In Mosul, insurgent campaign escalates against Iraqi forces

MOSUL, Iraq -- The bodies of five more slain Iraqis were found on the outskirts of Mosul yesterday morning, bringing to 20 the number of soldiers murdered over the last week as part of a campaign against the Iraqi forces who joined American soldiers in suppressing a revolt in this northern city.

Three of the bodies yesterday were lying in an open field on the far western fringe of the city, in an area rarely patrolled by US soldiers. The other two were found on the edge of a major highway.

"They're using the killing of the Iraqi regular army and national guard as a threat to the people of Mosul," said Staff Sergeant Christopher Schaefer, a military intelligence officer responsible for the western half of Mosul.

Insurgents also tried to assassinate two top officials in Mosul yesterday, Deputy Governor Khasro Gouran and Major General Rashid Flaih, head of a special Iraqi commando force sent from Baghdad to help restore order after the Nov. 11 insurgency rippled through the entire city.

Almost none of the city's 10,000 police officers have returned to work since insurgents burned several stations on the first day of widespread fighting in Mosul, according to US commanders here. Yesterday, American soldiers and Iraqi national guardsmen cleaned the ashes from three of the most seriously damaged police buildings.

In the headquarters, the new chief was nowhere to be found. An American soldier at the station said the police chief had stopped by the building briefly a few days earlier, but had not served a full day in his office since being appointed last week. His predecessor was arrested two days ago for apparent ties to the insurgency. At the Mosul police operations center, two plainclothes officers manned a command system that they said was usually bustling.

The assailants who targeted Flaih fired on the Iraqi general's convoy from a black Mercedes sedan and a truck of the same model used by the Iraqi police.

Iraqi and American soldiers killed three attackers in the sedan, just blocks from the local government headquarters. Two of the windows were shattered by bullets, and the car seats were stained with blood and flesh. A bulletproof vest identical to those issued the Iraqi police lay on the back seat, coated with a thick film of blood.

The attackers in the truck escaped.

"The police are traitors. We will never be able to count on them," said Ahmed Mohammed, an Iraqi national guardsmen at the police station in the New Mosul neighborhood.

During the fighting, nearly half of the city's National Guard also deserted, and now many of those who remain work in terror. They cover their faces with balaclavas, refuse to reveal their last names, and switch buses on circuitous routes home so their neighbors will not learn where they work.

Most of the slain soldiers found in Mosul have been killed execution-style, shot in the back of the head. Earlier this week, four murdered Iraqi soldiers were propped up against a school wall on a busy street, their military identity cards placed on their chests.

"They were visible to all the passersby. It was a warning," said Schaefer, the military intelligence officer.

Lieutenant Colonel Erik Kurilla, commander of the First Battalion of the 24th Infantry Regiment, which controls the western half of Mosul, said that insurgents had shifted tactics after 40 of them were killed in direct clashes around Nov. 11.

"They realized they cannot go toe to toe with us," Kurilla said. "So they're going after the Iraqi security forces. They know if they kill a lot of them, people will choose not to be part of those organizations."

Many of the Iraqi soldiers killed have been Kurds. The two major Kurdish political parties have sent their own peshmerga militia into Mosul to protect the Kurdish minority, stoking fears of wider ethnic clashes between Kurds and Arabs.

Yesterday, insurgents attacked a busload of Kurdish fighters traveling to Mosul, killing three and wounding nine, according to officials in the city of Erbil, where the wounded were taken.

Now, American forces must find a way to prevent more Iraqis defecting from the fledgling Iraqi battalions in their charge as a result of the assassination campaign. American and Iraqi soldiers believe that insurgents watch US bases in the city carefully, counting every vehicle that comes in and out, and tracking the Iraqis who leave the base at the end of the workday.

Yesterday Kurilla led a team of armored Stryker vehicles on a raid of a taxi stand in downtown Mosul where informants said some of the murdered Iraqi soldiers had been picked up by insurgents.

The Army vehicles, which look like futuristic tanks on wheels, surrounded the taxi rank and soldiers forced everyone in the area out of their cars.

Kurilla questioned taxi drivers while about two dozen men stood at gunpoint underneath a shelter, grumbling. "This insurgency has disrupted our lives, too!" a taxi driver shouted at Kurilla.

After unsuccessfully asking four men if they had information about insurgents, Kurilla spoke to the crowd. "You cannot turn a blind eye to enemy activity," he said. "To do so is to support them."

Then he sped off in his Stryker.

Thanassis Cambanis can be reached at tcambanis@globe.com.