MOSUL, Iraq, 26 December 2003 — Islamic groups in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul vowed yesterday to step up their resistance to US forces, following the capture earlier this month of their oppressor, Saddam Hussein.

“Now that Saddam has been captured, the Islamic resistance is going to intensify and will become more effective,” warned Sheikh Ali Ussam, a preacher at a mosque in this conservative Sunni town some 400 kilometers north of Baghdad.

“Until now, operations have been limited to the minimum, to avoid loyalists of the ousted regime taking credit for them,” said 33-year-old Ussam, who is a member of the Union of Muslim Clerics, founded in 1968 but which remained clandestine under the former regime.

“The religious resistance is going to increase now, because the occupiers are becoming more and more aggressive and believe all Iraqis are suspects,” said Sheikh Rayan Khalil, president of Mosul’s Committee of Muslim Clerics which was formed after the fall of Saddam’s regime in April. Khalil said that the guerrillas “are not controlled by the clerics or the mosque imams,” but “act individually.”

“Most of the insurgent operations (so far) in Mosul are the work of elements linked to Saddam...” said Ussam, himself an imam, or preacher. Radical Muslim groups in Mosul distanced themselves from Saddam, despite his No. 2, Izzat Ibrahim — who is still at large and the target of a manhunt by the US-led coalition — alleged to have close ties with a large number of tribal chiefs and imams in Mosul.

Following Saddam’s capture on Dec. 13, Ibrahim is now the most wanted man in Iraq with a $10-million bounty on his head. He is suspected of masterminding attacks against the coalition forces occupying Iraq. And he is said to be the only high-ranking official in the ousted regime to have maintained close ties with radical Islamic groups.

“Saddam separated the mosque from the people, and made them lose confidence in their religious officials,” explained Sheikh Yussif Idriss, a preacher in a small mosque in a poor neighborhood in Mosul.

“Under his regime, we had to organize secret religious education societies, and Saddam could have a sheikh shot if a prohibited book was found in his possession,” Idriss added. Though Mosul’s Muslim clerics have denied having any direct links to the guerrillas, they have expressed sympathy and respect for the rebels and said that anti-US attacks are justified by religion, even if jihad, or holy war, has not been formally declared against the United States.

Iraqi tribes staged two separate demonstrations yesterday in Baghdad for and against the planned expulsion from Iraq of nearly 4,000 detained members of Iran’s main opposition group, the People’s Mujahedeen.

The first protest, organized by tribes from the Shiite Muslim area of Karbala, south of Baghdad, took place in Fardus Square, near the Sheraton and Palestine hotels, home to foreign journalists here.

An hour later, Sunni Muslim tribesmen from Diyala, 60 kilometers northeast of Baghdad, marched in the same square, calling for the anticipated expulsion to be cancelled in the name of “Arab hospitality”. But the demonstrators quickly dispersed when the crackle of automatic gunfire rang out in the area.