Taking the sting out of the Samarra swarm By Syed Saleem Shahzad (asia times)

KARACHI - The city of Samarra, target of the biggest US air strike since the invasion of Iraq three years ago, has been the nucleus of the national resistance since the fall of Baghdad.

The Sunni-dominated city 125 kilometers north of Baghdad, despite several attempts, has never been subjugated, because of the strong tribal structure and fierce nationalism of its residents.

Operation Swarmer, which began on Thursday with more than 650 American and 800 Iraqi soldiers, 200 tactical vehicles and more than 50 helicopters, aims to change this. The mission involved a combination of UH-60 Black Hawk, AH-64D Apache Longbow, and CH-47 Chinook helicopters, the Pentagon said in a fact sheet, all of them to ferry troops and provide cover.

The bomb attacks on the revered Shi’ite Golden Mosque in Samarra last month provided the opportunity the United States had been waiting for, as they provided the motivation for the Shi’ite-dominated Iraqi army to commit fully to the assault on the city. In previous offensives, notably on Fallujah, Iraqi troops have proved highly unreliable.

In the Samarra attack, which is expected to last several days, Iraqi forces are at the forefront of pitched house-to-house battles against the resistance. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari called the targeted area "a hotbed for insurgents and terrorists".

According to a report by Al-Jazeera, residents north of Samarra said that there was a heavy US and Iraqi troop presence in the area and that large explosions could be heard in the distance. They said the operation appeared to be concentrated near four villages - Jillam, Mamlaha, Banat Hassan and Bukaddou - near the highway leading north from Samarra to the city of Adwar. It was not clear how much resistance the operation had met. The US Army said 41 suspects had been detained.

The offensive began on the same day that Iraq’s new parliament in the heavily fortified Green Zone met for the first time since elections in December. In a brief ceremony, the lawmakers each took an oath and then the House adjourned. Parliament has been unable to agree on a Speaker, let alone on confirming prime minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Shi’ite choice for the position. No date was set for parliament to meet again.

Samarra, a vital part of the Sunni triangle that is the heart of the resistance, has been a martial city for centuries. It was chosen by the Abbasid rulers as the cantonment for their Turkish-dominated army so that non-Arab influence would be kept to a minimum in the caliphate’s capital Baghdad.

During Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party rule, Samarra retained its identity as a military city as it was home to many top officers.

After the fall of Baghdad in 2003, Samarra initially remained calm, but in time the local population booted out the US-backed administration and US forces, and leaders of the resistance took over the affairs of the city.

In late 2004, the US conducted a massive operation to regain control of the city from the resistance. However, after claiming initial success, matters returned to the status quo, with former Iraqi army officers and firebrand Arab nationalists coordinating the resistance. Even the now-deceased Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, once No 2 under Saddam, stayed in Samarra to command the resistance.

The US realized that the only way to have a chance of "purging" the city and its surrounding areas would be to invoke a committed indigenous force. The sectarian backlash to the Samarra shrine attack, in which Sunni-Shi’ite tensions escalated and more than 500 people were killed, focused attention on the resistance leaders in Samarra, who happened to be Sunnis. Shi’ites in uniform did not need a second invitation for the chance to join the attack.

There is no doubt that the current offensive will deal a blow to the resistance as for the first time its primary weapons cache has been targeted. A US military statement said that caches containing artillery shells, explosives, bomb-making materials, improvised explosive devices and military uniforms had been discovered on the first day of the raid. It can be expected that more bunkers will be unearthed, containing in addition to arms large amounts of money meant to finance the resistance.

But even if the resistance does lose its main supply base, or parts of it, there are alternatives, including Nineveh and Babylon. Further, the resistance can make use of the often-porous border with Syria.

While all of the United States’ attention is on central Iraq, trouble could be brewing in the south, too. Contacts of Asia Times Online familiar with the Iraqi resistance claim that the Jaishul Islam al-Iraq (Islamic Army of Iraq), an indigenous group commanded by former top Iraqi generals and independent Islamists, has established itself in Basra and Amarah. Although the group includes former Ba’athists of both Sunni and Shi’ite origin, the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood is its binding force.

A general observation of the Iraqi resistance is its highly developed military acumen. By all accounts it has been on red alert ever since the Samarra mosque attack last month, and it can be expected to have devised strategies to counter offensives such as Operation Swarmer.

Syed Saleem Shahzadis Bureau Chief, Pakistan Asia Times Online. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.

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