War Again In Fallujah?
A crucial Iraqi ally of the United States in its recent successes in the country is threatening to withdraw his support and allow al-Qa’ida to return if his fighters are not incorporated into the Iraqi army and police.”If there is no change in three months there will be war again,” said Abu Marouf, the commander of 13,000 fighters who formerly fought the Americans. He and his men switched sides last year to battle al-Qa’ida and defeated it in its main stronghold in and around Fallujah.
“If the Americans think they can use us to crush al-Qa’ida and then push us to one side, they are mistaken,” Abu Marouf told The Independent in an interview in a scantily furnished villa beside an abandoned cemetery near the village of Khandari outside Fallujah. He said that all he and his tribal following had to do was stand aside and al-Qa’ida’s fighters would automatically come back. If they did so he might have to ally himself to a resurgent al-Qa’ida in order to “protect myself and my men”.
Abu Marouf said he was confident that his forces controlled a swath of territory stretching east from Fallujah into Baghdad and includes what Americans called “the triangle of death” south-west of the capital. Even so his bodyguards, armed with AK-47 assault rifles, nervously watched the abandoned canals and reed beds around his temporary headquarters. Others craned over light machine guns in newly built watch towers. Several anti-Qa’ida tribal leaders have been killed by suicide bombers in recent weeks.
His threat is highly dangerous for the US and Iraqi government, neither of which made any headway in ending the Sunni insurgency against the US occupation for four years until the tribes of Anbar, the province in which Fallujah lies, turned against al-Qa’ida. They formed the Awakening movement, known in Arabic as al-Sahwah, of which Abu Marouf, whose full name is Karim Ismail Hassan al-Zubai, is a leading member.
The Iraqi Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, warned last week it would be “very dangerous” if the Awakening movement’s 80,000 fighters were not absorbed into the army and police. “They are not that well organised and could easily be manipulated by al-Qa’ida,” he said.
The Iraqi government fears ceding power to the Awakening movement which it sees as an American-funded Sunni militia, whose leaders are often former military or security officers from Saddam Hussein’s regime and are unlikely to show long-term loyalty to the Shia and Kurdish-dominated administration.
Abu Marouf - a thin man aged about 40, with a short beard and wearing a brown suit and lilac tie - says he was “security officer” before the US invasion of 2003. Afterwards he became a resistance fighter and, though he will not say which guerrilla group he belonged to, local sources say he was a commander of the 1920 Revolution Brigades. He is also a member of the powerful Zubai tribe that was at the heart of anti-American resistance in an area which saw the fiercest fighting during the Sunni rebellion against the occupation.
He has a precise memory for dates and figures. He says that he started secretly working against al-Qa’ida at a meeting as long ago as 14 April 2005. He and his men gathered intelligence. Eight months later they started making attacks on al-Qa’ida, which was trying to monopolise power in Sunni areas.
“They cut off people’s heads and put them on sticks, as if they were sheep. They cut off my brother’s head with a razor. Thirteen of my relatives and 450 members of my tribe were killed by them,” he said.
Part of Abu Marouf’s force is paid for by the Americans. Ordinary fighters are believed to receive $350 (£175) a month and officers $1,200, but some receive no salary. He makes clear that he wants long-term jobs for himself and his followers and that “they must be long-term jobs”. There is more than just money involved here. The Sunni tribal leaders want a share of power in Baghdad which they lost when Saddam Hussein was deposed.
The US calls the Awakening movement groups “Concerned Citizens”, as if they were pacific householders heroically restoring law and order. In fact, the US has handed over Sunni areas to the guerrilla groups such as the 1920 Brigades and the Islamic Army who have been blowing up American solders since 2003.
This creates a serious problem for the Iraqi government and for the Americans themselves. Though Abu Marouf wants to join the government security forces, he volunteers that he considers the present Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki “the worst government in the world - his army has got 13 divisions, most of which are recruited from Shia militias controlled by Iran.”
It is clear that Abu Marouf sees the Shia religious party takeover of government as something to be resisted.
The city of Fallujah - many of its buildings still in ruins since the US Marines stormed it in November 2004 - is peaceful compared with six months ago. Al-Qa’ida fighters, who once dominated it, have either gone or are keeping a low profile. The Americans have a large military camp on its outskirts. But the defeat of al-Qa’ida is not exactly a victory for the Iraqi government.
In the centre of the city is a much-attacked police station run by Colonel Feisal Ismail Hassan al-Zubai, an authoritative looking man, who is the elder brother of Abu Marouf. A career officer in Saddam Hussein’s Special Forces since 1983, who fought in 11 battles against Iran, he was appointed police chief in December 2006. When I asked what he did previously he said: “I was fighting against the Americans.” Asked why had he changed sides he replied: “When I compared the Americans to al-Qa’ida and the [Shia] militia, I chose the Americans.”
Beside Colonel Feisal is a gold framed picture of himself as a young officer. “That was when I was a lieutenant in the real Iraqi army,” he says. Behind him is the old Iraqi flag which the government is trying to replace.
He says: “The worst day of my life was when Saddam Hussein fell in 2003.” He chokes himself off from giving an account of the first battle of Fallujah against the Americans in April 2004 in which he appears to have played a role. “The Americans now give me everything I want,” he says.
There is no doubt that Abu Marouf and Colonel Feisal are far better people than the savage sectarian bigots of al-Qa’ida whom they have driven away.
But, far from America having won a victory in Iraq, violence has fallen largely because the United States has handed power to the guerrillas who fought it for so long.
If the Iraqi government pretends it has conquered its enemies and refuses to give men like Abu Marouf a share in power then Iraq will soon being facing another war.
2008 The Independent
As much as the military industrial media complex loves the never ending “war on drugs”, the never ending “war on terror” is far more profitable !
In other news…I saw this am that Muktada al Sadr is considering getting back into the fight if the Maliki gov’t. doesn’t deliver on some of his demands.
And in a nutshell, there is the American example of counterinsurgency,
give power to what ever group best suits your needs. Actually, what America did was destroy the Sunni
stronghold in Fallujah, then later offered them water and money and power. In exchange, American affords
these guerrillas the chance to kill al Qaida, but also to police their bombed out city.However temporariness
the agreement might be, they are promised US -Malaki cooperation, but offered no real power or influence.
Isolated and excluded, they gradually fume. Back in the States, politicians slap each other on the back about
the good mission.
Let’s see if I can beg the question. Blow them up and let them bury their dead. When they are starving,
hold food to their empty hands with the condition they must accept the dominant hands will.
That’s exactly what Israel is doing in Gaza.
What happened to the evidence of use of white phosphorous in the battle of Fallujah?
I guess the only safe city is a dead city.
I never realized war ended in Fallujah. Did I miss something? Friggin war with Iraq is still there, yeah? Did we leave and bring ALL the troops home since 4:00 A M?
al-Qaeda was never in Iraq until we started illegally invading Iraq for no reason at all and al-Qaeda, no matter what many think, is not, one more time, is not a Muslim based group. Anyone that knows anything about the Qur’an not the Saudi or man-made version that is spewed with regularity, al-Qaeda violates every thing that is said in the Qur’an. They are mercenaries using al-Islam as a brand to qualify themselves.
I would love to meet somebody that has the ability to bring the Kurds, Shi’i and Sunni together, t’ain’t ever going to occur. Kurdish got their PKK and PJAK, Shi’i are favoured by Iran as well as being the majority sect in Iraq, then you have your Sunni. Where does one start how do you propose to unify Iraq?
Man, if you figure that one out you just ended the violence in Iraq, thanks !
Orwell is the only one who could put words to the total stupidity that EXPECTS anything but failure in a military occupation. We lost when we started the occupation, so have the Iraqis. The only winners have been the terror groups who now have greater access to Iraq and the best recruiting program ever devised for motivating suicide bombers.
$350 (£175) does not sound like much. Every family ought to sponsor their very own fighter.
If we were invaded and occupied, even if the invaders cleaned the rats and scum out of the government, we would be fighting the occupying forces with everything at our disposal to get them out of our country. The occupiers would call us insurgents and terrorists. We would call ourselves patriots, heroes and freedom fighters. We would welcome Canadians and Mexicans who came over the border to fight alongside us. We would cherish any weapons they could supply us with. The occupiers would call them outside agitators and foreign terrorists.
We would fight them regardless of reprisals, murder of innocents, torture or anything else. We would fight them until we were all dead, or the occupiers were gone.
That is what is happening in Iraq, That is what is happening in Gaza, that is what happened in occupied France and other countries during WW-II, that is what happened in the Warsaw ghetto, but Israel has apparently forgotten that oppressed peoples resist, often to the last man, woman and child. If they won’t remember the Warsaw ghetto, perhaps they should remember Masada.
The only way to end this madness is to quit killing and withdraw. Perhaps things will simmer down to the point where people will begin to talk, to solve their problems. There is no peace, no democracy, at gunpoint.
Apparently, We the People have lost the quality of empathy. We can no longer put ourselves in another’s place, to feel their pain or joy. So sad.
Cockburn’s article addresses the gap between al-Qaeda, the Awakening Sunni, and the Iranian-backed Shia.
It’s a three-way power struggle that has as its inevitable outcome incessant internecine warfare. The US’ funneling money to Sunnis in Anbar is a cost-effective means and practical solution. I don’t know if the pay can actually make its way to the grunts, though…
In his personable style, Cockburn says “There is no doubt that Abu Marouf and Colonel Feisal are far better people than the savage sectarian bigots of al-Qa’ida whom they have driven away.”
Nice to know the Iraqis don’t like al-Qaeda, but I’m not sure if al-Qaeda in Iraq had much to do with al-Qaeda. I do know the US passed on killing Zarqawi when they could have done so easily.
It’s clear these Iraqi Sunnis are serious fighters who shouldn’t be messed with. As long as we are there, the Sunni need to be respected.
The Sunni will likely fight the Shia, which gives the US a pretext for hanging around. Better the Shia than our troops, I guess, although Sunni nationalists seem positively mellow these days. Hard to expect reconciliation with Baghdad though. We need to remember where we are, and know whose streets they are. The real fireworks begin when we get out, or attack Iran.
Sheot! It make sense to me! If you don’t give up the power to somebody in Iraq who is going to be left? We went in without knowing who was the enemy, making everyone the enemy. What do you think the locals are going to do, just give up and let themselves get shot? This is why its your right to bear arms. We aren’t far off from this at home with a leader like ours.
Anyone who puts his name down on something, anything, in Iraq is probably getting shot at right now.
We have indeed gone into Iraq without any plan for a satifactory outcome. As Jungleboy has said, we started a war without knowing who the enemy was. The truth is, that we didn’t have an enemy in Iraq, sure there was a despotic dictator, who was keeping the lid on his own country, by being incredibly brutal. Sadaam was evil, no getting away from that, but how do you keep a country made up of thousands of tribes (not just three religious groups), all of them heavily armed, from killing each other? Every Iraqi has been affected by the war, and it is fair to say that most have suffered directly from the coalition troop’s actions.
The US particularly are now using Sunni groups to fight Al Quaeda, these are the remnants of the people Sadaam was using, and it is only a matter of time, before they once again turn their attention on the Kurds and Shia. The US (and UK, tagging on behind) will always try to mould a new Iraq, at the expense of democracy. The power will not be shared evenly, the Shia will not be treated fairly, and the Kurds will not have their own land (because that would offend Turkey). The demographics of Iraq actually make a three way split fairly easy, but the reality is far different. The Sunnis do not want to see the Shia in charge in the South, because the oilfields would fall under Iran’s influence, and the borders may even be redrawn.
We have opened the “Pandora’s” box, and it is proving impossible to put the lid back on.
” andersdl January 28th, 2008 1:44 pm
As much as the military industrial media complex loves the never ending “war on drugs”, the never ending “war on terror” is far more profitable !”
THAT IS SORT OF right, but in a sense not, for the ‘war on drugs’ propaganda serves big time racketeering the West is committing in this GWoT. See the following article, which is short, but is excellent and packs a whallop.
“The ‘good war’ is a bad war”, by John Pilger, Jan 9 2008,
http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=470
” gin January 28th, 2008 2:05 pm
In other news…”
SO, WHAT’S THE LINK TO THAT OTHER NEWS?
“Man” do many Internet users practice poor Internet or simply communications “etiquette”; many loving to pretend something’s true while being barely heard of and without providing references to supporting resources, sending people on “wild goose chases”, potentially.
” rob.price January 28th, 2008 3:30 pm
And in a nutshell, there is the American example of counterinsurgency,
give power to what ever group best suits your needs.”
YES, AND the above Pilger article is a short but strong example of what Rob Price said.
” curmudgeon99 January 28th, 2008 6:05 pm
…
I guess the only safe city is a dead city.”
FOR THE DEAD, SURE.
” O roe January 28th, 2008 8:18 pm
I never realized war ended in Fallujah. Did I miss something? Friggin war with Iraq is still there, yeah? Did we leave and bring ALL the troops home since 4:00 A M?”
PROBABLY NOT (or not much in terms of the above questions), YES, AND NO, respectively; for those three (rhetorical) questions.
“al-Qaeda was never in Iraq until we started illegally invading Iraq for no reason at all and al-Qaeda, …”
AND THERE HASN’T REALLY been much al-Qaeda presence in Iraq during this war, either. It’s mostly U.S. bs lies; and I’ve read from a number of respectable sources that plenty of anti-Western imperialists wanting to join in on the jihad against this imperialist bs claim to be of al-Qaeda while really not being this. They employ the name, misattributing it to themselves, because it’s very well known; something like this sort of logic anyway.
I’ve also read that such characters sometimes are really working for the U.S., too; and that the CIA has been involved in setting up this sort of act (violent act). Iow, it’s purportedly, though credibly too, not unusual in U.S. black ops.
They did that in Central Asia, and if it’s what the case is in Iraq and not with actual al-Qaeda members, then calling the group al-Qaeda fits with the whole GWoT; it’d keep reinforcing to Americans that they supposedly need to fear, fear, … al-Qaeda, which is very much a U.S. invention from the start anyway.
” kalia January 28th, 2008 10:29 pm
$350 (£175) does not sound like much. Every family ought to sponsor their very own fighter.”
YOU EVIDENTLY haven’t read much on the situation in Iraq, for there’s major and always increasing poverty there. $350 is more than many Iraqis have per month; many enough are living on less than $10 a day, to keep the number conservative. I won’t check for the article now, but vaguely recall having read over the past couple of weeks or so that the UN agency that reports on the poverty has recently enough said that many Iraqis live on something like $2 a day, because it’s all they have.
That should be difficult to find with a Web search, though I’ll let others do it if they want the information.
” jungleboy January 29th, 2008 2:15 am
Sheot! It make sense to me! If you don’t give up the power to somebody in Iraq who is going to be left? We went in without knowing who was the enemy, making everyone the enemy.”
THAT’S BECAUSE THERE WERE NO ENEMIES THERE! Well, not until the U.S. et al arrived with their war of criminal and major, apocalyptic aggression, that is. The only enemy there as far as the West goes has always been the West.
” AndyUK January 29th, 2008 3:13 am
We have indeed gone into Iraq without any plan for a satifactory outcome.”
WELL, THAT DEPENDS ON WHO YOU THINK the Bush administration is working to satisfy. If you think it’s The People of the U.S.A., Iraq, or the whole world, then you’re right about there evidently not being “any plan …”; but that is absolutely not what the war was ever about or for. The ruling elites do NOT care about ANY of us “little” people, and the real people and powers the Bush administration is working for have been progressively approaching the achievement of [their] satisfaction; regardless of how totally UGLY, hellish the means employed are to us.
And NO to “We have indeed gone into Iraq”. SPEAK FOR YOURSELF; if you indeed went to Iraq, then you did. I was opposed to the WHOLE damn hellbent GWoT from the very moment Bush spoke of launching war on the Taliban; not being a slow-poke at making my decisions about such matters. I do NOT take my F*CKING SWEET TIME about it.
The same was applied with the Clinton administration reining in hell’s war of aggression on Kosovo, former President Slobodan Milosevic, etc.; taking me only enough time to hear that the Clintonites were threatening that country and govt with war.
But I think what you means is not “We have …”, but the “USA has …” or the “US govt has …”, which is then true, and precisely CLEAR. Saying ‘We …’ is very easy to interpret as literally meaning inclusively ourselves, which then makes the “We …” a falsehood.
You might possibly see me using ‘we’ like that, but it’d be unusual of me to do this, for I think of ‘we’ in the literal sense, so meaning that I’m including myself; and I’ve [never] been part of such ‘we’ bs affairs, ever. And that applied when I enlisted in the USN back in 1976 at age 18. I was already very “street-schooled” by age 14 and no stupid senior military officers were going to get me to adhere to their damn hellbent hypocrisy and lies when I could discern it; and I did very early on, which is also why I got out on a good conduct discharge also very early into my service contract. They, at court, or sort of military court anyway, provided me with two choices, one of which was to depart, and I chose that one. It got them ripping pissed, which immediately told me that they’re hypocrites, untrustworthy, so I retorqued that my choice was made and that they’re the ones who offered it. To heck with such jerks; they aren’t going to be my superiors when they’re [inferiors].
And that they most definitely ARE. They are the cold-blooded murdering, massacring sorts; bastards. There’s no way that I could ever accept to serve under such sh*t-for-brains.