Iraq: Melting into the City

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Insurgents appear to be adopting a similar strategy up north in Mosul, Iraq's third largest city. In mid-November, at the height of Operation al-Fajr, Mosul erupted in violence as gangs of fighters attacked police stations and engaged in pitched street battles with U.S. and Iraqi forces. It took the Americans and their Iraqi partners the better part of a week to regain control, and a U.S. battalion had to be recalled from Fallujah to help. The attackers "showed a degree of local command and control we have not seen before," says Brigadier General Carter Ham, commander of U.S. forces in Mosul. "The willingness to stand and fight signaled to me that something has changed." Also, rebels in Mosul have launched an intensive campaign of hit-and-run operations, kidnappings and beheadings. The bodies of victims are being dumped around the city. At least 60 were found last week alone, many of them Iraqi soldiers'. In this instance, the insurgents' threat is what it has always been: Those who cooperate with the Americans are inviting doom. --With reporting by Maher al-Thanoon/ Mosul and Mark Thompson/Washington