[Marxism] Second front opens in Mosul as US claims "occupation" of Fallujah

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This article indicates the loss of control of the US forces in Iraq's
third largest city.  The article has a
Basically pro-US line (reflecting Le Figaro, as distinct from Le Monde,
which more reflects those who differ more sharply from Washington's
perspectives in the French ruling class. At the same time, it also
reflects the weakness of Islamism as a unifying force for the Iraqi
masses across religious and other lines, weakness that does provide
openings for the occupying power.

It certainly makes clear that the US military is nowhere near to rolling
over the resistance.
Fred Feldman



SECOND FRONT IN MOSUL IN DANGER OF OPENING
By Delphine Minoui

** Many commanders of the Sunni guerrilla war, including al-Zarqawi
himself,
said to have fallen back on Mosul **

Le Figaro (Paris)
November 13-14, 2004
Page 6

ARBIL (northern Iraq) -- After several weeks of sporadic violence in the

streets of Mosul, the guerrilla war awakened in strength in broad
daylight on
Wednesday, with one police station taken by storm and a unit of the
National
Guard attacked.  The day before, the city's governor had announced the
closing
of the bridges leading into the center and had declared a curfew.

"Mosul constitutes a major threat to stability in northern Iraq.  It's
getting
ready to be the second Fallujah.  It even risks being worse and spilling
over
into Kurdistan, which has been spared so far," a Kurdish official who
prefers
to remain anonymous says nervously.  He know what he's talking about.
Two
cars packed with explosives, coming from Mosul, and intended to kill
him, were
recently intercepted in time, near his office, in the quiet little town
of
Arbil.

"The situation in Mosul is very bad," admits Dana Ahmad Majid, the head
of
security services in Sulamaniya, southeast of Arbil.  His units, which
are
discreetly operational in Mosul, tell him that a variety of small
terrorist
groups have settled in this city of about two million inhabitants,
situated
near the Turkish and Syrian borders.

Former Baathist officials, back from an extremely short exile in Syria,
have
taken up arms against American forces, alongside the Islamists.  The
Kurdish
leader in Arbil says he has "proof that high-up mujahideen commanders
from
Fallujah took refuge some time ago in Mosul, having foreseen the
American
attack on the Sunni bastion."  Kurdish intelligence services also say
they
have information according to which the Jordanian terrorist Abu Mussab
al-Zarqawi, in person, has taken refuge in Mosul.

"The terrorists who are operating in Mosul are the same ones we find in
Fallujah," comments Kosrat Rasul Ali, political advisor to the UPK
(Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan), based in Sulamaniya, east of Arbil.  Since the
March 2003
mopping-up operation in the mountains of Kurdistan conducted by
peshmergas
supervised by American special forces, between 100 and 200 members of
Ansar
al-Islam, presumed to be linked to al-Qaeda, are thought to have taken
refuge
in Mosul.  Three weeks ago, two of them were killed, and their third
companion
arrested, while preparing to launch rockets toward Arbil.  Known for
their
pro-Americanism, the Kurds are indeed an ideal target for guerrilla
forces.
Mosul is a complicated, turbulent place.  Alongside a majority of
nationalist
Arabs, the city shelters large Kurdish, Turkmen, and Christian
minorities.  To
this must be added Islamist networks that were already operating
clandestinely
under Saddam Hussein.

At the fall of the regime, street battles broke out.  Today, control of
Mosul
is the responsibility of 8,500 soldiers of the 25th infantry division,
with
Iraqi service forces at their side.  But doubts are multiplying about a
possible infiltration of the local police and the National Guard by the
guerrillas.

The inhabitants are living in fear.  Posters pasted on the city's walls
call
on local businessmen not to work at the Americans' behest.  In the
entryway to
the university, there are tracts that require young Christian students
to wear
a head scarf during the Ramadan period.  "My girl cousins no longer dare
go
out in the street," says Eva Kasoc, a Christian student whose family
lives in
Mosul.

"We have begun to send troops to reinforce Mosul," Prime Minister Iyad
Allawi
admitted at the end of last week.  According to the Iraqi daily
*Azaman*, a
new secret police is now operational in Mosul to track members of the
guerrilla forces.  In the course of the past three days, both American
and
Iraqi forces have conducted raids in certain mosques, suspected of
hiding
arms.

But the battle of Mosul, like that of Fallujah, risks exacerbating
nationalist
sentiments and desires for vengeance.  "The inhabitants of Mosul have a
very
pronounced sense of patriotism.  Armed combat is a legitimate reaction
to the
humiliation that Americans have provoked by arresting our ulemas and
invading
our mosques," warns Talaat al-Wazaan, leader of a nationalist parti in
Mosul.

--
Translated by Mark K. Jensen
Associate Professor of French
Department of Languages and Literatures
Pacific Lutheran University
Tacoma, Washington 98447-0003
Phone: 253-535-7219
Web page: http://www.plu.edu/~jensenmk/
E-mail: jensenmk@xxxxxxx


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