Union-Tribune

April 13, 2003

Looters, killers ravage Mosul
   U.S., Kurdish forces struggle to quell lawlessness in northern city

By MARCUS STERN
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

MOSUL, Iraq – The day after government forces abandoned this northern Iraqi city, the early signs of regime change were apparent at Al-Jumhuri Hospital, where the death toll from bullet wounds had reached a dozen by early afternoon. Fifty people had been treated for gunshot injuries.

Bursts of gunfire crackled sporadically. Flames and smoke spewed from a police station set on fire in anger. Banks and government buildings blackened by fire Friday still smoldered yesterday. Residents were setting up barricades at both ends of their streets to protect their homes from armed marauders.

Friday's departure of Iraqi troops and Baath Party officials from Mosul has left a power vacuum in the city of 1.6 million, bringing on lawlessness, looting and killing.

It also has confronted the United States with a problem associated with regime change: a breakdown in law and order that leads to anarchy, looting and killing.

In Haiti in 1994, a U.S. military intervention restored popularly elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide after a coup had forced him from office. But after the intervention, pro-and anti-Aristide forces clashed. People threw grenades into crowds, and economic crime quickly supplanted political crime. U.S. forces, which initially were under orders not to intervene in local disputes, needed weeks to regain a semblance of control.

Mindful of that experience, U.S. military officials in Iraq acted quickly to gain control in Baghdad, Mosul and other cities to try to maintain order.

How successful the efforts will be remains to be seen.

In Mosul, additional U.S. troops and Kurdish peshmerga fighters were brought in yesterday to restore order after chaos and lawlessness broke out Friday when Iraqi authorities capitulated and fled.

A U.S. military commander met with about 40 tribal leaders to enlist their help in restoring order. U.S. and peshmerga forces stepped up their patrols throughout the city.

Bruska Shaways, who oversees a force of 25,000 peshmergas in a district that now includes Mosul, blamed the civil unrest squarely on the United States.

"The United States must take responsibility for this because they did not let the peshmergas come in" to keep the peace, he said. "If they had let the peshmergas in, then this would not have happened."

He said 105 peshmergas initially entered Mosul on Friday afternoon with U.S. approval. The number of peshmergas has risen to 300, but he says it's not nearly enough to do the job.

"Why didn't they allow us to bring in 5,000 to 6,000 peshmergas?" Shaways asked. The peshmergas, he said, could have prevented the looting and shooting.

U.S. authorities have been concerned that neighboring Turkey might move troops south into Iraq if Kurdish peshmergas take control of Mosul and another oil-rich northern Iraqi city, Kirkuk. Until now, they have been controlled by the government of Iraq.

While the majority of people living in Kirkuk are Kurds, the majority of those living in Mosul are Arabs, like Saddam Hussein.


Early yesterday afternoon, Al-Jumhuri Hospital already was chaotic with gunshot victims. Then a new burst of gunfire erupted just outside the gates of the hospital. It drove a small crowd of people into the triage area of the emergency room as U.S. soldiers moved forward with their assault rifles to keep the shooters away from the hospital.

Inside, a man lay on his side, one bullet wound in his chest and another under his arm. A man shot in the pelvis lay in his blood, moaning, shrieking and writhing.

While doctors and others worked over a half-dozen injured patients, more freshly injured people were carried through the door. Two men arrived with a small figure swaddled in a pink blanket, apparently dead.

In a nearby room, five more men lay on beds with their bullet wounds still untreated. And in another, three dead bodies lay on the floor.

Many of those working or being treated in the hospital were Arab. Many of those in the hospital, which is in an Arab part of Mosul, bitterly denounced the United States for its attacks on Iraq.

Faiz Takayee, one of the doctors treating injured men in a back room, blamed the Kurdish peshmergas for the shootings and said they were doing America's bidding. America was unwelcome here, he said.

"We don't want them to protect us," he said. "We don't want to even see them. We can protect ourselves."

A father carried in his 7-year-old daughter, Aaya. She was thin with delicate, birdlike features and was shot in the shoulder. Her family blamed the peshmergas. The peshmergas had been chasing looters near their house. Shooting broke out. A stray bullet hit Aaya.

"They are shooting on the civilian people," said a doctor who asked not to be identified. "Why?"

The staff in the hospital dismissively described most of the dead and injured as peshmergas or looters. In most cases, there was no evidence to back up the claims.

One of the three bodies lying on the floor of the nearby room clearly was a peshmerga. He had a thick, black mustache. His large, brown eyes still were open. He wore a green peshmerga uniform. The two bodies lying next to him were Arab. They also were brothers.

Members of their family arrived, shocked and bereaved. They angrily blamed peshmergas for killing the brothers. A third brother, yelling and screaming and beating his own chest in despair, condemned the United States and the peshmergas.

He helped carry the bodies of his two brothers outside and placed them in the back of a large truck along with two pine caskets. Then the third brother went back inside the hospital briefly, returned and drove away. Inside the hospital, the body of the peshmerga with the brown eyes lying next to the two dead Arab brothers was missing its head.

Outside, another pickup truck pulled up to the hospital with two dead men. Then, yet another spate of gunfire broke out near the hospital.