Armed groups still in control of countryside

 

Azzaman, May 26, 2008

 

U.S. and Iraqi forces might temporarily have flushed out rebels from major cities but their influence and strength is still felt elsewhere.

 

Anti-U.S. and Iraqi government groups among them al-Qaeda avoid headlong clashes with U.S. Marines and are reportedly said to have deserted big cities to the countryside.

 

In the latest attacks to regain control of Baaqouba and Mosul, two of the main rebel strongholds, the gunmen sneaked out of these cities to establish camps in smaller towns and villages.

 

Contrary to expectations, there were no major battles in Mosul recently as the gunmen had either merged with the local population or left the city.

 

But their presence is conspicuous in towns and districts in the Province of Nineveh of which Mosul is the capital.

 

Unidentified gunmen, believed to have recently evacuated their positions in Mosul, are now attacking the string of villages to the west of the city mainly those inhabited by the Yazidis.

 

Provincial sources refusing to be named said the gunmen were spreading terror in these villages, setting government offices on fire and confiscating government rations.

 

“The residential settlements and villages of the district of Sinjar are lost to gunmen. They have burned official records and caused a lot of damage and many casualties,” one source told the newspaper.

 

Another said the gunmen were moving freely in pick-up cars in the mainly Arab inhabited district of Qahtaniya and the predominantly Yazidi town of Sinjar.

 

Kurdish militias known locally as peshmerga are supposed to protect Yazidi towns and villages.

 

But the sources said the Kurdish militias have apparently failed to stem the upsurge in violence in these areas.

 

The Kurds have illegally annexed Qahtaniya and Sinjar to their territory while officially they are still administratively linked to Mosul.