My Life and Times

November 15, 2004
Iraqi Insurgents Roil Sunni Triangle With CounterattackBy EDWARD WONG and JAMES GLANZ
AGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 15 - A rebel counteroffensive roiled central and northern Iraq today, with guerillas storming police stations and setting oil wells ablaze, as American troops tried to flush the remaining insurgents from the debris-strewn cityscape of Falluja.
Tanks and fighting vehicles had smashed through the southern Falluja neighborhood of Shuhada, the last major rebel stronghold in the city, on Sunday. But a die-hard band of the insurgents hid in some of the houses and other shelters at the furthest southern edge of Shuhada and emerged this morning, after the tanks had left, setting off a five-hour gun battle when ground troops arrived.
The wave of guerilla assaults rolled across the Sunni triangle, with the sharpest surge in violence coming in the morning in Baquba, 35 miles northwest of the capital. There, insurgents laid siege to a police station downtown and to one in a southern suburb.
Guerillas fired from a mosque at American soldiers and piled out of a bus to take up positions on a rooftop in a part of town called Old Baquba, said Capt. Bill Coppernoll, a spokesman for the First Infantry Division, charged with controlling the area.
American jets dropped two 500-pound bombs on groups of insurgents, and up to 20 fighters were killed in the clashes, he said.
Overnight, insurgents attacked an oil storage tank in the north and set fire to four oil wells in an attempt to cripple the country's leading export industry. In Mosul, wracked by a daring revolt that exploded last week, guerillas struck at American patrols with coordinated suicide car bombs, injuring at least five soldiers in one attack. The Iraqi interior minister, Falah al-Naqib, said he expected the rebels to mount more ambitious strikes in the coming days.
"Today it's quieter in Mosul, but we expect a surge in attacks in the coming two days," he said at a news conference in Baghdad.
On Sunday, he said, insurgents snatched an injured policeman from his hospital bed, killed and mutilated the man and hung his corpse in a public area.
The string of loosely coordinated assaults across the Sunni-dominated parts of Iraq showed that the rebels were ready to carry on their fight despite the smashing of the safe haven of Falluja in the weeklong American offensive.
Throughout the 19-month war, the insurgents have demonstrated an uncanny adaptability in the face of vastly superior American firepower. That has not changed with the storming of Falluja. American commanders acknowledge that insurgent leaders fled Falluja in the run-up to the invasion and have likely been organizing the deadly counteroffensive unfolding in cities across the north and around the capital.
This evening, an Internet audio recording attributed to the country's most wanted guerilla leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, exhorted fighters in Baghdad and the Sunni triangle to keep up the war against the Americans.
"Once they have finished in Falluja, they will head towards you," Mr. Zarqawi said. "Be cautious and foil their plan."
American and Iraqi forces have made some inroads into the insurgency. The leader of a militant group called the Army of Muhammad has been arrested, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said in a statement. More details of the arrest of the man, Moayed Ahmed Yassin, are to be disclosed on Tuesday, Dr. Allawi said.
The Army of Muhammad is believed to be responsible for the beheadings of several Iraqi and foreign hostages and is the armed wing of a group created by Saddam Hussein to fight for the return of the former ruling Baath Party, Dr. Allawi said.
The prime minister's office confirmed today that two of Dr. Allawi's relatives had been released by kidnappers. Last Tuesday, insurgents seized Dr. Allawi's 75-year-old cousin, Ghazi Majeed Allawi, the cousin's wife and their daughter-in-law. The next day, a group called Ansar al-Jihad posted an Internet message saying the three would be beheaded unless Dr. Allawi called off the siege of Falluja and released all prisoners in Iraq.
The two women have been freed, but the fate of the cousin, Ghazi Allawi, remains a mystery.
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