Iraqi rebels dividing, losing support

m the July 12, 2004 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0712/p01s04-woiq.html

Iraqi rebels dividing, losing support Fallujah is now emerging as a symbol of the splintering Iraqi resistance. The mutilation of six Shiites widens the divide.

BAGHDAD - In April, with anger swelling at the US occupation and a Marine-led assault on the Sunni city of Fallujah,thousands of Shiites provided assistance to their Iraqi brothers in the city.

Adnan Feisal Muthar filled up his truck with food and drove it to Fallujah to help residents rendered homeless by US bombing. His uncle and two of his sons donated blood for the wounded. "We wanted to help the people there,'' says Mr. Muthar. "They were Iraqis and they were suffering."

But the city west of Baghdad is no longer a sympathetic rallying place for a unified Iraqi resistance. It is now seen as run by intolerant and exclusivist Sunni imams who are seeking to turn it into a haven for Al Qaeda ideologues. Fallujah is emerging as a symbol of the disparate nature of the overall insurgency inside Iraq. Many Shiites, like the Muthars, have stopped supporting it.

Since two of Muthar's brothers and four of his cousins - all members in a family trucking cooperative - were tortured and murdered in the resistance stronghold three weeks ago, he's changed his mind about how the US handled Fallujah.

"They should have done whatever it took to take that place over,'' Muthar says. "It's been left in the hands of people who call themselves Muslims but they're not. They're simply inhuman."

The killingsand mutilations of the six truckers (some could only be identified by family members from old scars) have shaken many Iraqis. While some Iraqis had mixed feelings about the similar killing and mutilation of four US security contractors, in April, these latest murders have inflamed the Shiite community here, and alienated others.

"It makes me very uncomfortable to say this, but if the American's weren't around [to attack] we would be fighting among ourselves,'' says a young native of Fallujah who participated in attacks against US forces last year but has since quit the resistance, saying he's been disillusioned by a disregard for civilians shown by some insurgents.

He was particularly disturbed by the mutilation of the Shiite truck drivers. "We can't be satisfied with this new group - they execute alleged spies in the streets without any evidence at all, sometimes it's just payback for a personal dispute. Those Shia were innocent men."

A deeply religious Muslim himself, he says fighters inside Fallujah are now badly split between people like himself who were opposed to the occupation on nationalist grounds and what he calls "extremist Salafys," the catchall term used for the branch of Islam espoused by Al Qaeda and most in Saudi Arabia.

He says most of the men in the movement are Fallujah locals, but he says small pockets of Saudis, Syrians, and Yemenis fight with them. US and Iraqi officials believe that Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to Al Qaeda, has made the city a base of operations.

"It's like the ghost of the Baath is hunting us down. These guys who used to serve Saddam have grown long beards and wear skullcaps and say they want an Islamic state,'' he says. "In April we were all struggling side by side, but now it's about their own political interests."

Who precisely gave the order for the Shiites' abduction and murder isn't yet clear. The city is controlled by Sheikh Abdallah al-Janabi and his deputy, Dhafer Al-Obeidi, the head of the Hadra al-Muhammadiyah mosque. Mr. Obeidi - who sometimes also goes by the name Dulaimi - was delegated by Sheikh Janabi to run the city's after the US Marines withdrew in April.

The US left Fallujah's security in the hands of local cops and a special Iraqi military unit the US created in April. But sources in the city say the police and the brigade take their orders from insurgent groups, or at best just stay out of their way.

The six Shiites were killed about a week after their abduction on June 5, the details of which have been provided to the family by Mohammed Khudier, a 12-year-old cousin of Adnan Feisal Muthar. Mohammed was riding with another cousin, 18-year-old Ahmed Ali Hilal, to start learning the ropes of the family business. Mohammed, later released because of his youth, was the only survivor.

After dropping a load of tents at a camp for the new Iraqi National Guard on the outskirts of the city, their truck was ambushed. They survived and went to the police to find safe passage out of the town. The police took the men to see Obeidi at the Muhammadiyah mosque.

"They were taken in convoy there, with police cars front in back,'' says Adnan Muthar. "Janabi is like the prince of that town now." Over the next week, the family made increasingly frantic appeals to Mr. Obeidi and Sheikh Janabi for the men's release.

Mr. Muthar says Sheikh Janabi told them that the men were being interrogated, and that their release could be obtained for a ransom. But in the end the family was told it could collect their bodies. Two of those killed were Adnan's brother, Hamid Feisal Mutha and his adopted brother Khalid Latief Muthar, who had five young children between them.

Sitting in the family home in Sadr City, Adnan and his morose father, Sheikh Feisal Muthar, urge their visitors to look at pictures that showed the extent of men's torture. They point to were a tattoo that said "Imam Ali" was sliced out of Hamid's arm, saying it was evidence of the sectarian nature of the crime. Shiites revere Ali, a descendant of the prophet Mohammed, while extremist Sunnis attack the practice as polytheistic. "Janabi was responsible for this, and we want justice,'' says Adnan.

Shortly before the US occupation authority was dissolved on June 28, Ambassador Paul Bremer issued arrest warrants for Sheikh Janabi and Obeidi, but no action has been taken by Iraqi authorities. In an interview with the Al Arabiya satellite channel, Sheikh Janabi said he had nothing to do with the murders.

Officials at the Iraqi Ministry of Interior say they're mulling terms of an amnesty for Iraq's insurgents. "We are having a dialogue with some of the important figures in Fallujah,'' says Interior Minister Falah Hassan al-Nagib. "We know there are some splits in the city. We think that most of the trouble is being created by foreigners there."

Nonetheless, other interior ministry officials say the overwhelming majority of fighters in their custody are Iraqis, including four men held for with beheading American Nicholas Berg in May.

US and Iraqi officials say Fallujah has become a haven for the country's tiny cohort of foreign fighters, and it's turning out local Iraqis committed to establishing an Islamic state. While the popularity of such views is limited, having established a beachhead with relative impunity has strengthened their movement.

Yes, that the pullout being a military stroke of genius was never in doubt ... but there is still a long way to go before any conclusions can be reached as to the final outcome. I spent time over there ... these people are more complicated than what some here are suggesting. I realize that we are reading the comments of one, and based upon what my buddies have been emailing me there is no doubt that these are the sentiments of many over there - but you do not understand how unimportant all of that really is in the overall scheme of things.

Imagine putting a snake, a mongoose, a hawk and a bed of fireants all in a room together and telling them to get along. The snake wants to eat the mongoose but he knows the mongoose is too quick ... so he sides with the hawk because he knows the hawk can kill the mongoose ... but the hawk wants to kill the snake too once the mongoose it out of the way. And the ants know that the hawk is a bird that must fly ... so sooner or later they will have their shot at the hawk ... anyways - it never ends until finally only the ants will be left alive. And everyone knows you cannot get rid of the ants - everytime a chemical comes along that knocks them out the liberals come along and declare the chemical unsafe for use and they have it banned from the market.

The fireants are there to stay in that country ... it's where they were originally from in the first place. Do you know the only way to kill them? There are these flies that breed over in North Africa that light on ants and deposit their larva and those maggots eventually end up eating the heads off of the ants.

In other words - it will take generations of brainwashing over there to make a dent in their hatred for one another, not to mention us. This little thing happening in Falluja ... all it did was pit the snake against the mongoose. We're the hawk and one of them will come to us for help eventually ... but then we'll still have the fireants to content with and that my friends - is a battle we cannot fight with our military. When you see us come to that realization, when you see us finally inlisting the flies to do the dirty work ... then we will truly be winning and truly getting somewhere over there. For now we're jabbing and weaving and that's the right thing to do ... but this little thing you see going on in Falluja is nothing to get excited about. Not yet anyways. Not until we see a lot of this on a weekly or daily basis.

"I believe that the pullout of Fallujah was a stroke of genius."

Yes. here is my riff on that. Good news/bad news on Iraq, I think it may explain the roller-coaster of emotions on our Iraq war:

"You know many expected Iraq War to be hard, and yet we drove to Baghdad in 3 weeks. Nobody had ever conquered a country with such few casualties!"

"Yeah, so that was good - 3 weeks to Baghdad, low casualties."

"No, it was bad because we couldnt stop the looting with such a quick collapse, and ended up with an occupation where our enemies hid instead of got defeated."

"Ah, looting, that's bad."

"maybe it was good because we were able to give the Iraqis some satisfaction of taking back what Saddam stole from them and totally sweep away the Baathist Governing structure."

"Sweeping awawy, that's good."

"No, it was bad because once we swept out the baathists, we had to create things from scratch. Getting rid of Saddam was good, getting rid of torture chambers and his secret police and henchmen and thugs was good. But they just melted away. And we had nobody to run the country, had to start from scratch."

"Yikes! Bad!"

"No, not bad, plenty of non-Baathists were willing to work in the new Iraq. They were willing to work in ministries and join security forces."

"Oh, yes, that good."

" ... but then the insurgents, alot of them former Baathists started killing the 'collaborators' and hampering efforts to rebuild the country, not to mention setting up bombs to kill our soldiers and make security harder."

"Oh dear, that's bad."

"Not really bad, if you consider that people say it was a mistake to disband the army. Imagine having to deal with these thugs but having them on our payroll instead of our enemy."

"Right, that's worse..."

" ... although some do point out that being unemployed and out of power is part of some of their motivation in the first place."

"So, it was a bad mistake to disband the Iraqi army?"

"Perhaps in the long run it was good. See, if the Baathist thugs were smart they would have laid low, waited for the US to pack up and leave and then retaken the country. Did we want the snake in-house or out of the house?"

"Good point, they exposed themselves - good."

"Yes, but we had trouble finding the insurgents and terrorists."

"That's bad."

" ... although we did catch Saddam and almost all the 'deck of cards'."

"That's good."

"Not totally good, because we found out after we caught Saddam that he wasnt the one animating the so-called 'resistance', and it continued after his capture. Seems to be a mix of Bin Laden-style terrorist Jihadism mixed with the former regime's money and desire to regain power. "

"That's bad."

"Well, yes, very hard for our soldiers, but we promised we would face the terrorists over there and not here, and lo and behold, terrorists came to Iraq to fight our soldiers. So we've been able to get a bead on terrorists."

"Is that good?"

"Beats having them hit us here at home. Beats letting them stay in safe haven rogue nations."

"Oh that is good."

"Only if you dont mind the price of our own soldier's lives. And the problem is, they are taking Americans like Nick Berg and other civilians and brutally killing them too. Not to mention literally hundreds of Iraqis killed by terrorist bombs. They bombed Shi'ite worshippers, murdered police chiefs and killed Basra schoolgirls."

"That is bad."

"Yes, but the shock of this and the death of Iraqis is waking up the people to how bad the terrorism problem is, even if they werent sypathetic to US soldiers plight."

"That is, um, good?"

"Yes and no."

"Gee, thanks for clearing it up!"

"Well, you see, it doesnt take a lot of people to create a terrorist problem in a country. They now estimate maybe 20,000 people are in the terrorist-style 'insurgency in Iraq. The "yes" is that almost all Iraqis condemn terrorism and see how much harm it does. The "no" part is that to a small segment, the violence against US soldiers is appealling to their national pride or to their political or religious extremism."

"Well, that sounds more bad than good, I mean if we dont defeat terrorists, they will keep on killing us and the other Iraqis. Are we even winning?"

"Yes we are. In April we were facing a two-faced front of an attempted uprising, and now one front has melted completely, that is the Sadr militia, which we destroyed in May and drove out of most of the southern towns, and the other is a fragile 'truce' in Fallujah, where we let Iraqis police themselves, after killing maybe 600 terrorists and insurgents."

"Wow, that sounds good!"

"Well, not really good. In Fallujah, we might have destroyed the forces, but held back out of concerns of collateral damage. We let a "fallujah brigade" police the interior of the town, but apparently there are still insurgents and we never got them disarmed as promised."

"That is bad."

"Maybe not so bad. We now have them in a 'fixed position', which is death for guerilla groups. This gives us an opportunity to turn the tables on the terror groups and bomb them for a change."

"Sounds good."

"Well, not really, sounds a bit too much like the Israeli approach to terrorists. We are not in there actually getting the town cleaned up."

"Which is bad."

"but not in the long run, if the Iraqi people begin to see the consequences of their actions and start hating the thugs, like they hated Saddam.

You know, this is what happened with Sadr in the south of Iraq. He called for an uprising and sent his thugs into towns like Najaf and Karbala and other places, within weeks, his thugs were getting very unpopular and the other Shiite clerics were demanding he withdraw. He lost all popular support. You see, these guys promise only 'resistance' and violence, not a popular governing model. So, their act can get very old if we just hold back and let them hang themselves with their own ropes."

"I guess that could be good, if ..."

"... if somehow the Iraqi forces themselves could take care of the situation and flush out the thugs, pacify the town."

"But they cant do that, yet, can they?"

"Well, they are getting up to speed."

"good!"

"But still need our help. But the important thing is that they are going to have to do this thing to secure the new post-Saddam Iraq. We captured Saddam ... "

"Good."

... and now he goes on trial. Meanwhile, Iraq has a transitional law and Government in place, ready to set up elections and a new Constitution next year, ... "

"Good."

"But the main problem, and the #1 complaint of the Iraqi-on-the-street is security. That they dont feel safe. And if they can only manage security on their own for the most part, without damaging their new freedom and democracy then our boys can come home and we can declare a victory."

"Ah. That would be good."

"Yes. That would be good."

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.