Posted on 02/21/2003 12:13:41 PM PST by knak
Secret Plan
Militant Islamic Group Plans to Attack U.S. Special Forces in Northern Iraq
By Kevin McKiernan
S U L A I M A N I A H, Iraq, Feb. 21 — Ansar al-Islam, the radical Islamic guerrilla group that has battled Kurdish government forces in northern Iraq in the past few months, is planning to ambush U.S. special forces near the northern Iraqi town of Halabja, ABCNEWS has learned.
According to a handwritten report that was smuggled out of the Ansar-controlled enclave in northern Iraq, the group's guerrillas have begun preparations to defend themselves against a purported U.S.-coordinated offensive by Kurdish forces, which is rumored to take place within weeks.
The region of northern Iraq known as Iraqi Kurdistan has been autonomous from Baghdad since the 1991 Gulf War. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, controls the eastern part of the autonomous zone.
The secret report, a copy of which was shown to ABCNEWS, also mentions a recent visit by Western journalists to an Ansar-held village in northern Iraq.
The information in the report, which was written by a Kurd with access to the leadership of Ansar al-Islam ("Supporters of God"), could not be independently verified but is considered credible.
Teams of special forces personnel and CIA paramilitaries have been spotted by reporters on several occasions in recent weeks visiting the military headquarters of the PUK in Halabja and Sulaimaniah, a PUK-controlled city of 700,000 in southeastern Iraqi Kurdistan.
But while there have been persistent rumors that undercover U.S. special forces have come to Sulaimaniah to interrogate Ansar prisoners being held by Kurdish forces, U.S. officials do not accept that assessment, at least publicly.
Last week, Western journalists in Sulaimaniah — including an ABCNEWS team — had their tapes and film rolls confiscated after they filmed one of the U.S. teams in the region.
A Kurdish town with a history of conflict, Halabja was the site of a notorious 1988 gas attack by the Iraqi army that killed an estimated 5,000 civilians.
The secret Ansar report, which is dated Feb. 17, 2003, maintains that a U.S./PUK attack on the guerrillas will take place before Feb. 28. It says that Ansar guerrilla units have already been dispersed to at least six mountain locations and that fighters are instructed to infiltrate into civilian areas if the attack becomes too intense to maintain their positions.
Meanwhile, large numbers of PUK peshmergas — "those who face death" — reportedly are moving to Halabja, near the front lines of a ground battle between the Ansar militants and the peshmergas.
At the same time, according to the Ansar report, the guerrillas have planned ambushes and have dispatched special squads to attack U.S. forces making "weekly visits" to a PUK command center near the front line.
The plan brags of "100 percent success."
Alleged Al Qaeda Nexus
In recent weeks, the radical militant group has come under intense international scrutiny following a contentious debate over whether Ansar al-Islam forms the controversial nexus between Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and Saddam Hussein's regime.
Earlier this month, Ansar permitted a group of Western journalists to visit a military compound in the small hamlet of Sergat in northern Iraq. The compound was singled out by Secretary of State Colin Powell in his Feb. 5 presentation to the United Nations.
The presentation prompted confusion after Powell mistakenly labeled a satellite photo as "Khurmal," a more populated village that is a 30-minute drive from Sergat.
Powell maintained that the Sergat compound housed a "poison lab," which he said was proof of al Qaeda's alleged connection to Baghdad.
But when reporters, including an ABCNEWS producer, visited the compound three days after Powell's speech, they found no evidence of a lab, although none of the journalists had forensic expertise. Ansar guerrillas also did not allow access to other areas of Sergat during the permitted one-hour visit.
The Sergat tour offered a rare, if limited, glimpse of guerrilla life, but it added little to the debate over whether Ansar al-Islam forms a bridge between al Qaeda and Baghdad.
The purported link has had many detractors, including Sen. Joseph Biden, former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In an interview with ABCNEWS during a visit to northern Iraq in December, the Delaware Democrat said he had reviewed U.S. intelligence, but had found no convincing proof of an al Qaeda-Baghdad connection.
A Source of Disagreement
The smuggled handwritten report about Ansar plans to attack U.S. personnel suggests that the Western journalists' visit to Sergat was a source of a disagreement within the militant group.
The report says the Ansar governing council, or shuria, had instructed two Ansar representatives in advance to guarantee safe conduct for the journalists and to try to counteract "PUK lies" by refraining from criticism of the United States during the brief visit.
But apparently one guerrilla was angered by the visit and called for a machine gun and threatened to kill the journalists. The information confirms the report of a Kurdish-speaking photographer who overheard the threat at the time and relayed it to members of the press corps.
The defiant guerrilla was restrained, according to the photographer who witnessed the incident.
The secret Ansar report calls the dissident guerrilla "a fundamentalist" and says he was "punished" for his actions after the departure of the journalists. ‘Little Tora Bora’
Ansar al-Islam was established late in 2001 with the merger of two fundamentalist Kurdish groups in northern Iraq. Although its members are Sunni Muslims, they adhere to an ultra-orthodox ideology and believe in a rigid interpretation of the Koran.
Kurdish authorities say the group is made up of about 700 fighters, including more than 100 "Afghani Arabs," nicknamed for their military experience in Afghanistan.
Ansar al-Islam controls about a dozen villages in northern Iraq in an enclave near the Iranian border. The guerrillas are based in and around the village of Biarrah in the Surren Mountains.
These days, the rugged area, which lies along the Iranian border, has been nicknamed "Little Tora Bora."
A Reputation for Cruelty
In the short time since its formation, Ansar has developed a reputation for both battlefield daring and extreme cruelty to captured prisoners. According to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, dozens of PUK prisoners have been executed in the past 18 months and a number of the bodies have been mutilated.
Shots of some of the dead PUK fighters appeared late last year in a guerrilla-made video, a copy of which has been obtained by ABCNEWS.
Several of the bodies showed signs of close-range killing, as did at least one corpse filmed by ABCNEWS last December after a PUK-controlled fort was seized by Ansar guerrillas in a dramatic attack that left more than 50 PUK fighters dead.
According to Ansar guerrillas captured by the PUK and interviewed by ABCNEWS, the villages have imposed Taliban-like edicts where music, videos and alcohol are forbidden, women must be veiled in public, and men must have beards.
Several Ansar prisoners also indicated that there was cross-traffic between al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan and Ansar territory in the Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Iraq.
‘Financial Negotiations’
The group's reputation for brutality was enhanced earlier this month, when hours after the Western journalists left the Sergat camp, Ansar militants assassinated three PUK officials — including a member of the Kurdish parliament — in a village near Sergat. Four others were killed in the attack, including a woman and her 8-year-old daughter.
The gunmen wounded 11 others and took three hostages. According to the smuggled report, the attack was an elaborate trap painstakingly planned by Ansar during two months of secret negotiations by the PUK to divide the guerrillas.
The report says that the attack took place during the third of three meetings between the PUK and Ansar gunmen, after the PUK representatives produced the final installment of $80,000 promised by the PUK in exchange for large-scale defection from the guerrilla ranks.
A senior PUK official confirmed that the existence of the "financial negotiation," but he did not specify an amount. He said the PUK initiative, which was launched in December, was a bona fide effort to divide the militants.
But according to the Ansar report, the participation of the guerrillas in the negotiation was a hoax from the outset, a fact later admitted in post-attack boasts on the group's official Web site (www.nawend.com).
When the shooting begins, we're gonna' kill them all.
Well, that's a bit optimistic, even for a U.S. Special Forces operation, unless they are talking of their impending meeting with Allah.
D A I S Y C U T T E R !
Shhhhh .... our use of the secret weapon listed above is a secret. Don't tell ABC news.
No invasion!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.