Insurgency fractured but still deadly

In some cases, rival insurgencies are fighting one another.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
HUSAYBAH, Iraq -- For the Marines stationed at Camp Gannon, on the outskirts of this outlaw town where insurgents are thick on the ground, being shot at is usual. So when they recently heard AK-47 weapons fire and dozens of mortar blasts echoing throughout the town, they weren't surprised.
That time, however, they weren't the target.
"They were shooting at each other," said Capt. Frank Diorio, the camp's commanding officer.
From observation posts on the edges of the camp, Marines say they have watched insurgents lob dozens of mortar rockets at each other and engage in hours-long gunfights. And townspeople, troops here believe, have occasionally shot back.
Some Marines even venture that one group of insurgents may have attacked another insurgent group. They believe the fighting is between groups aligned with foreign insurgent groups and those indigenous to the area.
Sitting at the intersection of the Syrian border and the Euphrates River, this ancient town of 30,000 people has for centuries been a crossroads for wanderers, traders and smugglers existing virtually independent of any national authority.
Even Saddam Hussein failed to tame much of the vast western Al Anbar province, with its oceans of sand and isolated Sunni Arab tribes.
Training
Over the last two years, the U.S. military says, Husaybah has become a thoroughfare and training ground for insurgent fighters flowing in from Syria.
"The insurgents get training and finances here and then move east," Diorio said. "Now it seems a lot more are staying around. They want to make this area another Fallujah, but many of the locals don't want any part of it."
Lt. Ronnie Choe, the camp's intelligence officer, said many local people who initially fought alongside insurgents trickling across the border have since become disillusioned with the insurgents' antagonistic behavior. Whether that is wishful thinking on the Marines' part or reality cannot be determined; it is too unsafe to venture into the town to interview locals.
"Tensions in Husaybah arose from foreign fighters coming here and staying here," Choe said.
Last month, Choe said, insurgents kidnapped a cleric who had delivered a Friday sermon asking foreign fighters to stop attacking Americans from Husaybah because it put townspeople at risk when Marines returned fire. Choe also described how foreign fighters have hijacked Friday sermons.
"You'll hear one voice giving the sermon, and then someone else will get on," he said.
Choe noted that calls on the camp's tip line are increasing and said those contacts are his best source of intelligence.
Two weeks ago, troops raided a house in Husaybah and found a weapons cache. The family readily acknowledged that insurgents had hidden contraband in their home, Diorio said.
"They said, 'Yeah, they came and put weapons here,'" Diorio recalled. "'And before they left they shot my son.'"
Revealing attack
Husaybah's shift from being an insurgent thoroughfare to being a destination point for foreign fighters was evident during a large-scale attack on Camp Gannon last month. In that attack, 30 to 40 insurgents fired Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-propelled grenades to divert attention from three vehicle bombs -- a pickup truck, a large dump truck and a fire engine. The drivers of the two larger vehicles tried to breach the camp's inner security wall.
The attack failed, and only two Marines were slightly injured in the attack. But the high level of planning and coordination evinced foreign involvement and a large commitment of insurgents' time and resources, U.S. military officials said. Al-Qaida would later claim responsibility for the attack.
"That attack showed us that they have the capability to do a high-end attack," said Lt. Col. Timothy S. Mundy, the battalion commander for Camp Gannon and nearby Al Qaim. "It took a lot of time and effort to plan that attack, but it is not something that they can sustain."
Such attacks have resulted in few American casualties, a fact that has not been lost on insurgent detainees, said Battalion Intelligence Officer Capt. Tom Sibley.
"Many of these guys have been disillusioned," Sibley asserted. "Our detainees throughout this area tell us that." Sibley said that many detained Iraqi insurgents in Al Anbar province tell interrogators that they are tired of resisting.
"A lot of them come from families where one or two of their brothers has been detained or killed," Sibley said. "Many of them used to have legitimate day jobs -- they're trying to carry on with their regular lives and at the same time carry on the insurgency. They have wives ... children who miss them."
But on the other hand, hard-core insurgents are pressuring them to continue fighting, Sibley said.
"The Al-Qaida guys kill these people if they don't cooperate," Sibley said. "They don't treat them well."
The Camp Gannon Marines acknowledge that many residents of Husaybah are caught in the middle, watching both sides to see who has the most staying power. Diorio said the Marines would remain there until Iraqi security forces are established there later in the year.
'Observation post'
In the meantime, the Marines conduct occasional "observation post" operations in which a small group of Marines quietly commandeer a residence in the town and stay overnight to pick up intelligence. The operations are rare because of the risks involved, for the Marines and the people whom they contact.
Lance Cpl. Karl Smithson, 22, participated in one such operation recently. Traveling in predawn hours, the team stealthily made their way to an Iraqi family's home and shut themselves inside for 24 hours.
"I guess they kind of feared us," Smithson said.
After a few tense moments, one of several women who lived there acknowledged she spoke halting English. She served some of the men food and tea and Smithson said the Marines disabused her of the notion that U.S. troops were initiated into the service by killing one of their parents.
Smithson said he also got the feeling that they didn't like the insurgents very much, either, though they were afraid to speak of them.
"I would have liked to communicate with them longer," Smithson said. "But we're just in the wild west out here. And I know right when we leave, everything will go back to where it was."