Anbar Province Holds Its Breath as U.S. Forces Draw Down - NYTimes.com

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By MARC SANTORA

RAMADI, Iraq — Maj. Gen. Tariq al-Youssef caught a fleeting glimpse of the man who wanted him dead.

As his armored sport utility vehicle pulled past the battered yellow taxi, the commander of the police in Anbar Province recalled thinking how the driver looked like so many men in this impoverished territory — another poor peasant trying to eke out a living.

Then the taxi driver crashed his car into the general’s, detonating his explosives and sending both vehicles hurtling into the air.

“I was not sure if I was alive or dead,” General Youssef said. “Parts of the suicide bomber were scattered all around me, still steaming like fried meat.”

The attack in June, from which General Youssef walked away unscathed, marked the beginning of what Iraqi and American officials said has been a concerted effort by Sunni insurgents to reassert themselves in a part of the country that had once been their stronghold.

Late Sunday night, men dressed in Iraqi Army uniforms killed at least 13 people, including a local cleric. The victims were rousted from their homes in a village west of Baghdad, and their bullet riddled bodies were later recovered from a nearby cemetery, according to witnesses. A doctor at Abu Ghraib hospital, where the bodies were brought, said they all had gunshot wounds in the head.

In recent weeks the targets of suicide bombers in Anbar have included a restaurant popular among the police in Falluja, where 16 people were killed; a police officer’s funeral in Haditha, where 6 were killed; a water tanker in Ramadi that exploded, killing 7 police officers escorting the vehicle; and a national reconciliation meeting in Ramadi, where 26 were killed.

There have also been dozens of attacks on checkpoints and, in the last two months, nearly daily attacks on police across the province as well as assassinations of influential tribal leaders and destruction of vital infrastructure.

“In the last few months you have had an attempt by A.Q.I. to regain a foothold here,” said Brig. Gen. Stephen R. Lanza, using the military’s term for Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a largely homegrown Sunni militant group thought to have foreign support.

The level of violence is still greatly reduced from 2005, when the local police force collapsed, and 2007, when the surge of troops began and tribal leaders banded together to fight the militants. But it is a delicate moment in a region where militants once controlled the streets and were able to direct attacks into Baghdad, about 70 miles away.

Local leaders are contending with rampant unemployment, a failure to attract investment, tensions between the Iraqi police and army, and fears that competing political forces could turn to violence before the upcoming national elections in January.

Anbar has played a critical role in the history of post-invasion Iraq. It was the place where the insurgency got its rise, where Al Qaeda established a base to stage spectacular attacks that ignited the sectarian bloodletting and also where the tide of the war began to shift in America’s favor as tribal leaders and former insurgents turned on Al Qaeda.

It borders Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, which the government accuses of aiding militants, and it runs right up to the outskirts of Baghdad, which militants have long understood to be the center of gravity in the fight for Iraq.

With American forces in a period of transition, Iraqi politicians positioning themselves for the national election, basic services still in shambles and rampant unemployment, Iraqi security officials say that al Qaeda and other militants would like to exploit the moment in one last bid to derail the fragile security gains.

The fact that Monday’s attackers dressed in Army uniforms raised a number of troubling questions, including the prospect of infiltration of the security forces or extrajudicial killings carried out by soldiers. Even if the attackers were merely posing as Iraqi soldiers, since uniforms can be easily bought in stores, the episode could further undermine the trust of the population.

“We no longer trust the army after this incident,” said Abdul Rahman, who witnessed the arrests and knew some of the men later found dead. “If the army came to capture someone now, he would not go with them, fearing he would face the same destiny.”

At the same time as Iraqi security forces work to thwart the militant networks, the American role here continues to evolve and diminish.

Anbar is the first province in Iraq where American combat brigades have moved out completely and where one of the newly trained Advise and Assist Brigades has arrived.

The new brigade took complete responsibility from the Marines in late September and they are tasked with preparing the ground for a complete American withdrawal.

At the peak of the surge in troops to Iraq in 2007, there were some 20,000 Marines in Anbar, staging out of 10 large bases. There are now 3,500 troops spread across five bases. Eventually, nearly all of the American soldiers in Iraq will be part of these Advise and Assist Brigades as the military moves toward getting all the troops out by the end of 2011.

The new brigades were created to better carry out many of the lessons learned over the course of seven years of fighting a counterinsurgency. While American troops have been focusing on training Iraqi forces for years, the new brigades aim to create a unity of command, where all the various efforts to stabilize and rebuild the province — from infrastructure development to job creation — are directed through the brigade commander.

“The most important aspect of what we are doing is changing the mindset,” said Col. Mark Stammer, noting that more than half of the soldiers in his brigade have served previous deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, often focused on combat operations. Everything Americans troops now do in the province is at the direct request of Iraqi forces, he said. In fact, the Iraqis rarely ask for assistance on day-to-day security operations.

When militants blew up a major bridge last month in Ramadi, less than a mile from the American base on the outskirts of the city, no American forces responded. Iraqis asked for assistance only days later and only regarding complicated forensic and engineering work, according to American officials.

As a result of the concerted effort to ensure Iraqis take the lead, American forces have less knowledge of what is happening outside their bases. General Lanza acknowledged that situational awareness was a concern, but he said that there was progress in getting American advisors situated in crucial areas of the Iraqi security forces’ hierarchy.

Despite the attacks, General Youssef said that the diminished American role was a good thing since militants could no longer point to the American presence as a justification for their attacks. Since August, there have only been two direct attacks on American forces, according the United States officials.

But attacks on police have increased in recent months, according to Iraqi officials. And as the elections approach, General Youssef says that he expects the violence to get worse.

American officials noted the vast difference in the level of violence from two years ago and the increasing capabilities of Iraqi security forces.

“These attacks are designed to threaten the police,” General Lanza said. “But you do not see the institutions of the state falling apart.”

Both Iraqi and American officials say that the militant networks have been greatly diminished. General Youssef cited the fact that when militants blew up the bridge in Ramadi in October they set off the bomb at 4:30 a.m. Two years ago they blew up the same bridge in broad daylight.

Sheik Ahmed Abu Risha, one of Anbar’s prominent leaders who helped mobilize a tribal rebellion against Al Qaeda in Iraq in 2007, said that the chief aim of militants now seemed less directed at stirring sectarian tensions and more about trying to keep investors out of the area.

“They want to attack for two main reasons,” he said. “They target the police because the police have achieved a victory over them. And the second major reason is because they want to keep investors out.”

The most dangerous areas in Anbar are those just outside Baghdad, including the area where Monday’s attack took place, according to General Youssef.

Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, head of Baghdad’s Operations Command, said in a statement that there would be an investigation and that the attack could have been the result of a “tribal dispute.”

One eyewitness, who identified himself as Abu Ali, said he watched as some of the victims were taken from their homes.

“I saw men dressed in Army uniforms going into houses and arresting people,” he said. “I went fast into my home. In the morning my brother’s son came to me and told me they took his father.”

There were conflicting reports as to whether some of those killed were former insurgents who had joined the effort fight Al Qaeda or were still active members of a militant group known as the 1920 Revolutionary Brigades.

Mr. Rahman, one of the witnesses, said that only the police and army could move freely in the village at night and that he also saw men wearing army uniforms dragging people from their homes.

On Monday, the village was locked down, with dozens of Iraqi Army vehicles cordoning off the area. Witnesses saw American military vehicles in the area as well.

There were also attacks on Iraqi security forces in other parts of the country on Monday, including two bombings in Baghdad that killed five Iraqi Army soldiers and wounded a dozen more soldiers and civilians.

In Kirkuk, where ethnic tensions between Arabs and Kurds remain high, an explosion in the middle crowded market killed 6 people and wounded 12 more.

And in Mosul, which remains the most violent city in the country, one civilian was killed when a bomb targeting a police patrol was detonated. Two more Iraqi soldiers were killed when they were ambushed by gunmen.

The American military also announced the death of a soldier on Monday, saying in a statement that the soldier died from injuries sustained during a noncombat-related vehicle accident.