-Caveat Lector- http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/30/international/worldspecial/30NO RT.html?pagewanted=2&th
March 30, 2003 Militants Gone, Caves in North Lie Abandoned By C. J. CHIVERS ILIP, Iraq, March 29 — Some of the cave entrances were slung low and obscured by shadows, waist-high openings in cool, moss- cloaked rock. Others were door-sized slots, tall enough for the passage of upright men. The caves, penetrating the darkness under the ridge at Dari Baramaran, were among warrens of defenses in this remote valley along northern Iraq's border with Iran, which until this weekend had been controlled for nearly two years by Ansar al-Islam, a militant Islamic group. An American-coordinated ground offensive against the group continued today with intensive fighting in small pockets in the mountains, but officials said the military battle against Ansar al- Islam was nearly over. It began with cruise missile strikes a week ago and escalated on Friday when about 100 United States Special Forces soldiers and 10,000 local Kurdish fighters seized a network of villages from Ansar and drove the militants from their bases to nearby caves and mountains. The United States contends that Ansar is a terrorist group that links Al Qaeda and Baghdad, and cited the group's operations in the largely autonomous Kurdish zone of northern Iraq as one of the justifications for the war against Saddam Hussein. The Kurds said at least 176 Ansar fighters had died. About 150 more were said to have surrendered to the Iranian authorities at the border. Pockets of resistance in the mountains could be heard returning fire, but Kurdish military officers said the outcome seemed certain. "They will all be finished because there is no choice," said Gen. Mustafa Said Qadir, commander of military forces in the eastern Kurdish zone. "There is just death." Kurdish and American soldiers also captured two Islamic fighters alive, including a Palestinian man who appeared to provide further proof of the group's connections to the international jihad. The Palestinian, Ahmed Muhammad Tawil, from Rafah in the Gaza Strip, was taken into custody near here. He was a large and dirt-caked man with a filthy beard, a cracked- toothed smile and a bullet wound in his left calf. He limped into the company of three American journalists tonight, handcuffed and escorted by guards. He gagged repeatedly, as if to vomit, and then was cheerfully defiant, saying the United States was an Israeli toy. "I struggle against you, fight against you," he said. "If I die, or kill, or am arrested, it is because of you. You are the criminals, the American people." His Kurdish guards presented him as evidence of what seemed a nearly total victory. Signs of a rout could be seen here, in this network of hastily departed caves, where Ansar fighters abandoned food, clothing and ammunition, and fled for higher ground. It was a setting reminiscent of Afghanistan, a mix of natural caves and those improved by man. Some were large, others small. The most sophisticated was about 50 feet wide by 20 feet high. Inside, Ansar had built two rooms resembling subterranean houses, complete with plastered walls, thatched roofs and paned windows — accessible only through a simple slot of unfinished stone. The cave entrances offered paradoxical sights throughout the day. A few hundred yards away, American Special Forces fighters called in heavy machine guns mounted on Humvees, and the column of guns began firing in the valley, at the remnants of Ansar. The canyon boomed intermittently all afternoon. But here, Kurdish fighters lounged and chatted, napping and eating after a night of mountain fighting. Some slept deeply, afloat on the spring's surge of fresh clover and bright red wildflowers. Other Kurds fired rockets, taking aim at positions where remaining Ansar fighters had taken refuge in the local peaks and gorges. Having been pushed from their positions with great speed on Friday, the Ansar fighters had also abandoned their heavy weapons. Ansar and its 650 or so fighters had been feared in northern Iraq since 2001, when they ambushed a column of Kurdish fighters near here. It has since deployed assassins and suicide bombers, and succeeded in infantry raids against the secular Kurdish authorities, whom it rejects as infidel rulers. But today Ansar seemed on the verge of military insignificance. "We are very excited," said Dr. Barham Salih, the Kurdish region's prime minister. "It will be over before too long." Even as skirmishes raged, Kurdish official said they were sifting through intelligence collected at Ansar's offices and command posts. "Lots of documentation and computers have been captured," Dr. Salih said. But not all the news was cheerful. No Americans were wounded in the fighting, but 22 Kurdish fighters were killed and 73 were wounded, local officials said. As Kurds grieved for their dead, and Special Forces fighters crisscrossed the newly claimed territory in pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles, commanders and politicians were at work. They said 150 Ansar fighters had surrendered to Iran, and had been taken away by the Iranian authorities. Among the detained militants in Iran were Abu Wahil, a senior leader who Kurds say was a link between Baghdad and Al Qaeda, and Ayub Afghani, a bomb-maker and instructor in terrorist camps. "We are calling the Iranian liaison guys here to give us these guys back," a senior Kurdish official said. Moreover, a local security official said that as Ansar retreated, it emptied its prison of 20 inmates and took them on what can only be described as a death march. The official, Anwar Haji Osman, security chief in Halabja, said Ansar's prisoners were each told to carry about 50 pounds of equipment, to help militants escape. "They told them, `Whoever can carry this load, and keep up with us, we will release them,' " Mr. Osman said. " `Whoever cannot, we will kill.' " Iraqis Pull Back By DAVID ROHDE QUSH TAPA, Iraq, March 29 — Iraqi soldiers have pulled back from two front-line positions around the strategic city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq, Kurdish officials said today. Both withdrawals, made early Friday, appeared to be organized efforts to minimize the risk of bombardment, rather than panicked retreats. The Iraqis who withdrew faced no ground attack from American or Kurdish forces, but had endured days of bombardment from American planes. Kurdish officials said six Iraqi soldiers defected just before the withdrawal here, but they declined to provide access to them. Iraqi forces withdrew from a third front-line position east of Kirkuk earlier in the week. The pullback exposed a network of crude but extensive bunkers and a mass of land mines. Kurdish soldiers here showed off at least 50 antitank and another 50 antipersonnel mines that they said Iraqis had planted on and beside the two-lane asphalt road. Elsewhere in Kurdish Iraq, the United States continued to fly troops and matériel into two airstrips. American forces are massing in the pocket of territory where Kurds who broke with Mr. Hussein in 1991 have maintained years of self-rule under American protection. American planes have been heavily bombing targets in and around Kirkuk and Mosul, a second government-held city, for the last several days. Maj. Rob Gowan, a spokesman for the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which flew into an airstrip in Harir on Wednesday night, said the entire brigade was now on the ground. He declined to give exact troop numbers but said the force included "a few thousand" paratroopers. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Privacy Policy -- Outgoing mail is certified virus free Scanned by Norton AntiVirus <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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