The increased violence resulting from the attack on Fallujah was anticipated. A sign of desperation, in my view:
belmontclub.blogspot.com
At least one set of people understand that the battle for the Sunni Triangle is a single, integrated theater which does not consist of Fallujah alone.
Insurgents have set police stations ablaze, stole weapons and brazenly roamed the streets of Mosul as Iraq's third largest city appeared to be sliding out of control, residents said. Explosions and fire from assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades echoed across the city and columns of smoke rose from at least two police stations set alight. At least seven police stations have been attacked in the past 48 hours.
The US military issued a statement admitting that local security forces had been overrun in several areas and said local authorities were doing what they could to restore order. "It's crazy, really, really crazy," said Abdallah Fathi, a resident who witnessed one police station being attacked.
"Yesterday, the city felt like hell, today it could be the same or worse." The northern city of Mosul has seen frequent outbreaks of violence, but residents and reporters said the past two days were the worst since the end of the war last year. As US forces battle to suppress insurgents in the city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, it appears many fighters may have fled to other cities where they are launching new attacks. In the past three days, there has been a step up in guerrilla activity in Samarra, Baiji, Baquba, Tikrit, Ramadi and parts of Baghdad - across the Sunni Muslim heartland.
The US military understands this too. Shortly before the Fallujah operation commenced, an earlier post quoted a US source as anticipating these kinds of diversionary attacks. The Seattle Times reported on November 7:
Reports are circulating among Iraqi and U.S. officials that large numbers of insurgents have already left the Fallujah area in anticipation of the coming invasion. The militants are reportedly fanning to other cities in the Sunni Triangle, where they will stage diversionary attacks -- and underscore that despite an expected defeat for insurgent forces in Fallujah, the rebel movement remains strong.
"There will be horrific events outside Fallujah," said a senior U.S. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. "I would never tell you that violence in Sunni areas won't get worse when you open up a battle." He added that officials expect that period to last "not many weeks." "You will have a shortish period when everybody will say the whole country's falling apart but they (the insurgents) will not be able to maintain that tempo."
The aim of the present campaign in the Sunni triangle is to destroy the enemy human and physical infrastructure to prevent the enemy from maintaining that tempo, a subject described in The River War. For follow-on Iraqi forces to hold places like Fallujah so that the enemy cannot regroup within it again, the skilled and dangerous professional soldiers of the old regime must be reduced to the point where the new Iraqi government can contain them. Whether the US will succeed remains to be seen. But it is likely that while the battle for Fallujah is ending, the campaign for the Sunni Triangle is just beginning. |
