It sounds like the papers taken with Saddam are paying some real dividends in squeezing the FRM (former regime members) resistance. The article mentions signs that they're running short of cash and weapons:
Hunting Hussein Led U.S. to Insurgent Hub
Five Families Believed to Direct Attacks
By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 26, 2003; Page A01
TIKRIT, Iraq -- As U.S. forces tracked Saddam Hussein to his subterranean hiding place, they unearthed a trove of intelligence about five families running the Iraqi insurgency, according to U.S. military commanders, who said the information is being used to uproot remaining resistance forces.
Senior U.S. officers said they were surprised to discover -- clue by clue over six months -- that the upper and middle ranks of the resistance were filled by members of five extended families from a few villages within a 12-mile radius of the volatile city of Tikrit along the Tigris River. Top operatives drawn from these families organized the resistance network, dispatching information to individual cells and supervising financial channels, the officers said. They also protected Hussein and passed information to and from the former president while he was on the run.
At the heart of this tightly woven network is Auja, Hussein's birthplace, which U.S. commanders say is the intelligence and communications hub of the insurgency. The village is where many of the former president's key confidants have their most lavish homes and their favorite wives.
When U.S. forces sealed off Auja in late October, they separated the leaders of the insurgency from their guerrilla forces, dealing the anti-occupation campaign a major blow, said Lt. Col. Steve Russell of the Army's 4th Infantry Division, which is responsible for the Tikrit area.
"It's amazing that all roads lead to this region," Russell said. "It's amazing who lives in that town. It's a who's who of families and a who's who of Saddam's former staff."
The campaign of violence directed against U.S. forces and against Iraqis who cooperate with the American occupiers has raged since shortly after Hussein was toppled in April. The bulk of the attacks have taken place north and west of Baghdad, in the so-called Sunni triangle that encompasses Tikrit and other pockets of continued support for Hussein, such as Fallujah and Ramadi.
U.S. commanders have blamed the violence on a combination of Hussein loyalists, Islamic guerrillas and foreign fighters, but the structure and operations of the insurgents have been the subject of speculation and debate. The commanders say the detailed picture that they now have of the Iraqi insurgency is the result of months of sleuthing, including raids targeting suspected Hussein loyalists in the Tikrit area.
The interrogations and documents uncovered in the raids, coupled with electronic and other intelligence, repeatedly revealed the involvement of the same extended families and marked the way toward the inner circle.
"Our principal focus was to go after the mid- to low-level enemy leaders: the operations, financiers and weapons guys," said Col. James Hickey, whose 1st Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division captured Hussein in the nearby village of Dawr on Dec. 13. "As we learned about the enemy and how he organized himself, eventually it led to some former members of the senior regime."
cont. at
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