> Financial Times - September 25, 2003
>
> Smiles and shrugs speak volumes about nature of attacks on American
> troops
> By Charles Clover, Mark Huband and Roula Khalaf
I think this article dovetails nicely with the one below. It was put out last week by Knight Ridder, and contains, afaik, the only extensive interviews with people who are attacking US forces, as well as a look at a recruiting and training camp.
The people the Knight Ridder people talked to (five reporters did the interviewing; Hannah Allam wrote it up) seem motivated by a combination of Sunni religious conservatism and Iraqi nationalism. They are anti-Al-Qaeda (on religious grounds) and anti-Saddam. And yet the description of their cell structure makes it clear that most of them literally have no idea who's calling the shots (and supply the money and weapons) nor do they care much. So it's very easy to imagine a kind of resistance staff and field operation where a large resevoir of people with these sorts of nationalist and native-islamic discontents is drawn upon and directed by people with resources to produce a very broad resistance.
It also seems clear that in some respects, the groups are sharply operationally divided. The guys interviewed denounce the three most high-profile attacks (the Jordanian embassy, the UN, the Tomb of Ali). But it doesn't make them doubt their own motives nor worry about the future.
The FT article ended with the US military saying "this doesn't present a strategic threat." I think that means "this can't kill more than a tiny part of our military personnel" which is probably true but largely irrelevant. The strategic goal (of the hidden staff that thinks strategically, rather than just heroically) is to perpetuate poverty and chaos, and with it, hatred of the Americans. And that is a much easy goal to achieve than in any previous guerrilla war because they don't have to create it, simply to perpetuate it. And, having invaded out of the blue (as well as being deeply distrusted because we are seen as responsible for everything bad that's happened to Iraqis for the last 30 years, starting with SH) the US will always be considered to bear the lion's share of the blame for the poverty and chaos. The idea that it's all our fault and part of our master plan also fits the standard Middle Eastern conspiracy theory: Britain or the US has always been seen as controlling every sparrow that falls. Current developments certainly won't make this way of thinking fade away.
================
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/6763724.htm
Sun, Sep. 14, 2003
Iraqi fighters reject label of terrorist
Knight Ridder exclusive: Interview with guerrillas
By HANNAH ALLAM
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BAQUBA, Iraq - A mournful voice singing of dreary days and
disappointing harvests drifted across a canal and onto the hidden
grounds where Abu Abdullah teaches his recruits to kill.
Faded Iraqi army uniforms dried on pomegranate trees, and combat
boots lined a dirt path leading into the camp. Young Iraqis picked
ripe grapes and offered them to visitors. And waited for orders to
attack another American convoy.
From this farm hidden among tangled grapevines and tall date palms
an hour north of Baghdad, guerrilla fighters, both Iraqis and
foreigners, have set out on some of the raids that have killed 70
U.S. soldiers in the past four months. The farmer's song is a code
from a lookout, to assure commanders that passing boaters can't
see the band of guerrillas preparing for their next attack on
American soldiers.
The men here, armed with grenades and rifles, seem a ludicrous
match for U.S. forces, whose superior weaponry is evident at every
checkpoint in the country.
But two leaders of guerrilla cells told a Knight Ridder reporter
and photographer in separate interviews that they would fight
until the last vestige of the American presence in Iraq is gone.
Their fate, one said, is "victory or martyrdom."
The interviews, conducted nine days apart in late August and early
September, were the most extensive to date granted by the fighters
who are killing Americans, and the visit to the camp was the first
by journalists covering the war here.
The first interview, with an Iraqi who identified himself as Abu
Mohammed, took place in an abandoned building in Mansour,
Baghdad's most exclusive neighborhood. The second, with a
Jordanian who called himself Abu Abdullah, was at the encampment
near Baquba.
The two cell leaders said their fighters primarily were former
Iraqi army officers and young Iraqis who had joined because they
were angry over the deaths or arrests of family members during
U.S. raids in the hunt for Saddam Hussein and his supporters.
The group also shelters remnants of a non-Iraqi Arab unit of
Saddam's elite Fedayeen militia force as well as foreigners who
slipped across the country's long and porous borders to battle
American troops, they said. Abu Abdullah, who directs the camp
near Baquba, said he came to Iraq shortly before the United States
invaded it last spring.
The anti-American forces appear to be more organized than some
U.S. intelligence and military officials thought. Cells receive
orders and intelligence from Diyala, which lies within the
northern "Sunni Triangle" of danger. According to the fighters,
the Diyala leadership oversees about 100 guerrillas, including an
all-women's unit, and is backed by private donations as well as
Syrian funding, according to the two cell leaders. Both said they
had been told by superiors not to contact members of other cells
for fear of infiltrators.
Abu Mohammed seemed confident that Saddam is directing at least
some of the activity. He said he'd heard that leaders many levels
above him had met recently with the fallen Iraqi leader.
Still, he said, the dictator has no chance of returning to power
because of the shame of losing Baghdad and because of relatives
who turned in his sons and other key figures for rewards.
"We love Saddam Hussein for one thing - he has a big mind," Abu
Mohammed said. "He knows how to think and how to plan. He made our
hearts as strong as steel."
Knight Ridder sought the interviews through Iraqi acquaintances,
who spent weeks contacting other acquaintances, searching for
someone with inroads to the group. The interviews themselves were
arranged through an intermediary, who accompanied a Knight Ridder
reporter and photographer to both, but disappeared without
explanation the day an aborted third meeting was to have taken
place in a new location.
In neither instance did the fighters attempt to prevent the
journalists, an accompanying translator or their driver from
seeing the route along which they were taken. But during the trip
to the camp, the journalists' satellite telephones were
confiscated and turned off, out of concern, the intermediary said,
that U.S. forces would trace the phones' signals to pinpoint the
camp's location.
Both cell leaders said they were willing to talk because they
didn't want the story of what was going on in Iraq to be told only
from the American military's standpoint. Abu Abdullah said he
wanted to tell people he didn't consider himself a terrorist, but
the enemy of "U.S. imperialism."
American officials have said they know little of the exact makeup
of the Iraqi fighters. They have linked the guerrillas both to
Saddam's Baath Party and to foreigners linked to Osama bin Laden's
al Qaida terrorist network.
The cell leaders themselves said they were guided by a blend of
Islamist teachings and pan-Arab nationalism. Both spoke
disdainfully of "Wahabbis," as hard-line Sunni Muslim followers
are called. Abu Mohammed said there was no contact with members of
al Qaida at his level; Abu Abdullah broke off the interview before
the question could be asked. But he said his fighters were too
valuable to participate in suicide missions, a hallmark of al
Qaida, and he rejected the label of terrorist.
"Can you describe a man who defends his country as a terrorist?"
asked Abu Abdullah, who said he was 31. "Iraq is the land of
prophets and the birthplace of civilization. We will fight until
we shed the last drop of our blood for this country."
It is impossible to verify the claims of the two men. But Abu
Mohammed described two fatal ambushes of U.S. convoys that matched
times, dates and locations of recent incidents recorded in
American military accounts. And an explosion nearby lent
credibility to Abu Abdullah's claims after he hurriedly broke off
an interview, saying his men had been ordered to ambush a U.S.
convoy that had moved within range. A security report by
international agencies later listed an attack on U.S. troops at
about the same time and place as the explosion. One American
soldier was reported injured.
Abu Mohammed, who said he was 19, called the American victory in
April a humiliating defeat for his family, which has roots in
Saddam's hometown of Tikrit and includes several officers in the
former army.
A friend of Abu Mohammed's said the young man had an uncle among
the U.S.-led coalition's 55 most-wanted figures from the former
regime, though he declined to divulge the uncle's name or whether
he is still missing.
Family connections to the Baath Party brought raids and arrests of
several relatives, Abu Mohammed said. In June, a cousin confided
that he had joined the anti-American forces. Abu Mohammed said he
accepted his cousin's invitation to watch an attack and was
seduced instantly by the thrill of revenge.
Nearly three months later, his loyalty and family reputation had
earned him a position as the leader of a 20-member cell that
scouts the highways in and around Baghdad for passing American
convoys, which he said made easy targets for rocket-propelled
grenades and homemade bombs.
Superiors sent Abu Mohammed to meet with Knight Ridder one evening
in late August to provide basic information on the Diyala umbrella
group and to vet the journalists before a second meeting.
A middleman named Ahmed accompanied a reporter and photographer to
the Mansour building. Ahmed paid a child standing outside a
handful of Iraqi dinars, presumably to act as a lookout during the
hour-long interview. Ahmed then led the way to a dim, first-floor
office where Abu Mohammed sat behind a desk, wearing a tightly
wrapped head scarf that revealed only his eyes.
His thin frame slumped under the weight of a Kalashnikov and a
military-style vest packed with hand grenades and ammunition. His
hands shook, and he explained that he was nervous because U.S.
raids were growing closer to the Diyala leadership. Raids in
recent weeks had resulted in the arrest of one member, he said,
and two others had narrowly escaped capture.
Fear of informants restricts recruiting to family members, close
neighborhood friends and military buddies, he said.
"We are Islamist in that we are protecting our religion. We are
nationalist in that we are protecting our country," Abu Mohammed
said. "We don't care about our lives. We care about the lives of
our fellow Iraqis."
Abu Mohammed's cell relies on the Baghdad branch for information
on convoy routes, checkpoints with the least security and areas
with high American soldier traffic. Baghdad leaders arrange each
attack and sometimes send members afterward to stand at the scene
posing as onlookers to count casualties. A report then goes to the
Diyala leaders, Abu Mohammed said.
One attack, he said, was scrapped at the last minute because a van
carrying an Iraqi family pulled next to the targeted convoy and
could have been hit by mistake. Typically, however, most attacks
are carried out, and Iraqis who happen to be around are
"sacrificed," he said.
The day before an Aug. 12 attack near Taji, home to a U.S.
military base just north of Baghdad, Abu Mohammed said, he and six
other men scouted the area, plotting the operation and mapping the
quickest escape routes. They planned to have two men on an
overpass fire a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and other
weapons. Two others, one at each end of the overpass, would serve
as lookouts, another as the getaway driver and two more would
guard alternate escape routes farther from the scene. Abu Mohammed
said he was one of the latter two.
The day of the attack, one member recited protective verses from
the Quran and the others repeated each line in unison. They drove
to the site, took their positions and waited for the convoy, which
the Baghdad cell told them would be carrying an important American
military figure.
At about 6 p.m., Abu Mohammed said, they fired on the convoy and
escaped as planned. "I don't know how many were injured," he said.
"I saw two soldiers who looked dead."
On Aug. 13, the U.S. military announced that one 4th Infantry
Division soldier had been killed and two others had been wounded
around 6:15 p.m. the previous day when their convoy was attacked
"in the vicinity of al Taji." Though the records match Abu
Mohammed's account, there's no way to guarantee that the attack
was the one he described.
Even if the U.S.-led military coalition leaves Iraq, Abu Mohammed
said, his group will turn to the U.S.-appointed Governing Council
as a new target. The men harbor particular disdain for Ahmad
Chalabi, the controversial Iraqi exile who helped spur the war
with information he gave to key players in the Bush administration
and to American newspaper reporters. Abu Mohammed said no exile
would be safe as president; his group would accept only an Iraqi
leader who "suffered like us, who was with the people" during wars
and sanctions.
"I promise you," he said. "The first day Chalabi is president, we
will bomb his house no matter who is inside."
Nine days passed before Knight Ridder was offered a second
meeting, this time with a higher-ranking cell leader. The
middleman from the first meeting and an unidentified member of the
Baghdad cell took the same reporter and photographer down a maze
of country roads an hour north of Baghdad. At one point, the car
traveled directly behind an American convoy, stirring laughter and
shrugs from the middleman and the Baghdad cell member.
The car stopped outside a remote, overgrown farm surrounded by a
high wall. The group entered through a padlocked side door and the
men warned of snakes as they walked down a dirt path strewn with
military boots, charred metal parts and tubs of freshly picked
dates from the tall palm trees that cast shadows over the
campgrounds. Stockpiles of canned food could be seen from the
path.
At the end of the trail, a narrow canal sparkled in the afternoon
sunlight. The escort from the Baghdad cell said the camp gave him
a feeling of "brotherhood," with members swimming together in the
canal or racing to pick the ripest grapes. The man, who looked to
be in his early 30s, offered the visitors seats on a neglected
patio about 20 feet from the banks of the canal.
After a 20-minute wait, noise from the path signaled the arrival
of Abu Abdullah and three other men, one of whom sported a Saddam
Fedayeen logo - a winged heart - tattooed on his hand. Abu
Abdullah, who wore track pants and a T-shirt, had covered his face
with a black-and-white scarf, though the other men weren't
disguised.
He said he left Jordan for Iraq just before the war, when
volunteers from neighboring Arab countries lined up at the borders
to show their willingness to help Iraqi soldiers. He was drawn not
by religious beliefs, he said, but by fear that war in Iraq would
lead to Western rule of the Middle East.
He said he since had met like-minded Syrians, Egyptians and
Afghans from other cells.
"I saw what the Zionists did to Palestine, how they destroyed
Palestinian homes," he said. "I told myself I could never let this
happen to another Arab country. The Americans are only coming to
occupy Iraq, to drain this land of its natural resources."
At the camp, he continued, he trains recruits to operate heavy
weapons and small arms such as machine guns and hand grenades. He
said the recruits, who were increasing daily "from inside and
outside Iraq," were quick students because most already had
military experience. The leader of the anti-American network
sometimes visits the camp to encourage new recruits to fight with
courage.
The men are taught to seek only military targets, and to spare
civilian lives when possible. For this reason, he said, he
condemns the car bombs that killed dozens of innocents recently at
the Jordanian Embassy, the United Nations base in Baghdad and the
Imam Ali shrine in the Shiite Muslim holy city of Najaf. Abu
Abdullah said he thought U.S. forces orchestrated the Najaf
bombing to divide Sunni and Shiite Muslims by assassinating
Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al Hakim, the leading Shiite cleric who
died in the blast.
"Americans want to split us," he said. "Those heretical people
want to finish Islam, to kill our religion. But we know Muslims,
and in our holy book it says to fight together against those who
threaten Islam. So, we will fight."
The promised hour-long interview ended after just 15 minutes, when
another member whispered something in his ear. Abu Abdullah
apologized profusely and excused himself. Information had arrived
on a convoy that would be an easy hit as long as the fighters
acted immediately, he said.
"This is from someone coming to tell us we have a mission now,"
Abu Abdullah said. "We are ready to go and attack our target." He
left, and the visitors were led back to the car by Ahmed and the
same escort from Baghdad.
On the way back to the main road into Baquba, an explosion so
powerful it rattled the car was heard in the distance.
The men in the front seat turned to each other and smiled.
(Allam reports for the St. Paul Pioneer Press.)
_____________________________________________________________
The interviews for this story were conducted in clandestine
meetings in Baghdad and at a camp in a rural area north of the
city. They provide a chilling insight into a shadowy organization
responsible for at least some of the attacks that have killed 70
Americans since President Bush declared major combat over on May
1. The story may disturb some readers who will believe that
American journalists should not talk with the enemy and that
American newspapers should not publish anything they say. But the
story provides important information to help the public understand
something of the nature of the enemy that U.S. troops are facing.
________________________________________________________________
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