared some 10
days earlier.
Insurgent attacks on US
Marines continued throughout March, but US Marines
appeared to be cutting off insurgent lines, as
alluded to in a series of mid-March statements by
Zarqawi followers to jihadi websites. A March 15
statement by Zarqawi's group posted on the
ekhlaas.com jihadi website sent a message to the
"besieged mujahideen" in Anbar province. The
message attempted to reinvigorate the besieged
insurgents by drawing on Koranic stories and
verses about noble fighters, saying, "When the
infidel parties besiege you all around, fight you
with tanks, planes, and all they have, you, lions
of Islam, have only God, in whom you put your
trust and upon whom you completely rely."
Iraq's Sunni resistance leaders also
touted the strength of the resistance in Qaim.
Muhammad Ayyash al-Kubaysi, the representative of
the Muslim Scholars Association abroad, claimed in
an April 8 interview with al-Jazeera television
that the fighters in Qaim had managed to prevent
US forces from entering the town. Al-Kubaysi, much
like supporters of insurgent fighters in Fallujah,
appeared to believe that the insurgents possessed
some God-given supernatural powers that would
enable them to drive US forces from Iraq. Jihadis
in an April 18 Internet statement dedicated that
day's attack on a US base to al-Qaeda leaders
Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, and
reminded supporters to "not forget to mention us
in your prayers".
By early May, the US
military was closing off Qaim, Haqlaniyah and
Hadithah, towns farther east along the road to
Ramadi, Meanwhile, the insurgency issued sharp
denials to US claims of success in the fighting.
Town lawless since invasion
Insurgents established a stronghold in
Qaim in the early days following the US-led
invasion of Iraq. International media reported the
infiltration of foreign fighters across the
Iraq-Syria border in the spring and summer 2003,
and the US military acknowledged the existence of
"rat lines" for insurgent fighters in Husaybah,
just north of Qaim, in December 2003 when they
launched a series of house-to-house sweeps in the
town in an effort to crush the insurgency.
"The insurgents have a series of small
cells, and the small cells know what their own are
doing," The Washington Times quoted Lieutenant
Colonel Joe Buche as saying in a December 3, 2003,
report. "If we can get to the guys in the center,
then the whole network could fall apart." That
goal was apparently not realized at the time.
A February 2004 report published in the
Iraqi daily al-Mu'tamar described the resistance
that began in Qaim after the war as a mix of local
resistance and foreign mujahideen fighters who saw
themselves as part of the jihad to establish an
Islamic state in Iraq. Much like the state of
other cities in Iraq in the weeks and months after
the war, Qaim was overrun with criminal gangs and
a general absence of law ensued. Police in the
town said that they had difficulty recruiting new
members to the police force. Resentment against
the US military also built among at least some
members of the community, where tribal law
reportedly supersedes everything else. The
subsequent detention of hundreds of local
residents by US forces only fueled the insurgency.
The US military has long noted the
difficulty in securing the 725 kilometer
Syrian-Iraqi border. Despite the placement of sand
berms on either side of the border and Syria's
supposed commitment to preventing the illegal
crossing of insurgents, the insurgents continue to
penetrate the border area, providing a plethora of
fighters to replace those detained or killed.
Until the border is truly secure, the insurgency
will continue. As a group of men on the Syrian
side of the border contended to the US TV news
program Frontline for an article published on
April 26, it is the duty of Muslims to wage jihad
against invaders.
Copyright (c) 2005,
RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty,
1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington DC 20036 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
All material on this
website is copyright and may not be republished in any form without written
permission.
© Copyright 1999 - 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd.
|
|
Head
Office: Rm 202, Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Kong
Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
|
|
|
|
