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Rebels turn on al-Qaeda
02/07/2007 09:10 - (SA)
Ibrahim Mohammed
Abu Ghraib - The cars roared through west Baghdad, packed with masked gunmen hanging out of windows and brandishing Kalashnikovs: Meet the latest US allies in the war against al-Qaeda in Iraq.
As recently as six months ago many of the gunmen, who still wear the mismatched urban camouflage of street fighters, were planting roadside bombs, sniping at US soldiers and battling Iraqi forces.
But recently an alliance between US-led forces and Sunni tribes in the western province of Anbar has drawn in nationalist insurgents in Baghdad keen to claw back their neighbourhoods from al-Qaeda's Islamists.
The new force in Abu Ghraib includes not only members of prominent local tribes, but fighters from the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution (Rev20) and the Islamic Army, two Sunni insurgent groups established to fight US forces.
Both oppose the occupation, but in Anbar and some western Baghdad neighbourhoods they have a tacit ceasefire with US-led security forces while fighting to expel the Iraq franchise of Osama Bin Laden's jihadi network.
For at least one leader of the group, who goes by the nom de guerre Sheikh Karrar, the decision to switch sides was personal.
"When the occupation forces entered our country and overthrew the previous regime, I became a fighter in 'Tawhid (Unity) and Jihad Group,' which later became al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia," he told AFP.
"But afterwards, there was a radical change in their strategy. They started issuing religious edicts declaring that the Iraqi army and police were apostates and that we should fight them."
"The operations changed from resisting the occupation to internal battling."
No financial support, expelled from strongholds
When Sheikh Karrar refused to obey the new orders, an al-Qaeda-run court sentenced him to be flogged, then deprived him of food in an attempt to force him to return. It was then that he escaped and joined the Brigades.
Now he and other fighters are co-ordinating with Iraqi police units in Fallujah to expel al-Qaeda from a string of villages along the 50km road from Baghdad.
"We expelled them from their most important strongholds and have cut off their financial support by retaking towns on the highway where they used to kidnap people in order to finance their operations," Sheikh Karrar said.
Local leaders claim to have raided dozens of al-Qaeda safe houses, arrested several al-Qaeda members, and discovered the ID cards of people from neighbouring provinces who have been kidnapped and killed.
"We killed the most wanted man in Fallujah and three terrorists who were accompanying him," Colonel Faisal al-Zoobai of the Fallujah police told AFP.
"He was wearing an explosive belt. He was responsible for blowing up a funeral tent which killed 16 people and wounded 23, and he was involved in killing clerics."
Success has come at a heavy price. Since Sheikh Karrar abandoned his former comrades in al-Qaeda he's been nicked in the head by a sniper, his house has been blown up, and several of his relatives have been killed.
US commanders have welcomed the decision of several Anbar sheikhs - the so-called Anbar Awakening - to enlist their tribes in the Iraqi armed forces to battle al-Qaeda in what was once its main stronghold.
"There's two elements to the resistance. One is al-Qaeda and the other is the indigenous resistance," said Brigadier General John Allen, the deputy commander of US forces in Anbar Province.
"The average resistance fighter out there was dominated by al-Qaeda or fought al-Qaeda at some time - even though they were fighting us at the same time - they don't want them back either," he said.
'We've had some pretty big battles...'
But the enlistment of Sunni insurgents could prove a more thorny issue than the military's embrace of tribal forces, and has already drawn a warning from Iraq's Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
"The government does not fear the arming of tribes but fears chaos and disorder and the appearance of new militias," Maliki said last week in a statement released by his office.
Allen, however, said US forces were not giving direct assistance to anti-government insurgents, even when their interests coincide.
"We've had some pretty big battles in our area between 1920 Rev going up against al-Qaeda throughout the night, several times," he explained.
"If the Iraqi police and the Iraqi army is involved we're right in there with them, and if an airstrike is good for them, it's good for 1920 Rev as well sometimes," he said.
Abu Abd al-Rahman, an Anbar Awakening member who boasts of commanding 700 to 1 000 tribal volunteers in Abu Ghraib, says he lacks supplies and has received no aid from Baghdad.
"We will suffer a lot in fighting al-Qaeda, and we call on the government to finance this national campaign," he said.
US commanders have expressed reservations about providing arms to groups that have, until recently, been fighting US and Iraqi forces.
"These tribes are already well armed, and we are not arming any of them here in Baghdad," said Major General Joseph Fil, the top US commander in Baghdad.
He said that in the Abu Ghraib area more than 1 500 fighters had volunteered to serve in the Iraqi security forces, with 300 new recruits showing up each day.
All are required to provide fingerprints and biometric data, in addition to being vetted by local tribal leadership and the Iraqi interior ministry. They also have to take an oath of allegiance to Iraq, Fil said.
"They want to fight with us. They are tired of al-Qaeda and the influence of al-Qaeda in their tribes and in their neighbourhoods, and they want them cleaned out," he said.
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