Inside Iraq: Chasing al Qa'eda in the Desert

After being pushed out of cities, rebels may be regrouping

Jargie Hussain, a Kurdish tobacco farmer, waits for customers in his store in Mosul.

MOSUL, iraq // Although the US military's surge strategy last year flooded Baghdad with US and Iraqi forces and succeeded in dramatically diminishing the al Qa'eda presence there, it pushed insurgents from the capital into Mosul and further north. Having driven many of them underground or out of Mosul, the military is now trying to go after them in the rural, desert areas where they are believed to be regrouping. In the vast expanse of Iraq's western Jazeera desert, they are less effective but harder to find. "We know that al Qa'eda still has a meaningful presence in the Mosul area and parts of western Ninevah and the Tigris River Valley," Gen David Petraeus said last month. "That's useful to know, but that encompasses a couple of million people." In the desert, US and Iraqi forces found what they believed were two small insurgent training camps this year - one with weapons hidden in the walls of what looked from the outside like abandoned buildings. Last year, further north near Sinjar, a raid found a logistics hub. "It was a big deal in that it truly showed there was foreign fighter traffic in the western Jazeera - really, it was a couple of computer systems - it was effectively a travel office for al Qa'eda. It was 'here's where you pick up your papers, here's where you pick up your travel itinerary, here's where you are going - here are the safe houses where you stay along the way'," said one military intelligence officer. "We do not have an extensive presence in the western Jazeera - not even the Iraqi army does - but the flip side is that an insurgency or even terrorism needs populated areas in order to thrive. In the desert all you can do is train." Intelligence analysts have said they are seeing a regrowth of the Sunni insurgent group, Ansar al Sunna. and a transformation of al Qa'eda in Iraq to the Islamic State in Iraq. "There is now a perception among the average Iraqis that al Qa'eda is a bad thing which is the reason for the Islamic State in Iraq - to put an Iraqi face on an insurgency so it appeared to have a nationalist tone," the intelligence officer said. While there has been a dramatic drop in the number of attacks, their effectiveness has increased slightly because of the increased focus on softer targets such as police and civilians, said one US army officer. And although the number of foreign fighters crossing over from Syria has lessened, US officials said the Iraqi government believed the flow of militants, financing and ammunition was extensive enough to essentially shut down the main Rabiea border crossing this summer. It was open to critical food supplies and humanitarian traffic but not to commercial traffic, said one US military official. @email:[e-mail]