- 'There is no greater shame than to see your country occupied'
-
- Early one morning this week, when the police have yet
to set up too many checkpoints, Abu Mujahed will strap a mortar underneath
a car, drive to a friend's in central Baghdad and bury the weapon in his
garden. In the evening he will return with the rest of his group, sleep
for a few hours and then take the weapon from its hiding place. He will
calculate the range using the American military's own maps and satellite
pictures - bought in a bazaar - and fire a few rounds at a military base
or the US Embassy or at the Iraqi Prime Minister's office. Then Abu Mujahed
will shower, change and, by 10am, be at his desk in one of the major ministries.
-
- Last week he sat in a Baghdad hotel speaking to The Observer.
A chubby man in his thirties with a shaven head, a brown sports shirt,
slacks and a belt with a cheap fake-branded buckle, he gave a chilling
account of his life fighting 'the occupation'. He talked for more than
three hours and revealed:
-
- * How his resistance group, comprising self-taught Sunni
Muslim Iraqis, is almost completely independent, choosing targets and timings
themselves, but occasionally receiving broad strategic directions from
a religious 'sheikh' most of them have never met.
-
- * How it is funded by Iraqis in Europe, including the
UK, and from wealthy sympathisers in Saudi Arabia.
-
- * How it has rejected any alliance with al-Qaeda affiliated
'foreign fighters' and Shia militia.
-
- * How it receives intelligence from 'friends' within
the coalition forces.
-
- * How it runs a counter-intelligence operation that has
resulted in the execution of two suspected spies in recent weeks.
-
- * How it is learning increasingly sophisticated techniques
and plans to detonate big bombs in Baghdad soon.
-
- He also spoke about the difficulties of continuing security
operations against them and admitted that many Iraqis do not support their
actions. Much of Abu Mujahed's account is corroborated by various independent
sources.
-
- Intelligence experts in Iraq talk of three main types
of insurgent. There is the Mahdi Army of Shia Muslims who follow the radical
cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and have led recent resistance to coalition forces
in northern Baghdad, the central shrine city of Najaf, and Basra, the southern
port under British control. There is also 'al-Qaeda' - non-Iraqi militants
who have come to Iraq to wage jihad. And finally the 'former regime loyalists',
who are said to want the return of Saddam Hussein or, if that is impossible,
his Baath party.
-
- Abu Mujahed, worryingly for the analysts, fits into none
of these easy categories. For a start, he was pro-American before the invasion.
'The only way to breathe under the old regime was to watch American films
and listen to their music,' he said. He had been a Bon Jovi fan.
-
- 'It gave me a glimpse of a better life. When I heard
that the Americans were coming to liberate Iraq I was very happy. I felt
that I would be able to live well, travel and have freedom. I wanted to
do more sport, get new appliances and a new car and develop my life. I
thought the US would come here and our lives would be changed through 180
degrees.'
-
- He spoke of how his faith in the US was shaken when,
via a friend's illicitly imported satellite TV system, he saw 'barbaric,
savage' pictures of civilian casualties of the fighting and bombing. The
next blow came in the conflict's immediate aftermath, as looters ran unchecked
through Baghdad.
-
- 'When I saw the American soldiers watching and doing
nothing as people took everything, I began to suspect the US was not here
to help us but to destroy us,' he said.
-
- Abu Mujahed, whose real name is not known by The Observer,
said: 'I thought it might be just the chaos of war but it got worse, not
better.'
-
- He was not alone and swiftly found that many in the Adhamiya
neighbourhood of Baghdad shared his anger and disappointment. The time
had come. 'We realised. We had to act.'
-
- Nothing had been planned in advance. There has been speculation,
and especially among American officials, that Saddam's henchmen had planned
a 'guerrilla war' if defeated. But Abu Mujahed, who described himself as
'a Muslim but not religious', and the others in his group were not working
to any plan. Everything they did was improvised. And each of his seven-man
group had a different motive: 'One man was fighting for his nation, another
for a principle, another for his faith.'
-
- Significantly, his group contains several former soldiers,
angry at the controversial demobilisation of the Iraqi military by the
coalition last year. Others, like Abu Mujahed, have salaried government
jobs. The cell is not part of any broader organisation and does not have
a name, he said. 'We are just local people ... There is a sheikh who co-ordinates
some of the various groups but I do not know who he is.'
-
- To start with, the group lacked armaments and know-how.
'We made some careful inquiries. Some people gave us weapons, others sold
us stuff they had looted,' he said. The group also sought out experts,
often former military officers, who gave impromtu tutorials in bomb-making
and communications .
-
- The group's first operation - in June last year - was
an attempted ambush of three US soldiers in Adhamiya. It was a fiasco.
'We were so confused and scared we opened fire at random,' Abu Mujahed
said. 'They took cover and we ran away.'
-
- Their next try was more successful. The lead vehicle
of an American military convoy ran over an anti-tank mine the group had
laid in a road. 'We think we killed the driver,' he said. 'We found the
mine in a house that had been used by the military during the war. The
Americans were not expecting that sort of device.'
-
- Over the next months the group varied the tactics. 'One
day we try and snipe them, the next we use an IED [Improvised Explosive
Device], the next a mine. We never get any orders from anybody. We are
just told: "Today you should do something," but it is up to us
to decide what and when.'
-
- Black soldiers are a particular target. 'To have Negroes
occupying us is a particular humiliation,' Abu Mujahed said, echoing the
profound racism prevalent in much of the Middle East. 'Sometimes we aborted
a mission because there were no Negroes.'
-
- In contrast to many militants, who have killed hundreds
of Iraqis in the last year, Abu Mujahed said his group was careful not
to kill locals. 'We are now planning to use bigger bombs in central Baghdad.
But it is hard because there are so many civilians.' Support for the militants
is far from universal. They are not attracting new recruits and finances
are tight, he admitted.
-
- 'We used to be able to use banks and bank transfers.
Now it is harder,' Abu Mujahed said. 'Often sympathisers buy cars in Saudi
Arabia or Jordan and we get them driven to Baghdad or Basra and we sell
them. A supporter in the UK has recently sent an Opel pick-up. But most
of our money comes from local people who support what we do but can't fight
themselves.'
-
- Tactics depend on resources. The price of rocket-propelled
grenades has gone up recently as supplies dried up during August's heavy
fighting between Americans and the Mahdi Army in Najaf. The missiles now
cost 25,000 Iraqi dinars (around £10) in markets in Sadr City, the
northern Shia Muslim-dominated area of Baghdad - 10 times the immediate
post-war price. The group is restricted to one attack every few days.
-
- There are also spies. He boasted of information from
'friends within the coalition' and said that his group have executed two
suspected informers within Adhamiya. One was killed less than three weeks
ago, after being under surveillance for a month. 'He had a wife and child
but I did not feel bad. He was a fox. He was made to kneel and shot in
the head.' Other suspected spies have been threatened and fled Baghdad.
-
- Western intelligence analysts worry that various resistance
elements might combine. But Abu Mujahed dismissed the Mahdi Army as 'thugs
and traitors who ... welcomed the Americans to Iraq with flowers and then
went looting' and said that relations with Islamic militants coming from
overseas are worse.
-
- 'Some have no allegiance to any group, others have so
much money they must come from al-Qaeda. It is impossible to work with
them. They are bloody people, far too irrational. They do not care if they
kill innocent Iraqi people. They are terrorists.'
-
- Last week US military casualties in Iraq passed the 1,000
mark, most killed since the end of the war by the actions of men like Abu
Mujahed. The former engineering student said he does not know how many
his group has killed: 'It is impossible to say what has been hit. I could
boast of killing maybe 25, but to be honest we don't know,' he said. 'Maybe
only five or six.'
-
- 'I know the soldiers have no choice about coming here
and all have a family and friends,' he added. His justification for the
struggle was an inconsistent mix of political and economic grievances and
wounded pride: 'We are under occupation. They bomb the mosques, they kill
a huge number of people. There is no greater shame than to see your country
being occupied.'
-
- He dismissed the interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi,
as 'the Americans' Barbie doll' but then says that if everyone had 'full
bellies' no one would fight.
-
- 'Iraqis' top priority is to provide a good living for
their families. I take home less than 250,000 ID (£100) a month and
I have four children. I have to pay the rent, doctor's bills, my wife needs
something, my house needs something. And a kilo of chicken costs 2,500
ID.'
-
- 'The US or the UK are not my enemy. I know that any individual
US or UK citizen is very good, but we will keep fighting the occupying
forces. We have no choice.'
-
- And with that he left. The Observer was told not to contact
him again.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1302718,00.html
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