Attacks turning to US allies in Iraq

In response to a two-week crackdown by the US military, Iraqi insurgents are switching tactics from hit-and-run raids against American troops to attacking the coalition's vulnerable allies.

US military officials say that the number of attacks against coalition forces has dropped since Operations Iron Hammer and Ivy Cyclone II began in Baghdad and the volatile Sunni triangle two weeks ago. Yet at least 104 coalition troops died in Iraq in November, 79 of them Americans, making it the bloodiest month since the war began.

The paradox of reduced attacks but increased casualties underlines the difficulties a high-tech conventional army faces when confronting lightly armed but determined guerrilla fighters who hold the initiative, choosing when, where, and how to strike before vanishing into a population increasingly hostile to the US-led occupation. And, analysts warn, the US military's displays of force and intrusive counter- insurgency measures are more likely to further alienate Iraqis rather than deter militants.

"It's all about hearts and minds," says Timur Goksel, a university lecturer in Beirut who served with UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon from 1979 to May this year. "Above everything, even reliable intelligence, you need the cooperation of the locals. Restrictive measures won't work, they'll actually backfire," Mr. Goksel says, drawing on his experience witnessing similar difficulties faced by the Israeli army in combating insurgents during its 22-year occupation of south Lebanon.

On Saturday, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top US military commander in Iraq, said that more aggressive tactics by the coalition forces has helped reduce the number of attacks against coalition forces.

"In the past 14 days, we have seen the daily average of engagements throughout the country decline by over 30 percent," he told a news conference in Baghdad.

He added that the average number of attacks was down to 22 a day, compared with as many as 50 a day two weeks ago.

But within hours of his remarks, seven Spanish intelligence officers were killed in an ambush at Latifiya, 18 miles south of Baghdad, two Japanese diplomats were shot dead near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, and two US soldiers were killed near the Syrian border. Two South Korean contract workers were also shot dead Sunday near Tikrit, and a Colombian employee of the US firm Kellogg Brown & Root was slain north of Baghdad on Saturday.

Units of the 16,000-strong 1st Armored Division, backed by Apache helicopters and the fearsome AC-130 Spectre gunships, launched Operation Iron Hammer in Baghdad Nov. 12, raiding buildings suspected of harboring militants.

Further north, around Tikrit, the 4th Infantry Division conducted Operation Ivy Cyclone II, which saw artillery and aircraft bombing targets in a display of force not seen since President Bush announced on May 1 the end of major fighting.

The operations came as the number of attacks and military casualties were on the increase, creating pressure on the coalition to react.

"There was a lot of talk in the media that we were being too defensive and not offensive," says a US Army officer in Baghdad. "We took the increased intelligence we have been receiving and massed our firepower and went after the terrorists to show them that we are here to stay and make them pay for their actions."

Dozens of suspects have been arrested, hundreds of weapons seized, and bomb-making factories uncovered in the round-ups. But the Iraqi militants have responded to the crackdown by shifting the focus of their attacks away from Baghdad and the Sunni triangle toward the north and the south of the country. The attacks are also directed increasingly at softer targets - the Iraqi police and civil-defense troops who are taking over routine security duties from coalition forces.

"In the past, attacks against coalition forces were predominant," Paul Bremer, the US overseer in Iraq, said last week. "Now terrorist attacks against Iraqis are occurring regularly. This is a repugnant but not unexpected tactic."

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