Wide attacks threatened if US enters Fallujah

BAGHDAD -- Insurgent groups have vowed to unleash a wave of bloody attacks in seven provinces, including Baghdad, if US forces enter their stronghold in the city of Fallujah, representatives of jihad and resistance groups said.

"We will meet a military assault by the occupying forces with violence, answering with all the power we have," Abdullah Abdulaziz al-Janabi, leader of Mohammed's Army and chairman of the mujahideen shura council, said in an interview last week at his mosque in Fallujah. The council nominally governs all the insurgent groups in the city west of the capital.

The threat presents a conundrum for US and Iraqi officials who have begun a nationwide offensive to take back territory held or contested by insurgents before national elections scheduled for January. In the last 10 days, US forces have stormed Samarra in the Sunni Triangle and Latifiyah south of Baghdad, in an attempt to beat back insurgent forces.

The Americans also have been battling the Mahdi Army, Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al Sadr's militia, in the Sadr City section of Baghdad. In a potentially encouraging announcement yesterday, his followers said they would start handing over heavy weapons to Iraqi police early this week in the sprawling slum of 2 million people. US and Iraqi officials would cease offensive operations in the area if the handover goes as planned, according to Iraq officials.

However, apparent deals with Sadr have collapsed several times, and it was unclear whether the fighters would obey the order.

The rebels already have shown their ability to penetrate comparatively safe enclaves: Last week they planted a bomb inside the heavily fortified Green Zone in the center of Baghdad. Iraqi police said recently they foiled a plot to kidnap an American official inside the Green Zone.

If US troops set foot in Fallujah, Janabi warned, insurgents in seven provinces would attack oil pipelines, electricity plants, US military bases, and Iraqi government officials.

Iraqi officials and a faction of rebel leaders from Fallujah, including Janabi, have been negotiating since Oct. 2 in the hope of averting a military showdown. According to Iraqis participating in the talks, both sides are near an agreement that would allow Iraqi police and the National Guard to patrol the city, under a plan similar to the ultimately unsuccessful all-Iraqi Fallujah Brigade brought into the city in April. Fallujah commanders are adamant that US forces not enter the city under any circumstances.

Architects of the American-led offensive against the insurgents want to cripple the insurgents before the elections, regaining control of the vast zone effectively controlled by the rebels.

Fallujah's mujahideen, however, have spent a year and a half running the city, building defenses, and solidifying their own bases of support. They have also built nationwide networks centered in Fallujah to funnel arms, money, and fighters across the country, the US military has said.

Hundreds died there in a previous US assault in April, before Marines withdrew when a political compromise was reached. But the insurgent leaders claim that battle as a victory against US forces, and the deal soon broke down, with rebels more deeply entrenched in Fallujah than ever.

American forces have bombed Fallujah almost nightly, targeting suspected meeting places used by terrorists and insurgents. Among the Fallujah rebels are loyalists to ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, supporters of Al Qaeda-linked terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and Iraqis who simply oppose a foreign occupation.

Janabi said insurgents across the provinces of Mosul, Kirkuk, Baghdad, Hillah, Salahuddin, Anbar, and Diyala "are in the axis of faith and will revolt in the face of the occupation, the government, and the Americans if they try to go in the city." Iraq has 18 provinces.

Janabi heads the mujahideen shura council and is the ranking insurgent on a delegation of Fallujah leaders negotiating with the interim Iraqi government. It is unclear how many of the fighters in Fallujah fall under his control, and he said that he has no influence over some of the strongest and most feared jihad groups, which oppose any political settlement.

The attack on Samarra, long a thorn for the US military, was in part meant as a dress rehearsal for taking Fallujah, but has had mixed results. US and Iraqi troops patrol the streets in Samarra now, the military said, but they failed to capture any major insurgent leaders or any of the suspected large cells of foreign Arab fighters.

"There is no sanctuary for the enemy in Samarra," Major General John Batiste, commander of the First Infantry Division, said last week in Tikrit.

His soldiers led a 3,000-strong force in the type of assault American officials hope will be the model in dozens of places across Iraq. US combat troops led the charge, supported by Iraqi security forces, in this case six Army, police, and National Guard brigades.

Iraqi troops immediately began patrolling the city streets and arrested insurgents stationed in the religious shrine at the city center. In September, insurgents in Samarra mounted 83 attacks, forced the police chief to resign, and sidelined the municipal government. At least some of them openly carried the flag of Tawhid and Jihad, Zarqawi's group. It appears most of the senior fighters escaped. The tactics the rebels used in Samarra against the incursion might foreshadow the kind of violence to be expected if US forces try to take Fallujah, a city much more deeply in the grasp of jihad groups.

"The enemy used the homes of innocent people as defensive strong points and fought from holy sites," Batiste said. "We witnessed them use human shields and congregate in congested areas in attempts to protect themselves while attacking."

After Samarra slipped into insurgent hands June 8, US soldiers closed the main bridge into town, forcing all traffic in and out of the city onto small secondary roads. The bridge closing, said Major Neal O'Brien, "was a lever" to erode support for the insurgency among residents.

Insurgents ran the city for about three months, dividing Samarra into quadrants and replacing local police on the streets, according to Hamad Hummad al-Qaisi, governor of Salahuddin Province, where Samarra is located.

"There was no law in the city," Qaisi said. He viewed the decision to invade the city with frustration, saying he was "surprised" when US troops entered Samarra. A number of civilians were killed -- the US military estimates 21, while area hospitals have said about 50 -- and negotiations were underway when the interim Iraqi government told US forces to go ahead with the operation.

"I wanted a peaceful solution, but we reached a roadblock," Qaisi said. "The decision came from the Iraqi government in Baghdad, where it needed to be made. We had to obey orders."

Iraqis within the government openly disagreed over the use of force in April, when the US Marines fought in Fallujah, and again in August, when the United States pushed the Mahdi Army out of Najaf. Resistance leaders hope to take advantage of that schism to broaden their public support among Iraqis.

Negotiations are underway between a delegation from Fallujah and the central government to forge an agreement that would allow Iraqi police and soldiers into the city. According to Iraqi nationalist mujahideen leaders who spoke at an advisory council meeting, however, the jihad groups dominated by foreign fighters, like Tawhid and Jihad, will not abide by any settlement, making an invasion more likely.

At a meeting Wednesday, the shura council voted, 10 to 2, to accept a tentative settlement, but the two dissenting groups vowed to keep fighting regardless of any cease-fire, members of the council said.

Meanwhile, extremists are taking advantage of the US airstrikes to lobby for support among those who believe the bombs kill innocent civilians.

Friday in Fallujah, bulldozers moved the wreckage of a house hit in a predawn airstrike, which the United States said targeted a Zarqawi network meeting place.

Khalid Adai al-Dulaimi wept by the rubble of the building, which he identified as his brother's home. He said his nephew, Ahmed Maher al-Dulaimi, was killed while celebrating his wedding Thursday night.

"We will avenge our dead from the Americans," he said.

A local mujahideen leader known as Khalid abu Jihad stopped by the site and addressed the neighbors and relatives as they combed through the debris.

"You are idiots," he said. "We have told you that the American troops have no conscience. You wanted the negotiations, but they want to kill your women and children."

An Iraqi correspondent for the Globe contributed to this report from Fallujah.Cambanis reported from Tikrit and Baghdad. He can be reached at tcambanis@globe.com.