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Christoph Bangert/Polaris, for The New York Times

Iraqi soldiers searching houses in Aleze were often greeted politely

April 6, 2005
MILITARY
New Iraqi Soldiers Gain Ground but Face Pitfalls
By JAMES GLANZ

ALEZE, Iraq, April 4 - When soldiers of the new American-trained Iraqi Army began banging on doors early on Monday to search houses in this village north of Baghdad, a surprising thing happened.

After initial expressions of fear or resignation, most Iraqis addressed the soldiers with traditional Arab greetings - peace be with you, God save you, welcome - and calmly let them in. The tension was clearly lower than it would have been had the Americans been there alone. Still, two raids in three days netted only 2 of 14 suspects sought in connection with a fatal attack on the Iraqi Army on Saturday, and little else.

The raids, in towns along the Diyala River, showed in stark terms both the advantages and pitfalls of handing over major security operations to Iraqis who have been trained, equipped and to some degree indoctrinated as soldiers by Americans.

Because these soldiers have been taught not to use the brutal tactics by which Saddam Hussein's army ruled, and because the insurgents still play by those old rules, the citizens are generally unwilling to pass information openly. So even though this army moves more easily among the population, it gets less real cooperation than it needs, said Col. Thaier Dhia Ismail Abid al-Tamimi, the commander of the Iraqi unit that was attacked Saturday.

"It is easy for Iraq to make security," said Colonel Thaier, who is familiar with the old methods firsthand, having worked as an intelligence officer in Mr. Hussein's army.

Colonel Thaier expressed staunch support for the new way of doing business, but he said the effort to combine security and democracy was making his job complicated.

Despite those problems, Colonel Thaier said, he has been finding an increasing willingness on the part of Iraqis to pass information secretly. In fact, the Iraqi Army unit that had been attacked in the area on Saturday, with one sergeant killed, was able to use its connections within the villages to identify likely attackers and draw up the list of 14 suspects.

Then, using techniques taught by their American trainers, the Iraqis put together an elaborate plan for the raid, which included a handful of American soldiers. The Americans backed them up in armored Humvees, and sometimes followed the Iraqis into houses.

"This one is based off their own intelligence, their own planning, their own execution," said Lt. Col. Roger Cloutier, commander of a unit in the Third Infantry Division that works closely with the Iraqi unit that was attacked, the 205th Battalion, in an area centered about 30 miles north of Baghdad near the city of Baquba. Colonel Thaier requested the Americans, said Colonel Cloutier, whose unit is under the overall command of the 42nd Infantry Division in Iraq.

Whatever the advantages of having Arabic-speaking soldiers operating in a community they know intimately, the raid suggested, the insurgents have adapted.

"It's too hard now to find the bad guys," First Lt. Mohammed Dhea Ahmed of the 205th Battalion said at 3 a.m., after hours of searching. "It was very easy in the past. You have to work hard."

Ahmad Flamars Favas, a Kurdish resident of Aleze, gave a typical response when asked where he thought the people involved in the attack on the army unit could be found. "I don't know," Mr. Favas said. "I swear on my home I don't know."

Colonel Thaier, the commander of the 205th, said in an interview before the raid on Monday that the local terrorists were "hidden in their houses in Miqdadiya," a town northeast of Baquba. Aleze is on the outskirts of Miqdadiya.

Roadside bombs and suicide bombs are still a daily problem here. The homegrown nature of the attacks make them much more difficult to stamp out, Colonel Thaier said, because the terrorists do not stand out as people from outside the town, and therefore can lie dormant as long as they like before striking.

Whatever the success rate of the operations, the shift to Iraqis conducting them holds some promise for easing a major problem: that house raids often aggravate resentment of the American-led occupation itself. On the Diyala River raids, most Iraqis seemed far more ready to accept Iraqi troops entering their homes, even if Americans followed.

"Yes, I welcome that," said Alaa Hamid Salmar, 40, the head of a household in Tel Sokhayr, a town on the Diyala River, when asked about the issue during a raid on Saturday.

"I feel much better when I see Iraqi forces," he said. "They know our traditions."

When asked if he would prefer to do without the intrusions altogether, Mr. Salmar objected, saying, "We don't mind if they search places like this, because we need security."

Colonel Thaier said that after the killing on Saturday, informants provided 14 names of people associated with the same terrorist cell despite the difficulty of getting residents to talk publicly.

Then, at 10:30 that night, the soldiers who would conduct the raid gathered in a huge, warehouse-style building with a projector at one end.

Capt. Curtis Burns, commanding the modest American contingent, talked with Iraqi commanders as a satellite map of the town to be raided was projected onto the wall. "Where do you consider to be the most dangerous area?" Captain Burns asked, largely accepting the advice of the Iraqis on where to place his forces.

Then, as Capt. Wahab Abid Ali of the 205th directed the proceedings through a microphone, his voice reverberating in the cavernous building, the Iraqis proceeded to undertake a rather crisp run-through of the operation.

And by 1:30 a.m., the Iraqis were knocking on doors and searching houses in the town. American soldiers sometimes followed the Iraqis in. A few Iraqis were surly at being awaked and disturbed, but most had welcoming words.

The searches were slow and painstaking, and a reporter with one Iraqi unit never saw them resort to smashing in a door or roughing up a homeowner on this night.

At one point a corpulent woman whispered to the Iraqi soldiers that her neighbor disliked Americans and spoke of having grenades. A search there turned up nothing, but the Iraqi soldiers were careful to come back and make a show of searching the woman's house as well, so that her neighbor would not suspect that she had spoken up. Two suspects, Tarik Said and Hazam Mohe, turned up during routine checks of identification cards, and by 4 a.m. they were kneeling and blindfolded, their hands bound behind their backs, by the side of a main road in Aleze. Questioned through an interpreter, Mr. Said said that he had an alibi and that he had been miles away from the shooting.

Mr. Mohe was more talkative, conceding that he knew there had been an attack, but saying that he had merely heard about it through friends. He said "strangers from outside" had carried it out.

The Iraqi gun trucks pulled away, followed by the American Humvees. Except for Iraqi soldiers smoking and joking as they guarded the detainees, the town was quiet.



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