TIKRIT, Iraq — As U.S. forces tracked former president Saddam Hussein to his subterranean hiding place, they unearthed a trove of intelligence about five families that run the Iraqi insurgency, according to U.S. military commanders who said the information is being used to uproot the remainder of the resistance.
Senior U.S. officers said they were surprised to discover — clue by clue over six months — that the upper and middle ranks of the resistance are overwhelmingly filled by members of five extended families from a few villages within a 12-mile radius of Tikrit along the Tigris River.
At the heart of this tightly woven network is Auja, Hussein’s birthplace, which U.S. commanders say is the intelligence and communications hub of the insurgency and home to many of the former president’s key confidants, their favorite wives and most lavish homes. When U.S. forces sealed off Auja in late October, they effectively separated the leaders of the insurgency from their guerrilla forces, dealing the anti-occupation campaign a major blow, said Lt. Col. Steve Russell of the 4th Infantry Division, responsible for the Tikrit area.
"It’s amazing that all roads lead to this region," Russell said. "It’s amazing who lives in that town. It’s a who’s who of families and a who’s who of Saddam’s former staff."
A trusted lieutenant of Hussein who ultimately pointed U.S. interrogators to the former president’s hideout in the nearby village of Dawr on Dec. 13 was one of at least five brothers in Hussein’s innermost circle, U.S. Army officers said. Though U.S. officials have not released the informant’s name, they described him as a senior officer in Hussein’s elite Special Security Organization with roots in the village of Abu Ajeel, just north of Tikrit.
A longtime confidant, this senior security official emerged as Hussein’s "right arm" after U.S. forces captured Hussein’s personal secretary, Abid Hamid Mahmud Tikriti, in June, U.S. military officers said. Tikriti was not replaced, but his duties as Hussein’s de facto chief of staff were divided among those in the inner circle, in particular the senior security official and his brothers. The official served as a direct liaison between Hussein and the broader resistance organization.
Hussein himself was a rallying symbol, an irreplaceable "icon," according to Col. James Hickey, whose 1st Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division captured him. But U.S. commanders said they have no evidence that the former president, as he moved from one safe house to another and rarely stayed longer than a week in one place, played a role in directing the insurgency.
Including those who cooked for Hussein and squired him between his estimated 30 hideaways in aging taxis, pickups and riverboats, the number of loyalists with access to him numbered no more than 40, according to U.S. intelligence estimates. These inner-circle loyalists, largely middle-aged men, usually insulate themselves from capture by keeping a distance from attacks on U.S. and allied troops. To avoid detection, they rarely travel with weapons or large amounts of money, slipping among clandestine meetings at modest farmhouses and nondescript cafes.
Their underlings are trusted members of their own families, which can number in the hundreds.
Below the top tier are the mid-level operatives who organize specific attacks on U.S. and allied forces, providing arms and arranging financing. At the lowest level are the fighters, who U.S. officials said carry out the ambushes, prepare bombs and fire mortars in return for payments of $250 to $1,000, getting bonuses when they succeed in causing casualties.
U.S. commanders said the resistance sometimes seems to be a nationwide network, with mid-level operatives and low-level fighters from one part of the country surfacing in other regions. A recent rocket attack on Tikrit, for instance, appeared to be carried out by guerrillas from Fallujah, located along the Euphrates River west of Baghdad.
Mostly, U.S. military commanders have concluded that the resistance remains decentralized, with mid-level operatives choosing targets locally and supplying weapons kept close at hand.
The detailed picture that U.S. commanders now have of the Iraqi insurgency is the product of months of sleuthing, including a campaign of raids targeting suspected Hussein loyalists in the Tikrit area.
"Our principal focus was to go after the mid- to low-level enemy leaders: the operations, financiers and weapons guys," Hickey said. "As we learned about the enemy and how he organized himself, eventually it led to some former members of the senior regime."
The first glimpse of the inner circle came in July with the arrest of Adnan Abdullah Abid Musslit, a key Hussein bodyguard seized during a series of raids in late July, Russell said. The sweeps also found photographs of Hussein posing with a range of people, some previously overlooked by U.S. forces, providing new clues to those closest to the former president. "We had the makings of a phonebook on Saddam," Russell said.
The new representation of Hussein’s clandestine movement is an easel-sized, multi-colored organizational chart developed by military intelligence officers at the 4th Infantry Division. Nicknamed the Mongo Link, the secret chart has Hussein’s photograph in the center, surrounded by the names and descriptions of more than 250 top- and middle-level activists connected in a web of family and functional ties.
"There are a handful that we’re really interested in getting our hands on," Hickey said. "We know their names and have an idea whenever they’re coming or going. We know where their properties are, and we know who the members of their family are, so we can go to them for information."
U.S. commanders said they dealt the insurgents a major blow when they decided Oct. 30 to isolate Auja, surrounding it with fence and razor wire so the sole exit was past a U.S. military checkpoint. Russell said this move effectively severed the insurgency’s intelligence and communications hub from the outside campaign.
While each of the five families has extensive resources, in some cases plundered from the national treasury, these stores of dollars, Iraqi dinars, counterfeit bills, gold and jewelry are often stashed away, making it difficult to provide payments for specific guerrilla attacks, U.S. military officers said.
Now, U.S. officers said they suspect the resistance may be running low on funds because Hussein partisans have recently been selling off some of their properties, even hawking household items. At the same time, some local guerrillas are demanding higher pay, military officers said.
As of Wednesday, 464 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq, according to the Department of Defense. Of those, 317 died as a result of hostile action and 147 died of non-hostile causes, the department said. The department did not provide an update Thursday.
Since the start of military operations, 2,326 U.S. service members have been injured as a result of hostile action, according to the Defense Department’s figures as of Wednesday. Non-hostile injured numbered 370.
Associated Press
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