Mosul Smoldered Before Igniting

The past month’s spate of insurgent attacks, from the downing of U.S. military helicopters to drive-by assassinations, has rattled Iraqis as much as it has the occupying forces in this northern city.

But Mosul residents, who in recent weeks have seen their city become a battleground for Saddam Hussein loyalists and the U.S.-led coalition, say the relative calm before the current storm was largely illusory.

From the troops’ bloody arrival here in April to the killing of Hussein’s sons in the city in July to the autumn raids on suspected hide-outs of former Baath Party leaders, Mosul has been a brooding incubator of insurgence from the outset, and suffered for it.

Although American occupiers orchestrated the selection of the first post-invasion City Council and plunged into public works to restore civic order, their decisions to remove members of the former regime from their positions planted the seeds of bitterness that have produced hostility.

“The Americans started off on the wrong foot in Mosul,” observed Saad-Edin Ahmed, recalling that 17 civilians died in two days of civil unrest before Iraq’s third-largest city surrendered in April.

As proprietor of a thriving Internet cafe in the city center, Ahmed recognizes that he is a beneficiary of the new freedoms bestowed by the occupation. The window on the world offered by cyberspace was sealed during Hussein’s era, and the 51-year-old entrepreneur acknowledges that it still would be if not for the liberation proclaimed by the coalition.

Even Ahmed, though, argues that the new freedoms and opportunities are far outweighed by the security setbacks and lost sovereignty that have accompanied the occupation.

“What is the benefit of having Internet services if you lose everything else in exchange?” the bewildered businessman asked.

Mosul has seen frequent armed clashes in recent weeks because many of the senior Baathists still at large find succor in the predominantly Arab and Sunni Muslim neighborhoods of an ethnically mixed city that had long contributed a disproportionately large number of officers to the regime. As coalition forces clamp down in an attempt to flush out Hussein loyalists, the insurgency has intensified.

“This is an all-or-nothing game for the Fedayeen and the Baath militia,” said Army Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who commands the 101st Airborne Division and the occupation forces in the northern sector of Iraq, which are headquartered here. Driven by the threat of defeat and annihilation, Hussein loyalists have steadily escalated their resistance, transforming what a few months ago had seemed a model city into a war zone.

Residents date the mood swing here to the July 22 killings of the dictator’s sons, Uday and Qusai. The operation was hailed by U.S. officials as a great stride toward putting a final end to the Hussein regime’s tyranny, but it brought stepped-up attacks from the opposition to thwart coalition progress.

The 101st Airborne has matched each escalation with more aggressive maneuvers aimed at tracking down guerrillas and pressing on with the hunt for Hussein. Those offensives have at times run roughshod over local sensitivities; troops have inflicted damage or injured bystanders and entered mosques allegedly used by insurgents to hide weapons and money.

Baathists and remnants of the paramilitary Fedayeen Saddam have responded in kind, targeting U.S. troops in a spree of roadside bombings and increasingly vicious attacks, such as the daylight slayings Nov. 23 of two soldiers who were ambushed on a congested Mosul street, shot and dragged from their vehicle by a crowd.

A week earlier, ground-to-air fire caused two U.S. helicopters to collide and crash over the city, killing 17 soldiers and contributing to the highest one-month toll for coalition forces -- 111 deaths in November.

Some of the most wanted figures who remain at large also have flocked to Mosul. Reports have been rampant that Izzat Ibrahim, the highest-ranking remaining fugitive after Hussein, has been operating in the area, directing attacks on coalition forces. U.S. authorities have placed a $10-million bounty on his head in the hope of persuading locals into cooperating.

Arresting Ibrahim would “definitely reduce substantially the amount of attacks,” said one prominent resident of Mosul, who did not want to be identified for fear of Baathist reprisals.

The coalition’s decision to dissolve the Iraqi army and fire Baathists from their government posts alienated many in Mosul. Those left jobless retreated and regrouped after the invasion. Many U.S. officials believe that these Iraqis then launched what has become a concerted campaign to inflict demoralizing injury on U.S. forces and cast the occupation as a threat to Iraqis’ security.

“I had expected the Americans would only target senior government officials,” not sack every officer and technocrat with ties to the party, said Hazem Mahmoud, an electrical engineer who lost his job after U.S. troops arrived. “The United States has only itself to blame for empowering the resistance.”

U.S. troops have also been targeted in revenge for casualties inflicted on bystanders and family members of Baathists who have been killed in raids.

About the only open support for the occupation comes from the city’s police chief, Mohammed Kairi Barhawi, a former Baathist who defected and joined the invaders as soon as they entered the city.

“I am proud to work with the Americans to clean the city of this rabble,” said Barhawi, who is still working with the coalition despite having seen eight of his officers killed for perceived collaboration with the occupiers.

Like other Iraqi cities, Mosul has been the scene of suicide bombings, which locals attribute to foreign Islamic radicals as well as Iraqis. “In the past, we Christians had a very normal life. Now we receive daily threats. A hand grenade was thrown at our house,” complained Pivan Yousef, a clergyman who blamed the attack on “outsiders.”

Iraqis who are vulnerable to attacks by foreign terrorists have nowhere to turn, he lamented. “We cannot seek the help of the Americans because they can barely protect themselves.”

Times staff writers Carol J. Williams and Patrick J. McDonnell in Baghdad contributed to this report.