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.