Report: Al-Qaida softens tactics in Mosul

[unhappycamper]

Report: Al-Qaida softens tactics in Mosul
Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Friday, February 8, 2008

Al-Qaida militants operating in Mosul, Iraq, have shifted tactics to try to improve their image among Iraqis and avoid the mass civilian killings that alienated the public in Baghdad and other cities, USA Today reported Thursday.

The changes include warning locals to take cover before bomb attacks, relaxing the enforcement of strict Islamic laws and staging fewer attacks on Iraqi police, the paper reports U.S. military as saying.

The strategy has made the population of Mosul less likely to follow the example of Iraqis elsewhere who have turned on al-Qaida, U.S. commanders told USA Today, and that U.S. and Iraqi forces may have to work harder to retake Iraq’s third-largest city, which is the militant group’s largest remaining urban stronghold.

“It appears learned from their past mistakes,” Capt. Pat Ryan, an Army intelligence officer in Mosul, told the paper.

In Baghdad and in Anbar province, many former insurgents took up arms against the hard-line Islamic group out of frustration with its indiscriminate killing of civilians.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=52296