[lbo-talk] life in the Sunni triangle

[Doug Henwood]

Financial Times - July 30, 2004

Rebels' writ runs large across the troublesome Sunni triangle
By Akeel Huseen and Nicolas Pelham

In the capital of the largest province of Iraq's so-called "Sunni 
triangle", rebels have taken to announcing their daily arrival by 
loud- speaker. "Close your shops before 1400. We don't want to hit 
anyone. The fighting will begin after 1400. Stay safe," trumpets the 
megaphone strung to a white Nissan pick-up that circulates around the 
main thoroughfare of Ramadi at 1pm.

By 13:45 the streets empty. The governorate buildings, the police 
station and shops close. The police and the Iraqi National Guard, who 
had patrolled the town, disappear from the streets.

Fifteen minutes later the resistance emerges from the side-streets 
into the main thoroughfare: five Daewoo saloon cars, and 15 Nissan 
pick-ups armed with rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikovs.

They remain until daybreak, when the local security forces arrive for 
their eight-hour shift and markets briefly spring to life.

The uneasy accommodation - whereby guerrillas and Iraqi security 
forces work in shifts - comes as several large Iraqi towns have 
recently fallen outside the control of US forces and its allies in 
the Iraqi interim government.

Control of the neighbouring town of Falluja, an hour's drive down 
banks of the Euphrates river, was handed over by US troops to 
generals from Saddam Hussein's dissolved Republican Guard last May, 
known as the Falluja Brigade. US forces also appear to have lost 
control of nearby Samarra.

According to news reports, US forces have sharply reduced patrols in 
Ramadi recently. A report by Knight Ridder news agency quoted a US 
officer saying this was due to the transfer of sovereignty to the 
interim Iraqi government.

A US military spokesman insisted in an interview with the FT that 
they continue to maintain "a very visible presence" in Ramadi, 
including three bases "within the city limits", which used the city's 
thoroughfare for their supply routes.

"Insurgents absolutely do not control the streets," said Col TV 
Johnson of the 1st Marines Expeditionary Force speaking from Ramadi. 
"We want to reduce our presence, but like Falluja we will maintain 
entirely engaged."

He confirmed that Iraqi forces had taken over considerable 
responsibility for security in the town recently: "My presence as an 
American in American uniform is provocative. There's no way around 
it. If I can get an Iraqi to provide some of the detail, hell why 
not?" he said.

Inside the heavily guarded governorate building in Ramadi, the 
governor's representatives called on Americans to spare Ramadi 
further confrontation by halting further patrols into the city of 
450,000. Local government officials are feeling unprecedented 
pressure from the guerrillas: on Wednesday gunmen burst into the 
house of Ramadi governor Abdul Karim al-Rawi and kidnapped three of 
his sons before setting the building ablaze.

Before the incident, Katim Bashar Ahmed, the deputy governor, told 
the FT that the US presence in the city had to be reduced in order to 
ward off further violence: "We told the Americans many times not to 
enter the city. Whenever they enter, the resistance shoots them." He 
said they normally entered once a day at mid-morning, while the 
police and security still held the streets.

Colonel Khamis Jassim, who commands the city's 2,888-strong National 
Guard, professes no particular loyalty to either side: "I order my 
soldiers to protect the city against the looters and criminals. I am 
neither with the resistance nor with the Americans," he said.

Observers warn that the tightening rebel control over huge swathes of 
the Sunni triangle - so named because it is home to Iraq's Sunni Arab 
minority - threatens to puncture the credibility of Iraq's interim 
government, led by Iyad Allawi, prime minister.

Mr Allawi has held back from sending his fledgling army on the 
offensive, preferring to negotiate with rebels, holding out prospects 
for a negotiated amnesty as a way to bring guerrillas back into the 
political fold.

A rebel leader in the city told the FT he rejected the offer, and was 
seeking to impose Islamic law in place of Mr Allawi's American-backed 
rule.

"We have two missions in the city. One to defend Ramadi against the 
Americans who enter, and the other to kill anyone who sells alcohol 
or sex CDs," one insurgent leader, who went by the nom de guerre of 
Abu Khalid, told the FT.

The overwhelming majority of the residents who spoke to the FT 
professed to support the Islamist purge, echoing rebel slogans that 
Mr Allawi and his security forces were traitors and infidels. Across 
town, walls are daubed in graffiti hailing Saddam Hussein as Iraq's 
leader.

"All the government are agents for America, especially Iyad Allawi. 
He asked America to stay in Iraq, because he knows the Iraqis will 
kill him. The Mujahideen protect civilians," said Salah Abbas, a 
29-year-old roadside peddler of CDs.