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April 21st,
2007 - U.S. Struggles to Calm Violent Ramadi |
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U.S. Struggles to Calm
Violent Ramadi By Todd Pitman Associated Press April 21, 2007 9:16 PM Ramadi, Iraq - The U.S.
military has struggled for nearly four years to secure Ramadi, a city west of
Baghdad that had become a magnet for Sunni insurgents and a lawless haven for
al-Qaida militants. Now - slowly and in halting
steps - something appears to have given way. At least by its own tortured
standards, Ramadi seems to be calming. “It's much safer than it
was. But is it perfectly safe? No,” said Army Col. John W. Charlton, the
commander responsible for the city about 75 miles west of the capital. “As
long as al-Qaida is operating in Iraq, it's not going to be.” Ramadi offers a snapshot of
the Pentagon's latest strategies to quell violence across the nation. Whole neighborhoods are
being walled off to keep insurgents from reaching their targets. Military
units are moving off the major bases and establishing smaller U.S.-Iraqi
posts in the most violent areas downtown. Most crucial of all,
alliances are being struck with influential Sunni sheiks once arrayed against
American-led forces. Local tribal leaders, in turn, have provided personnel
for a new police force. Anbar's Sunni leaders have
had little direct contact with the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki, yet they control prime territory. Anbar, stretching from
Baghdad's western edges to the Syrian border, serves as a key supply route
for anti-government militants who range from former members of Saddam
Hussein's Baath party to al-Qaida fanatics. Ramadi, a Euphrates River city of
about 400,000, is Anbar's capital. While the U.S. military
claims progress here, Ramadi remains a place where even the most commonplace
acts are shadowed by fear and the possibility that any moment could be fatal.
White flags are carried by shoppers and school children in desperate attempts
to show neutrality. “A lot of people are still
scared in their hearts,” said Mahmoud, an elderly man in white robes who only
would give his first name. “The jihadists were all around here. They were
killing everybody. They could come back anytime.” In large part to allay those
fears, Charlton said 70 percent of American forces were off the big bases and
living downtown. “We used to go on patrols
and get shot at, then go back to base, eat chow, and do it all again,” said
U.S. Army 1st Sgt. Michael Jusino, who also served in Ramadi two years ago. “But
we realized that doesn't work. You have to go into the city and stay there.” A year ago, the only
permanent U.S. outposts were on one main road through the city center. Today,
troops show off maps dotted with dozens of new posts in former insurgent
strongholds. They also show graphs indicating the turnaround in violence in
recent weeks. Compared to 20 to 30 daily attacks a year ago, now there often
are just a few bursts of small arms fire in a day. But dangers remain. Suicide
bombers still strike. On April 6, a truck loaded with TNT and chlorine gas
hit a police checkpoint in the district of Tameem, killing 27 people. Marine Brig. Gen. Charles M.
Gurganus, commander of U.S. ground forces in Anbar, said the insurgents
who've fled Ramadi are still in Anbar and haven't lost their punch. “They're going to places we
aren't. They regroup, they re-equip themselves, and they plan more
spectacular attacks,” Gurganus said. “But wherever they go, we're going to go
with them.” U.S. commanders say the only
way to defeat the insurgency is with the support of the local people. In the
past, many supported the guerrillas, or were too afraid to cooperate with
coalition forces. A breakthrough came last
fall when local sheiks began turning on al-Qaida and other extremist
insurgent groups. For some, it was a reaction
against the religious fanaticism and brutality of al-Qaida gangs who had
begun overshadowing their own influence. For others, it was a reaction to the
growing power of rival Shiite Muslims, who became a majority in government after
Saddam's fall. Iraqi army units that patrol Sunni-dominated Ramadi are
overwhelmingly Shiite. With no police or security
forces to protect them, local tribesmen depended on their own militias for
security. At the behest of the sheiks, many of those militias, including
former insurgents, have joined the new police force. U.S. forces often have stood
aside and watched, but not always. Several months ago,
Americans sent help to Ramadi's Abu Soda tribe after it tried to prevent
insurgents from using their territory to fire mortars on a nearby American
base, said U.S. Army Maj. Jared Norrell. “We gave them food, fuel,
money - everything we could to try to restore their way of life because they
stood up and denied insurgents safe haven,” Norrell said. U.S. officers claim similar
scripts have played out across the province. In Ramadi, coalition troops
now are trying to peacefully secure the gains. Outside one new downtown
outpost set up several weeks ago, U.S. Marine Capt. Ian Brooks watched a
truck siphon up spilled sewage. “It's very basic,” he said. “These
people aren't screaming for a Disneyland, Ramadi. What they are asking for
is, 'get the sewage out of here, we need electricity, we want the schools to
open like in any normal city.’” In Mulaab, once of the
city's most violent areas, U.S. forces sealed off streets with blast walls
and concertina wire to keep insurgents out and then conducted a massive
security sweep. The other sides of the
neighborhood are ringed by a canal next to a large American base and a road
open only to military traffic. Residents, banned from using
motor vehicles, use donkey carts and bicycles. Many have welcomed the “gated
community,” and people in other neighborhoods have asked for them, too. “What we're finding is, once
you separate the insurgents from the people and push them out, the residents
come forward and tell us where the insurgents did business, where they keep
their weapons, where they put IEDs,” Norrell said. One insurgent carrying a
bomb on a bicycle was tackled by residents and handed over to police,
something virtually unheard here before, Charlton said. The Mulaab's walls came up
recently, ahead of a massive security sweep. Today it is quiet, but
insurgents are still trying to slip back in. Roadside bombs and weapons
caches are found almost everyday, said Iraqi Col. Ali Hussein, who commands
an Iraqi battalion that has operated in Mulaab for a year and half. “Anybody who tells you it's
100 percent cleared of terrorists is lying,” Hussein said. “But things have
changed.” During a recent meeting at a
new security station, the mustachioed colonel slammed his fist on the table. “Help
the civilians as much as you can. The doctors, the beggars. Give them what
you have,” he told his men. “Don't leave them hungry, or they'll find another
way to fight us.'' External link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6576674,00.html |