Inside the Iraq resistance: threads of the fightback in Sunni Iraq

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Inside the resistance
Popular anger is forging an alliance between diverse strands of Iraq's
guerrilla movement
Zaki Chehab
Monday October 13, 2003 The Guardian

The suicide bomber who yesterday attacked the US-frequented Baghdad
Hotel was the fourth member of the Iraqi resistance to kill themselves
for the cause. The bombing came only three days after last week's
suicide attack on a Baghdad police station that left at least eight
people dead. From the meetings I have had with resistance fighters in
different parts of Iraq, there is no doubt that there will be many
more such attacks to come. The use of suicide bombing in Iraq - the
first announced target was the UN in August - signals a clear change
of tactics by the growing resistance movement. The US-led coalition
forces, frustrated by their inability to control the situation, blame
foreign infiltrators for these attacks, emphasising the similarity
between these new tactics and those of al-Qaida and other militant
groups in the Middle East. Few seem to grasp the fact that Iraqis, who
are well-trained militarily, have simply learned from others'
experiences, and carried out the attacks themselves.

I first met Iraqi resistance fighters at a farm in the suburbs of
Ramadi, north of Baghdad. It was several months after the fall of
Saddam Hussein's regime, and on that day the people of Ramadi were
gathering at a mosque to grieve the death of a young Iraqi killed by
US forces. The man - unarmed, and driving a civilian car - had failed
to stop at a checkpoint. There had been no signs warning him or other
drivers of the danger they were approaching. I was taken aback by the
strength of the anger felt by the local people - such deaths (this
young man was not the first to die at the checkpoint, nor the last)
were clearly galvanising local people to fight back against the
occupation forces.

After the funeral, with the dreaded 10pm curfew fast approaching, my
new Iraqi companions invited me to go with them to a nearby place of
safety. As we made the dangerous journey along the road from Ramadi to
Baghdad - the site of daily attacks by the resistance and street
gangs - the conversation turned to the nature of the Iraqi resistance
movement. I was very keen to find out why it was spreading throughout
Iraq so quickly, and what motivated its members. My companions -
ordinary Iraqis - immediately offered to introduce me to the fighters
they knew.

The fighters wore civilian clothes but their faces were covered, and
they held a range of small arms and light weapons - AK-47s, RPG-7s to
shoulder-mounted rocket propellers and hand grenades.

What struck me most, though, was their intense commitment to their
cause: the liberation of Iraq from its current occupiers. These were
no "Ba'athist remnants". On the contrary, they blamed Saddam Hussein
for bringing the Americans into Iraq. They went so far as to say the
capture of Saddam by allied forces would sever the links between
Saddam and the resistance movement once and for all. They defined
themselves as nationalists. One said: "We do not want to see our
country occupied by forces clearly pursuing their own interests,
rather than being poised to return Iraq to the Iraqis."

Later, I met members of a different strand of the resistance: Saddam
Hussein loyalists in Tikrit. We were filming in the main street there
when two young, well-built Iraqis approached us. While they were
asking us who we were working for, a US convoy passed by and the two
men shouted abuse at the American soldiers, threatening to turn Iraq
into their graveyard.

Then they turned to us, boasting that they had attacked the Americans
the night before at Saddam's palace in the town, and would carry out
daily attacks until the Americans were driven out of the country. One
of the two men introduced himself as Nabil, and declared that there
was no support locally for the Americans, who would never be safe,
even in their thousands.

These were not empty threats. I spent that night with an Iraqi family
in the town. While sitting in the back garden, we witnessed eight
explosions within minutes of each other. My host, a university
professor, explained that they were mortar attacks targeting the US
headquarters in Tikrit.

In Mosul and Falluja, the resistance groups are different again. Here,
most identify themselves with Islamist organisations such as the
Muslim Brotherhood. Recently, there have been reports of meetings in
the Jordanian capital between high-ranking members of Hamas and this
section of the resistance, which has sought to learn from the
experience of Hamas and its military wing, well-known for its suicide
bomb attacks against Israeli targets.

This development was entirely predictable. When Mosul fell to American
forces on April 11, terror and chaos spread over the city. The
Pentagon promised that thousands of its soldiers would secure Mosul
and prevent mass looting. I entered the city that day. By the time
praying started, dozens of worshippers had gathered to hear one of
Mosul's leading Sunni clerics calling for patience, but warning that
if peace and security were not restored, then "the inhabitants of
Mosul still have the means to resist, as this is not the promised
liberation but an occupation. We will never accept Iraq becoming a
second Palestine."

Iraq is a country which has faced more than 20 years of war, and more
than a decade of sanctions. The motivations of each strand of Iraqi
resistance vary: the loyalists are driven by the loss of power; the
nationalists by the desire to establish independence and security; the
Islamists by their dream of returning political Islam to the Iraqi
nation. These aspirations may be incompatible, but the focus of each
group now is to fight together against the common enemy of Iraq - the
occupying forces.

In some areas at least, this common interest has a structural
expression. In the back streets of Mosul, soon after the fall of the
city, I came face to face with a group of armed men, shouting and
firing shots in different directions. I asked who they were: some
introduced themselves as former Ba'athists, others said they belonged
to Islamist organisations. Though ideologically worlds apart, they
explained that they all took their orders from the same committee in
the city, which was headed by a group of religious leaders. I later
found there were similar relationships in Falluja and Samarra.

The resolve and ferocity of the Iraqi resistance has been amplified by
the blunders of the American soldiers in Iraq. Coalition commanders
have dealt ineptly with ground operations, and neither the British nor
the Americans have come up with a clear road map for the political
reconstruction of Iraq that would enable Iraqis to rule themselves.

Random road checks and house-to-house searches, often based on
inaccurate information, make a bad situation worse. Culturally
inappropriate behaviour - male soldiers body-searching women, for
example - and collective punishments have further alienated the
population and helped entrench popular support for resistance.

Given the growing number of Iraqis joining the resistance, there is a
strong need for Washington and London to revise their military and
political plans for post-conflict Iraq. The occupation forces are in a
fragile position. If they strengthen their military presence in the
face of increasing resistance, they will only alienate Iraqis yet
further from their attempts to redraw the political future of Iraq -
and the resistance will continue to spread. Unless there is an early
withdrawal, the currently sporadic attacks in the Shia-dominated south
can be expected to mushroom.

Britain and the US are currently setting the stage for a new phase of
Iraqi resistance. Its members are learning fast from the experience of
the region, and are already adopting new tactics. The latest of these
is suicide bombing - a weapon which even the strongest counter-
terrorism forces struggle to cope with.

· Zaki Chehab is the political editor of the Arabic TV station al-
Hayat-LBC, and was the first journalist to broadcast an interview with
members of the Iraqi resistance.


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