Orlando Sentinel (Florida) March 27, 2003
Guerrilla Tactics Confound U.S. Plans
By Matthew Hay Brown, Sentinel Staff Writer
A group of men dressed in regular Iraqi army uniforms pretends to surrender to U.S. Marines. But when the Americans approach, the soldiers draw weapons and open fire, killing nine.
Several armed fighters use a city business district as a staging ground for attacks on a field of U.S. tanks. As the armored unit advances on them, the attackers draw back into a civilian neighborhood of women and children.
Others roam village streets and desert highways in ordinary cars and clothes, scouting coalition positions and weighing opportunities to strike.
A week into the war with Iraq, the unexpected tenacity of Saddam Hussein's shadowy paramilitaries -- armed loyalists apparently prepared to fight to the death for him -- is disrupting coalition battle plans. Relying on trickery against a more powerful foe, guerrilla forces are staging targeted strikes that are creating confusion among U.S. and British troops about who is a combatant and who is a civilian.
"It's hard, isn't it?" Army Lt. Col. Philip DeCamp asked his armored battalion this week on the road to Baghdad. "Figuring out who's friendly, who's not. Who's a Bedouin, who's not. Who to hose, who not."
Pentagon officials had hoped for a smoother start to the conflict. They thought that much of the Iraqi army would surrender en masse before the "shock and awe" of coalition airstrikes and that the civilian population -- especially in Shiite-dominated southern Iraq, a center of opposition to Saddam -- would hail the invading troops as liberators, speeding their march to Baghdad.
Although war planners expected some resistance from hardcore loyalists, they assumed they would make their stand in a climactic battle for the capital.
Now persistent attacks by paramilitaries are forcing commanders to adjust their plans. As some coalition units continue toward the capital, others are peeling off to focus attention on continuing "hot spots."
Also changing is U.S. rhetoric. Worried that they may have underestimated Iraqi resistance, U.S. officials have begun calling the guerrillas "terrorists" and "war criminals."
"This band of war criminals has been put on notice," President Bush said Wednesday of one group he said was using civilians as human shields. "The day of Iraq's liberation will also be a day of justice."
Pentagon officials and independent analysts agree that the Iraqi tactics are unlikely to change the outcome of the war. U.S. and British forces are better equipped than their Iraqi counterparts and are expected to maintain control of the skies over Iraq as ground troops advance on Baghdad.
But the Iraqi strategy could raise the cost of victory.
"Not only does it cause casualties for us, it also creates a situation where we can't reach out to the average Iraqi," said former Marine Lt. Col. Dale Davis, who worked as a counterintelligence officer in the Persian Gulf. "At a time when we're trying to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, it will undoubtedly lead to more collateral damage, and that doesn't play well anywhere."
Resistance is expected to increase as coalition troops approach the capital.
GUERRILLAS IN ALLIED UNIFORMS
U.S. officials say the guerrillas have been issued military uniforms "identical down to the last detail" to those worn by U.S. and British troops, which they may wear to confuse coalition forces or Iraqi civilians. At least one report had Iraqis wearing U.S. uniforms, accepting the surrender of Iraqi troops and then executing them, Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said.
"I'm not going to call them troops because they're essentially terrorists," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said.
Most notorious of the paramilitaries are the Fedayeen Saddam -- "Saddam's men of sacrifice" -- a comparatively highly trained and well-paid force with a membership in the tens of thousands.
Formed among loyal tribes after the 1991 Persian Gulf War to crack down on internal dissent, the Fedayeen appear to have been dispatched from their strongholds around Baghdad in recent weeks to prevent regular army troops from surrendering or civilians from rising up against Saddam.
'BLIND LOYALTY'
Ali Abdel Amir, an Iraqi journalist in neighboring Jordan, said the Iraqi leader trusts the Fedayeen even more than his elite Republican Guard.
"They have blind loyalty," Amir said. "They might even kill their fathers if they are ordered to do so."
U.S. Gen. Tommy Franks, the coalition commander, said this week that the Fedayeen were attacking coalition forces along rear lines. Among their tactics are battlefield ruses such as posing as civilians or faking surrenders, which caused the first major casualties to U.S. and British forces in Nasiriyah and Umm Qasr.
"These are men who know they will have no role in the building of a new Iraq and have no future," said Maj. Gen. Peter Wall, chief of staff to the British contingent in the Persian Gulf.
Commanders think at least some attacks on U.S. forces have been the work of the al-Quds Brigade. Founded in theory to liberate Jerusalem -- al-Quds is the Arabic name for the contested city -- the group has grown into another formidable force.
"The al-Quds are all along this area, dressed like civilians and driving civilian vehicles, and they come out at night," DeCamp told his officers outside Karbala this week. "The al-Quds are madmen, taking over people's houses and making them get out."
U.S. commanders say the paramilitaries are not hurting the overall war effort. They note, for example, that U.S. supply lines continue to move.
"These moves are all dangerous to the troops in the field, but they're not dangerous to the success of the mission," Army Lt. Gen. John Abizaid said.
But if the guerrillas can successfully hole up and fight in several cities at once, it "could confront the U.S. with much more serious problems in urban warfare," said Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
For now, they appear to have succeeded in driving a wedge between coalition forces and Iraqi civilians. Since the first ambushes, coalition troops have regarded Iraqis warily, and commanders have watched supposed uprisings suspiciously.
"It felt great when we came in, with the crowds waiting and smiling," said Lt. Col. Michael Belcher of the 1st Marine Division. "Now you wonder what's behind those smiles -- and what lies behind those crowds.
"It's tough to win over hearts and minds now, when you have to hold them at arm's length."
GRAPHIC: BOX: FEDAYEEN: SADDAM'S MARTYRS
What is known about Saddam Hussein's most trusted paramilitary unit:
Founded: 1995 by Saddam's eldest son Odai
Name: 'Fedayeen Saddam' means 'Saddam's men of sacrifice'
Strength: 18,000-40,000
Recruitment: Young men from Saddam's own al-Bu Nasser tribe or other
Sunni-dominated tribes around Tikrit, Saddam's hometown
Report to: Presidential Palace directly
Special unit: 'Fidayi Saddam' known as death squadron; operates
outside political and legal structures
Fedayeen operations
1998: Sweeps Shiite city of Karbala
1999: Crackdown on Shiites in Baghdad suburb
2000-2001: Conducts Saddam's 'beheading of women campaign'
2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom: Suspected of posing as civilians or
faking surrender to trap coalition forces
Dress in black outfits, wear black scarf or balaclava
Known also to operate in civilian clothes
SOURCES: Federation of American Scientists, Global Security
Organization, The Associated Press
KNIGHT RIDDER TRIBUNE
Copyright © 2003, Sentinel Communications Co.
