Turning insurgents into informants

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The amnesty offers have also contributed to the deaths of at least two insurgent figures who had orchestrated numerous attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces in Ninevah and Salahuddin provinces.

The overtures have severely disrupted the ability of al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni insurgent groups to use the upper Tigris River valley as a safe haven to stage attacks in the northern city of Mosul, which remains a stronghold for Sunni militants, U.S. military officers said.

They also illustrate how U.S. forces are exploiting weaknesses in the insurgency in northern Iraq, which has been torn by mass defections of Sunni tribesmen and put on the defensive by the “surge” of U.S. troops in the past year.

Several U.S. military officers said the strategy has enabled U.S. and Iraqi security forces to cultivate sources among some former Sunni militants who have provided information on al-Qaida in Iraq, as well as their former colleagues within other insurgent groups.

They said the effort also allows U.S. forces to concentrate on the hard-core top tier of insurgent leaders rather than on the thousands of foot soldiers who live in the region, most of whom are motivated by an aggrieved sense of national honor or economic necessity rather than extremist ideology.

“We can’t win this insurgency by taking every guy who emplaces an IED (improvised explosive device) off the street,” said Lt. Col. Thomas Dorame, commander of 1st Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, during a recent interview at Forward Operating Base Q-West, about 50 miles south of Mosul. “We have to give them a choice.”

U.S. military officers said they have been able to glean specific information about ongoing insurgent activities, plus gain valuable insight into how enemy forces think and what their goals and motivations are.

“Reconciliation has helped,” said Capt. Sam Cook, commander of Crazyhorse Troop, which is based in the Sharqat district, south of Q-West, an area which U.S. forces call the Zaab Triangle. “When people talk about their past activities, it does help us understand the bigger picture.”

Much of the recent intelligence gleaned by U.S. forces on insurgents in northern Iraq has come from former members of the Islamic Army, a Sunni nationalist group that has cooperated with al-Qaida in Iraq in the past but is now increasingly at odds with the terror group because of tactics including suicide bombings and the murder of civilians.

The Islamic Army claims to target only U.S. military forces.

On Jan. 16, informants from within northern Iraq’s shadowy insurgent networks led U.S. forces to two high-value targets.

Noman Jawar Deahim was an al-Qaida in Iraq financier who reputedly murdered the two sons of a Mosul police chief by burning them alive in the streets of Sharqat. He was No. 1 on the U.S. hit list for the area. He was betrayed by a member of his inner circle, who gave information to an informant who then passed it along to Iraqi police, Cook said.

According to Cook, more than 20 other suspected insurgents have been arrested in Sharqat alone based on informant tips. Since Karim’s death, there hasn’t been a bomb attack along the Mosul-to-Baghdad highway.

On the night of Feb. 11, a former Islamic Army operative who now works closely with Iraqi police passed along information that Yugub Kasham, a financier in Sharqat, was meeting with insurgents from Mosul, reportedly to plan Cook’s assassination in retaliation for the killing of Karim.

U.S. and Iraqi soldiers raided houses looking for the men. Yagub Kasham was nowhere to be found, but soldiers found several sticks of TNT inside the trunk of a car parked at his home.

A boy at the house said the car belonged to a “terrorist” who turned out to be a relative. Soldiers searched his house, and found a stack of mobile phone cards and several disassembled units.

First Sgt. Michael Livingston said bomb makers frequently use circuit boards from mobile phones as components to set off roadside explosives.

“This guy is a builder,” said Livingston, 38, of San Antonio.

Cook talked to the man’s father and told him his son was suspected of being a terrorist, active in a cell based in Tikrit. The old man did not try to defend his son.

“You know better than me,” he told Cook.

The young man tested negative for explosives residue on his hands, but later acknowledged that the TNT belonged to him. He also admitted to being active in Islamic Army. He was arrested.

They also detained another 12 men who were found together in a raid on another suspected insurgent house.