Shoot-out leaves control of town in doubt By Charles Clover in Samarra
A week after a vicious firefight in the streets of Samarra, in which US forces claim to have killed 54 guerrilla fighters, it was unclear yesterday who really controlled the town.
At the one remaining US military compound in the city, US soldiers yesterday refused to leave their sand-bagged bunkers to meet a western visitor at the gate. "It's dangerous here! Go away!" yelled one. Two other such US compounds within Samarra have been vacated in the past three weeks.
US-paid Iraqi troops of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC) have not entered the town since one of their number was killed on Saturday, shot by enraged mourners after his squad crossed paths with a funeral procession for a man slain in last week's shoot-out.
The ICDC men guard checkpoints outside the town. They wear green balaclavas so locals cannot recognise them. "So that no one knows who is doing this sacred duty," says Lt Col Ihsan Aziz Mohammed, the ICDC commander and 13-year veteran of the Iraqi Republican Guard.
If what Lt Col Mohammed says is true, US forces and their Iraqi allies face open conflict with the entire town. Yesterday he accused local tribal leaders, religious clergy, and even the local police in Samarra of aiding "Saddam's mercenaries", as he calls the guerrillas.
As punishment for the Saturday killing, he has shut down the main road leading out of Samarra to all traffic from dusk to dawn for the next week.
Lt Col Mohammed's suspicions about local leaders and police appear to have some foundation. At the police headquarters in Samarra yesterday, many high-ranking officers openly expressed sympathy for the anti-coalition guerrillas, speaking on the condition that they not be named. "The whole town rejects the occupation, and we work to serve the citizens," said one.
While the US military insists it remains "offensively oriented" towards anti-coalition insurgents, in some towns such as Samarra US forces have largely withdrawn to the outskirts and handed the day-to-day security to the ICDC and Iraqi police forces.
The US has trained about 145,000 Iraqis to serve in security forces across the country, but Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary, admitted yesterday that many of these troops had been hastily trained and equipped.
"Experts say it should take eight weeks to train a policeman. We put some out on the street after four, with the understanding that we needed them on the street and life isn't perfect," he said, adding that many would receive additional training in the future.
US forces, accompanied by ICDC troops, venture on to the streets of Samarra only at night, mainly to carry out lightning raids and prisoner snatches directed against specific tribal and religious figures in the town. According to tribal leaders, this has fed resentment against the US occupation.
"They come and break down our doors and take people away with no explanation," said Sheikh Mumtaz, leader of the Albu Baz tribe, who says two of his sons and two nephews have been arrested in the past week.
Hostility already runs deep in Samarra. The last major US incursion into the town, made on November 30 to drop off newly minted Iraqi currency at a state bank, required eight M-1 main battle tanks, four Bradley armoured fighting vehicles, six Humvees and 93 troops. The two armoured columns were ambushed, and in the ensuing three-hour battle US soldiers say they killed 54 enemy commandos, wounded 22, and suffered five light injuries themselves.
The local version of the battle is quite different: Samarra hospital workers say eight were killed and 54 injured, the majority of whom were civilians.
US officials say they are still investigating the discrepancy in casualty figures.