On the ground in Mosul, Iraq

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From Michael Yon on the ground in Mosul, Iraq:

Thursday night, a revised plan had me following some Deuce Four soldiers on a midnight raid.   They had night vision gear, so they moved quickly. I had only
moonlight, so I nearly broke my leg keeping up. Sleeking around Mosul
under moonlight, we prowled through the pale glow until we came upon a
pond near a farmhouse. Recon platoon had already raided one house and
snagged some suspects, then crept away in the darkness to another
target close by.

Five soldiers from Recon�Holt, Ferguson, Yates,
Welch and Ross�were moving through moon-cast shadows when an Iraqi man
came out from a farmhouse, his AK-47 rifle hanging by his side.
Suddenly encircled by the rifles, lights and lasers of four soldiers,
the man was quickly disarmed. A fifth soldier radioed for the
interpreter and together they sorted out that he was a farmer who
thought the soldiers were thieves skulking around his property. Recon
returned the man his rifle, and started making their way back, umbral
and silent across the ploughed fields...

Enemy Forces

In
Mosul, the enemy has two main faces: The Former Regime Elements (FRE),
and the extremists. The extremists here in Mosul can be divided into
five groups�more or less�one of which would be the local chapter
claiming affiliation with the so-called Al-Queda gang.

The goals
of the FRE and the extremist gangs are at stunning variance. In fact,
they mostly hate each other, often kill one another, and work together
only as needed. If the Coalition and new Iraqi government were not
here, conveniently located as a central target, the FRE and other
terrorists would almost certainly be at war with each other.

The
main goal of the FRE is simple: Under the former regime, they were in
charge. They want to be in charge again. In Saddam Hussein's regime,
the Cynic's Golden Rule�"He who has the gold, makes the rules"�worked
both ways: "He who makes the rules gets all the gold." The FRE bandits
made the rules and controlled the gold. They have an understandable
nostalgia for the good old days. They liked being in charge. They
despise the prospect of people they once persecuted, such as the Kurds,
suddenly acquiring any voice whatsoever. It�s not as if the FRE are
totally disenfranchised, but more that they are no longer in complete
control.

Whether or not someone might agree with the FRE, there
is little dispute that these people have rational goals. Yet rational
does not imply tenable in a newly democratic Iraq. This situation is
not burdened with nagging grey areas where battle-scarred former
combatants can work to some diplomatic compromise. This is an either/or
situation. If the new democratic system takes hold, mathematics
dictates that the FRE are not going to be in charge; they are
outnumbered two to one. The FRE are Sunni Ba�athists while the majority
of Iraq is Shia. The FRE is trying to destabilize the new government
while simultaneously leveraging their position. Their primary strategy
for both is to use violence against government officials and the
civilians who elect them.

The FRE�being essentially rational but
also essentially brutal�are simple to understand. They are serious,
often deadly, but are not fanatical in the degree of their personal
commitment to the cause. If they die, they will not regain control.
It's a fact here on the Iraqi battleground�though seldom mentioned�that
the majority of FRE insurgents are climate-sensitive. They almost never
attack when it�s cold, raining or even muddy. As a rule, if conditions
are such that the Little League baseball game back home would be
canceled due to inclement weather, these FRE insurgents will stay home
and wait for the skies to clear.

Of the two groups, the more
intractable and irrational enemy wraps their rebellion in a flag of
fundamentalist fervor. Although the press routinely lumps all of these
similar groups under the banner "Al-Queda" (whatever that really is)
there are actually five main extremist groups operating in Mosul. They
have common ground. Some members seek fulfillment in apocalyptic
visions of a world at war, wherein everybody except them�or even
including them�dies. In other cases they see the war shaping a new
world, one that is entirely Islamic. The word "extremist" is not an
overstatement for them.

These extremists are irrational,
dangerous, often highly emotional, and cannot be trusted with large
weapons. Every day, they kill innocent people in Iraq. The FRE and most
of the Iraqis tend to hate the extremists, realizing that if the
Coalition were to leave, they would face the full wrath of these
fanatics alone.

Friendly Forces

The
friendly forces in Iraq are also an amalgamation. In Iraq as a whole,
the Coalition is comprised of soldiers from many countries. But here in
Mosul, the "Coalition" is almost entirely US, charged with building the
Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), while simultaneously keeping the
insurgents at bay until the ISF can take over. Building the ISF is part
of a larger plan that will allow our people to come home, without
leaving a wounded Iraq victim to septic fundamentalism from within, or
invasion from opportunistic neighbors.

Some definitions: The ISF
includes the Iraqi Police (IP), Iraqi Army (IA), Iraqi National Guard
(ING), Border Patrol (BP), and sundry other groups, each with their own
initials. Every month, the ISF becomes a greater and more proximate
threat to FRE and extremists groups throughout Iraq. This is borne out
in a most ironic fashion; evidence of the growing competence and
capability of ISF shouts from the headlines as the Iraqi government
itself becomes the primary focus of insurgent attacks.

Gone are the days when the FREs and
extremists in Mosul chased police from their stations and ravaged
entire neighborhoods at will. Today, the ISF kills and captures enemy
every day in Mosul, something that seldom makes news.

In my own dispatches I rarely mention
these successes, yet I see or hear about small operations every day,
collecting in ever larger pools of confidence and stability. There's no
time to write about each event; this would be like trying to describe
every raindrop that hits the windshield while keeping up with a fast
moving storm. Eventually, a competent witness must stop taking notes,
and step back to see the storm for what it is.

Edited by b95000