Word: militiaization
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Starting in February, Saddam himself telegraphed his intention to use unorthodox forces to hinder a U.S. invasion in televised appearances certainly monitored by U.S analysts. Maybe they dismissed his declarations as bombast. Last week he even listed Baath militia, tribal warriors and the Fedayeen by name when explaining how he would triumph, and then publicly commended them: "Under various names and descriptions, the Iraqi mujahedin are inflicting serious losses on the enemy...
...noncombatants here. One morning, while in a position being bombarded by mortars for six hours, one of the local fighters known as peshmerga told me, "These bombs don't recognize your identity." Territory shifts frequently. The day before the blast, the checkpoints were manned by a local fundamentalist militia, known as Komal, which is allied to Ansar and protects its northern flank...
...Civilians, meanwhile, continually wandered out of town to encourage and even beg the U.S. soldiers to take Najaf. They said fedayeen irregulars were forcing local members of the al-Quds militia to fight by gathering their families and threatening to shoot them if they did not oppose the Americans. At one point, locals came out to thank the Americans for killing the area's Baath party leader, who they said had been executing civilians. The Baath leader, they said, had been killed in an air strike on a fedayeen stronghold...
...that may lie ahead in pacifying Iraq. Many Iraqi forces are no longer in conventional military formation, but have adopted guerrilla tactics to face a more powerful enemy. Tuesday's sandstorm attack on the 7th Cavalry, for example, was carried out by members of the Fedayeen Saddam, a youth militia run by Uday Hussein, firing AK-47s and RPGs from SUVs and other non-military vehicles. And Saddam is certainly hoping the survival of his regime for the first week of the war will inspire some of the tribal chieftains he has courted and (and armed) over the past decade...
...slowing of the planned phased withdrawal of its 3,800-strong peacekeeping force. Only one of the gangs was caught, and PKF Commander Major-General Tan Huck Gim says another five could be at large, despite PKF efforts to find them. Some local communities fear the gangs are returning militia; Tan says though they may contain some ex-militia, the gangs have more basic motives: "They come to steal and they go back to where they're from because they know the people and the terrain?and they know who there has money...