The dynamics that gave al-Qaida a strong hand in the Tigris River Valley, a key area of northern Iraq, are changing.
Improvised explosive device, or IED, finds and explosions do occur regularly, mainly along the highway leading north from Tikrit in Saladin province to Ninewa's provincial capital of Mosul, but the frequency is down by half – about one every other day now.
Villages that were once terrorist sanctuaries are becoming less so. Iraqi police and U.S. intelligence operations, combined with a joint U.S.-Iraqi information campaign, are helping drive a wedge between al-Qaida and nationalist insurgents in the region and between those groups and the general populace.
And there is the recent deployment from Tikrit of troops from the Iraqi army, who conduct joint operations against the terrorists with U.S. and Iraqi police forces, but are also establishing security checkpoints along roads from villages to the highway to augment those set up by police and Concerned Local Citizen groups, now renamed Sons of Iraq.
"In the past, the population passively condoned attacks on coalition forces," said Capt. Sam Cook, commander of Crazy Troop, 1st Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. "They're struggling internally now, within themselves. "They don't want occupation, but they don't like the insurgency's foreign links, they don't like al-Qaida's thuggery and foreign support, and they're totally against Iraqis killing innocent Iraqis."
Cook and Crazy Troop are based at Joint Security Station Sharqat, about an hour's drive south of Mosul. They share the facility on the southern edge of the city – in a partially destroyed hotel compound they call Camp Crazyhorse – with Iraqi troops.
Crazy Troop's task is to support the Iraqi police and military, which plan and conduct their own operations. That puts an Iraqi face on missions and, when combined with civic action projects, lessens the impression of Americans as occupiers while increasing the impression of Americans as partners.
"We try to partner with Iraqi forces in the area of greatest threat to secure people in their daily lives," said Lt. Col. Thomas Dorame, commander of the 1st Squadron.
"I tell the Iraqi troops that we're here to support them, rather than they support us," he said. "At the end of the day, success depends on the Iraqis standing up and taking charge of security and governance."
Sharqat is an agricultural trading center of about 140,000 residents. People in the city and area villages are mainly Sunni Arabs who feel disenfranchised politically and economically since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Baathist Party regime.
In addition to al-Qaida terrorists in the region there are members of the Islamic State of Iraq group. Intelligence officials say ISI, despite its nationalist face, is in the main al-Qaida in mufti. AQI established the so-called Islamic State of Iraq in Diyala province in 2006 under the leadership of a previously unknown Iraqi, who U.S. and Baghdad officials say doesn't actually exist. The "state" and its supposed Iraqi leader were seen as a counter by AQI to criticism of it being mainly led by non-Iraqis and with having foreign-derived financing and goals.
Like its parent, ISI follows a cell-like structure, which limits members' knowledge of other cells and organizational leadership.
Cook and other U.S. commanders in the Tigris River Valley ensure that link comes up in conversations with Iraqis, many of whom are unaware of it. According to U.S. officials and Iraqi police spoken to, it's believed some members of ISI cells are also in the dark about the link and this could lead to defections by more nationalist-minded ISI members.
Lt. Col. Dorame said both AQI and ISI use the Tigris River Valley as a main resupply point and as operations base for senior leaders, financiers and facilitators. He estimates AQI's leaders in the area are in single digits following a series of military operations; for ISI it's in double digits.
The exact number of estimated hardcore fighters was not immediately available, but Capt. Cook said in one village alone – Aitha – about 100 of its 10,000 people were believed either members of AQI or ISI or support their operations.
Some funding and supplies are believed – but no yet definitively proven – to come from neighboring Syria, but money also is derived from extortion and other criminal activities as the terror cells "morph into mafia-type" gangs.
Attacks on Iraqi police and U.S. forces follow two main patterns, officials said: IEDs planted along the main highway – mainly by unemployed villagers hired for the task – and car bombs and sniping by hardcore terrorists in retaliation for the capture or killing of ISI or AQI leaders.
"I think their foot soldiers now are primarily fighting for money," Dorame said. "Many of those we have captured are not fanatics, they're not ideologues, they have no hatred for us," he said. "They're doing it for money to feed their families."
"For every bomb-planter I detain today, there will be two ready to replace him tomorrow for the money," said Capt. Cook.
The U.S. military has plans in the works to help put people in the area into jobs through a paid civilian service corps for repairing or building infrastructure. Jobs are now being created by emergency infrastructure projects chosen by local government and approved and funded by U.S. military commanders. The U.S. government's Provincial Reconstruction Teams have other projects to be implemented.
Meanwhile, Cook and the men of Crazy Troop continue their daily routine of joint patrols and raids, which are increasingly rolling up terrorist suspects and their weapons through information garnered by undercover police, detainees, and increasing numbers of citizens tired of the violence.
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