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Iraqi forces mount al-Qaeda hunt in Mosul
Baghdad—US and Iraqi troops moved against al-Qaeda
on two separate fronts with house-to-house searches in Mosul and an
operation in the desert to stanch the flow of insurgents and weapons
to that northern city.
With the new sweep, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is aiming to put
down Sunni extremists after launching two other major offensives
elsewhere in as many months targeting Shiite militants. Mosul, a key
transport crossroads between Baghdad, Syria and other points, is
considered the last major urban base of al-Qaeda in Iraq after the
group lost strongholds in western Anbar province.
U.S.-backed Iraqi troops searched homes and the U.S. military
announced that the forces in Mosul captured a suspected al-Qaeda
figure involved in organizing car bombings and smuggling foreign
fighters into the country.
There were no reported clashes during the searches in known al-Qaeda
strongholds in the western and eastern parts of Mosul, Iraq’s third
largest city, where insurgents are believed to use the cover of
sheep and produce markets to smuggle cash, weapons and foreign
fighters from nearby Syria. Sheik Fawaz Jarba, a leader of Sunni
tribes in Mosul opposed to al-Qaeda, complained that the sweep was
“unorganized” and that public warnings of the coming raids enabled
al-Qaeda fighters to flee, as they have done ahead of previous
campaigns elsewhere.
“Al-Qaeda has gone into hiding and have gone elsewhere,” Jarba said,
adding that his tribal fighters were prepared to join the crackdown
but that al-Maliki had not asked them to. American Marines were
operating farther south, near Lake Tharthar, a remote desert region
that has been a refuge for al-Qaeda fighters and a back channel for
supplying the network in the north.
“We’re trying to shut down the rat lines,” Marine Brig. Gen. Richard
Mills, who is heading up the operation, told a briefing at a mobile
command post set up in the Mameluke desert. U.S. Marines on Thursday
searched an abandoned mud house, uncovering six weapons caches
including material for building roadside bombs.
Marine Capt. Josh Biggers said they discovered evidence that
insurgents had recently used the area: broken egg shells scattered
across a floor in one room, new electrical fixtures and the outline
on the floor of what troops believe may have been a generator.
“Somebody was definitely here,” said Biggers, 30, of Edmond,
Okla.Lake Tharthar — once Saddam Hussein’s favorite fishing spot —
lies between Mosul and the former Sunni insurgent strongholds of
Fallujah and Ramadi. Many al-Qaeda fighters hid in the desolate
region after losing control of those cities, and the U.S. military
believes the group has been using it for training and as a supply
route.
U.S. troops discovered nearly 200 bodies in mass graves in the
Tharthar region late last year and early this year. Earlier this
week, troops discovered two more bodies in the area — proof, the
military says, that al-Qaeda is still trying to operate in the
area.—Agencies
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