The New York Times has a well-reported piece on the troubles in Mosul, clearly spelling out what most of us (alas, not the Reuters guys in Baghdad) have known all along:
Maj. Adam Boyd, the intelligence officer for the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment, described the Sunni insurgency here as a dozen groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq, a radical Islamic group that insurgents have put forward as an umbrella group for jihadist fighters in northern Iraq, and Sunni nationalist organizations like the 1920 Revolution Brigades and a Baath Party revival group called Al Awda.
Mosul, and the area around it, is also believed to be a hide-out for some top fugitive Baath Party officials, including Izat Ibrahim al-Duri, one of the kings in the original most-wanted deck of playing cards distributed to American troops.
Other Sunni insurgent groups active in the city are the Army of Islam, the Army of Muhammad and Ansar al-Islam, the group formerly based in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The story gives way too much credit to the Iraqi Army, but I guess that’s unavoidable now that even platoon leaders in the 3ACR are taught to praise the IA’s performance to visiting reporters.
Also today:
The NEFA Foundation has translated a new video and a text communiqué from the Islamic State of Iraq, claiming that AQI is far from defeated in Nineveh. More here.
UPDATE: Dr. iRack weighs in. He’s a wise man, but in this I mostly disagree. I’ve followed the violence in Mosul for months on an almost body-by-body basis, and honestly — nothing has changed. Deals may have been struck, and the days of spectacular truck bombings may be over for now, but the underlying problems remain unsolved.
