Insurgency suffering from new Iraqi pride Public support for rebels seems to be waning since the election By DOUG STRUCK Washington Post RESOURCES
BAGHDAD - With a hero who gave his life for the elections, a revived national anthem blaring from car stereos and an increased willingness to help police, the public mood appears to be moving stronger against the insurgency, Iraqi officials say.
In the week since national elections, police and Iraqi national guardsmen say that they have received more tips from the public, resulting in more arrests and greater effectiveness in their efforts to weaken the insurgency rocking the country.
None of the officials said they believed the violence was finished. An Iraqi police captain said 22 Iraqi security troops and 14 insurgents were killed later Sunday when rebels tried to storm a police station in a village south of Baghdad, but the U.S. command denied the report, the Associated Press reported.
The U.S. command in Baghdad, citing provincial authorities, said no fighting had occurred in the Mahawil district, about 50 miles south of Baghdad.
The Polish military, which is responsible for the area, reported hours earlier that two Iraqi national guardsmen were killed and three were wounded in an ambush in the same community.
At least nine other Iraqis were reported slain and a U.S. soldier was killed and two others wounded north of the capital.
Four Egyptian engineers were kidnapped and two insurgent groups issued statements threatening to kill an Italian journalist being held hostage.
But officials in Baghdad said a relative lull in violence in the capital has fueled the sense that something has fundamentally changed since the vote. A change of attitudes in Baghdad could make a crucial difference in the battle against the terrorists, and a buoyed sense of civic pride is already beginning to change the way the public treats the police, authorities say.
"They saw what we did for them in the election by providing safety, and now they understand this is their army and their sons," said Sgt. Haider Abudl Heidi, a national guardsman wearing a flak jacket at a checkpoint in Baghdad.
The insurgency began to emerge soon after the toppling of Saddam Hussein on a tide of anger about the U.S. occupation. But in interviews during the past week, officials and Baghdad residents cited what they called a renewed nationalist pride since the elections that they said might be dampening those feelings, and might be beginning to dispel Iraqi tolerance and support for the insurgents.
"I feel very optimistic that things will change for the better because of the strong turnout in the elections. That reinforced our faith and gave us a sense of change for the better," said Ali Jassem, 32, the manager of a bakery in Baghdad.
Part of that mood change is credited to Abdul Amir, Iraq's newest national hero. On election day, Amir, 30, a policeman in Baghdad, noticed a man walking toward a polling station in Baghdad who appeared to be carrying something heavy under his coat. Amir wrapped his arms around the man and dragged him away from the crowd. A belt of explosives wrapped around the man blew both men to shreds.
Members of Iraq's interim cabinet have touted Amir as a symbol of national pride. A statue is planned, and the school that served as the polling station where he died might change its name to honor him.
"It's too simple to say what he did was heroic," said Najat Abdul Sattar, the headmistress of the school, where children study in classrooms yards from where Amir died. "What more honor could we give the man?"
"When people saw what he did, they said we will not let those violent people intimidate us, and they went to vote in even greater numbers. Where there were three or four in line, after the blast there were 30 or 40," said Mohammed Hadithi.
