Fanning the flames of resistance

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KARACHI - With US forces storming into western districts of Fallujah early on Monday, seizing the main city hospital and securing two key bridges over the Euphrates River, the first stage of the long-expected assault on the insurgent stronghold appears to be under way.

This follows the interim Iraqi government's declaration on Sunday of a state of emergency for 60 days throughout the country, except for Kurdish-run areas of the north.

These developments are expected to precipitate a new phase in the resistance that, Asia Times Online contacts say, is being coordinated from Samarra, the Sunni stronghold north of Baghdad where at least 33 people were killed and 48 wounded, including a local police chief, in four car-bomb attacks and clashes on Saturday.

The sources say the Iraqi resistance, comprising nationalist Iraqi tribes, religious groups, former Ba'ath Party and Iraqi Republican Guard members, as well as foreign fighters, is being coordinated by Saddam Hussein's former No 2, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, who has played an important role in cementing a unified strategy among the different anti-US groups in the country.


Asia Times