MOSUL: Mobile, discreet and relatively tolerant of public morals: rebels in Mosul are avoiding the traps that led to the fall of their comrades in Fallujah.

"Hide your weapons and disperse" was the advice to the mujahedeen printed on flyers when US-led forces began an assault to retake Iraq's third largest city on November 18.

That tactical dispersal came after insurgents yielded control of this city of 1.5 million for over a week, having chased out or killed most of the police.

"The Americans came back and the mujahedeen turned into ghosts. They are very present, but invisible," says Anas Mohammed Abdallah, a former army officer.

While rebels transformed Fallujah into a citadel, insurgents in Mosul refuse to make the same mistake.

"They haven't transformed any neighbourhood into a fortress. They carry out their operations and then just disappear," says Abdallah.

The biggest group is the Al Qaeda Group of Jihad in the Country of Two Rivers loyal to Jordanian-born militant, Abu Musab al Zarqawi.

Militant groups Ansar al Sunna and Ansar al Islam are also active in the northern city.

In mid-October, six main militant organizations united under the banner of the "High Committee of Mujahedeen", but each group kept its own identity and tracts carry both names.

Most insurgents operating in Mosul are from the region - either long-time Islamists or zealous members of the former ruling Baath party who seem to have no shortage of funds.

"They never haggle when they buy weapons and they pay cash," said a police officer on condition of anonymity.

Discretion is the other means of their game: no headquarters, unknown leaders and fighters armed only when on a mission to kill.

"I found out that one of my friends was with the mujahedeen when I saw a poster announcing his death in combat," said student Kazem Abdel Rahman, 28.

Used as message boards, the walls of the city's main mosques are covered in notices claiming responsibility for attacks, killings or the death in action of one of their own.

The insurgents have also launched a merciless campaign against petty criminals. Eighty per cent of the city's 5,000 police may have fled, but several residents say kidnappings, car theft and armed robbery have ceased entirely.

"Criminals and inhabitants are afraid of the mujahedeen who have liquidated many wrongdoers," says retired policeman Omar Mohammed Marwan, 59.

He mentions video footage released on a CD by Zarqawi fanatics, showing the confession and decapitation of three men who kidnapped a wealthy Christian shopkeeper. The already-paid 100,000-dollar ransom was given back.

"That was very dissuasive," says Marwan.

To stop the local population taking a dislike to them, insurgents have so far avoided imposing an overly austere lifestyle, as they did in Fallujah.

While all women, including Christians, must be veiled in the street, shops still sell alcohol in Mosul, which has a significant Christian population.

Unlike in Fallujah, west of Baghdad, there has been no mujahedeen ban on CD and musical instrument shops, nor hair salons and coffee shops where men can smoke shisha pipes.

Instead, national guardsmen and Iraqi soldiers are the main targets for insurgents. In 10 days, 57 bodies of murdered security officers were found.

"Hit the national guard first, they're the Americans' eyes," reads one tract.-AFP