Posters are the latest tool against insurgents in Iraq

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A wanted poster is displayed at a market checkpoint in Baghdad’s Abu T’Shir neighborhood. Security officials credit the poster campaign with driving insurgents underground.


Posters are the latest tool against insurgents in Iraq
By Heath Druzin, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, November 27, 2008

BAGHDAD — In a country that often feels like the Wild West, security forces are turning to a tactic straight out of the American West to isolate and arrest suspected insurgents: the wanted poster.

The posters are hung throughout Baghdad in bustling markets, at checkpoints, even on semi trucks. They include photos of the suspects, along with descriptions of their crimes and, maybe most importantly, offer a cash reward.

The newest low-tech approach — reminiscent of the deck of cards with pictures of key figures in the Saddam Hussein regime that the U.S. military produced at the beginning of the Iraq war — is paying dividends, Iraqi and U.S. officials said.

Tipsters looking for reward money have turned in a few suspected insurgents but, more than that, having their picture plastered across town has driven many of the wanted underground, officials said.

"Because they became famous, everybody knows them and they can’t work inside the city," said Maj. Falah Mustafa, who works in Baghdad’s Saha neighborhood, one of many areas in the south of the city that has seen a steep drop in violence in recent months.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59086