Sectarian War Prolongs the Occupation

Even leaders of the 'legitimate' resistance agree!

'For Zarqawi, the aim was to start a civil war. This would not only confound state-building but also weaken the Shia position and force the United States to leave Iraq withouta positive political outcome. In September 2005, after US and Iraqi troops launched a major offensive against insurgent forces along the Iraq-Syria border, Zarqawi retaliated with three days of mayhem, during which suicide bombings and assassinations killed and maimed hundreds of Shias, including clerics and government workers. The attacks were followed by a posting on an al-Qaeda-affiliated website that called for a "full-scale war on Shiites all over Iraq, whenever and wherever they are found."

Zarqawi's extremist posture also found reflection in the angry rejection of occupation and Shia empowerment by Iraq's Sunni clerics, especially those who gathered in the more militant and also broadly popular Association of Muslim Clerics (Hay'at al-Ulama al-Muslimin). The association was important in giving the insurgency religious sanction. In particular, some of its leaders, such as Ayyash al-Kubaisi, openly endorsed the insurgency as a legitimate jihad. The association also reflected the sectarian bias of the insurgency's Salafi sentinels. Some of its ulama had maintained ties with Saudi Arabia, from which they received financial and moral support. Some of the association's leaders who had recently returned to Iraq after the fall of Saddam, such as its spokesman, Muthanna Harith al-Dhari, who was also an important link between the association and the insurgency, had studied in the kingdom. These ulama favored Hanbali law, associated with Ibn Tayamiya and Wahhabism (and thus a strong anti-Shia posture), over the Hanfali law that has long been the traditional creed of Iraq's Sunni Arabs.

The Shia understood the rage and the roots of the violence that was perpetrated against them. As one Shia cleric put it, "The killers of today are the same killers as yesterday." Still, Shia leaders and their flock, victims and bystanders, all repeatedly chose to blame outsiders for the violence against them. It was almost as if there was great fear in identifying neighbors and countrymen as those responsible. But even if this were true, and if the Shia genuinely believed it, then the question would remain: Who were the outsiders? They were Jordanians, Syrians, Egyptians, and most of all Saudis - all Sunni extremists who had come to Iraq to fight Americans and kill Shias. Their national identity would cast them as outsiders to Iraq, but they were still Sunni Arabs. They shared Sunni religious, Arab ethnic, and in some cases even tribal identities with Iraq's Sunni insurgents, and shared a Salafi ideology that guided their actions.

The notion of insider and outsider had little meaning when broader identities such as Shia and Sunni, Arab and non-Arab were defining the conflict. This point was made clear by Ayatollah Ahmad al-Safi, a close aide of Ayatollah Sistani's and his representative in Kerbala. Safi reacted to the Kazemiya stampede by calling on the ulama of al-Azhar in Egypt - symbolizing the Sunni world - to break their "negative" silence and condemn the insurgency, just as he called on Shias to maintain their "positive" silence and refrain from responding in kind to the violence. Other Shia leaders more directly criticized the country's Sunni clerics for not forcefully denouncing the insurgency's anti-Shia violence.

When Zarqawi declared "full-scale war on Shiites," the association's Abu Bashir al-Tartousi objected, criticizing this brazen call to arms in a tract entitled "About Sectarian War in Iraq"25 Tartousi argued that Shia civilians did not bear responsibility for the actions of the Shia-led government or US forces and should not be the object of war. However, he prefaced his criticism by validating the general thrust of Zarqawi's sectarian rhetoric, saying that "although sectarian war in Iraq may have been provoked and sparked by the Shia, perceived to be major allies of the occupation forces; and although it is right of the Muslim mujahid [one who undertakes jihad] to defend himself, his honor, and his cities against the crusader invaders and whoever is allied with them, killing according to sectarian affiliation is not justified by Islamic Law." Tartousi saw the victims as responsible for the violence. The insurgents were justified in their anger at the Shia and should merely refrain from "taking justice into their own hands." It was a matter not of the Shia's guilt - Tartousi took that for granted - but of the kind of justice that they should face and from whom.

Tartousi was also less concerned with the morality of killing Shia civilians than with its implications for the success of the insurgency. He wrote in detail on this theme: "Sectarian war is [in] the crusader's interest, aimed at dividing the efforts of the mujahideen...[and] gives grounds for a longer occupation...and causes the legitimate Iraqi resistance to lose its credibility in the eyes of the Islamic world." Tartousi's argument was also reflected in the veiled criticism of Zarqawi by Saudi Arabia's most senior cleric, Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, who objected to sectarian war because it would "serve the aims of enemies conspiring against Islam." This hardly amounted to the kind of condemnation that the Shia had demanded from Sunni clerics.' --Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival

Torture: Effective or Not?

"Over the course of this renaissance in interrogation tactics, our attitudes changed. We no longer saw our prisoners as the stereotypical al-Qaeda evildoers we had been repeatedly briefed to expect; we saw them as Sunni Iraqis, often family men protecting themselves from Shiite militias and trying to ensure that their fellow Sunnis would still have some access to wealth and power in the new Iraq. Most surprisingly, they turned out to despise al-Qaeda in Iraq as much as they despised us, but Zarqawi and his thugs were willing to provide them with arms and money. I pointed this out to Gen. George Casey, the former top U.S. commander in Iraq, when he visited my prison in the summer of 2006. He did not respond.

Perhaps he should have. It turns out that my team was right to think that many disgruntled Sunnis could be peeled away from Zarqawi. A year later, Gen. David Petraeus helped boost the so-called Anbar Awakening, in which tens of thousands of Sunnis turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and signed up with U.S. forces, cutting violence in the country dramatically.

Our new interrogation methods led to one of the war's biggest breakthroughs: We convinced one of Zarqawi's associates to give up the al-Qaeda in Iraq leader's location. On June 8, 2006, U.S. warplanes dropped two 500-pound bombs on a house where Zarqawi was meeting with other insurgent leaders."

How Arabs reach out to their Iraqi “brothers”

I find it interesting how some Arabs try to reach out to me on my blog and other blogs. Recently two of my Arab brothers, a Lebanese Australian and a Palestinian American, dropped by to “reach out” by leaving some friendly, Arab-like comments for my post “Obama Talks to Arabs & Muslims”. The Lebanese Australian brother’s first comment on my blog:

”Finally the curiosity got the better of me.
Books you're reading:
Elie Wiesel?!!
For godssake mojo!
Elie Wiesel who's closer to a viper than to a weasel? For godsake, mojo!! Should I remind you how despicable this person is? This 'benefactor of humanity', the "great advocate for human rights' who never had anything to say about the Palestinian tragedy but scorn, contempt and accusations of anti-Semitism? Do you provide bags for those who feel like throwing up or should I bring my own?”

So Elie Wiesel is despicable, and I should not have his book displayed on my blog, lest my Arab brothers may vomit when visiting here. I did not know that Wiesel was a journalist for the Irgun, the militant Zionist group that participated in the attack on Deir Yassin in 1948, but I don’t think he deserves to be called “despicable” and I haven’t seen evidence that he supports the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes. Before this discussion, I knew Wiesel only from his book Night.

After the lovely exchange with my Lebanese Australian brother, who has attacked me for my “sectarianism” on other blogs before, a Palestinian American brother chimed in with this comment:

"So Mojo, it is not despicable to support colonialism and settlements in Palestine"?

It depends on what “colonialism” and “settlements” mean, I responded. I insisted that I haven’t seen evidence that Wiesel supports the expulsion of natives from their homes. Colonialism is not necessarily the expulsion of natives from their lands, he retorted. He compared Jewish settlers to the Taliban. Some Jewish settlers are fanatical and some have engaged in horrific violence against Palestinians, but like the Taliban they are not. I wrote that I often see Arabs making inappropriate comparisons, “like comparing Guantanamo to Saddam-like imprisonment, or like comparing Abu Ghraib before 2003 to Abu Ghraib after 2003. Like comparing the IDF to Nazis. It is embarrassing.” He said “you are the embarrassment Mojo.”

He demanded that I tell him if I believe Hamas is a terrorist organization or legitimate resistance. The Arabs are in love with resistance. They drink, eat, and breathe resistance. But they have no answers when I point out that many Arabs who’ve lived all their lives just miles from occupied Palestine ended up traveling hundreds of miles to the east to mass murder Iraqis, except to say that it’s much easier to enter Iraq than to enter Israel or the West Bank, and that I should not use the term "3arab jarab". They have no answers to my bewilderment at the large number of non-Iraqi Arab suicide bombers who have killed and maimed mostly innocent Iraqis. They stay mum when I compare how the Arabs have resisted the occupation of Palestine to how the Arabs have resisted the occupation of Iraq. Apparently they would rather compare Israelis to Nazis.

He went on to write: “The good thing is our Shia brothers in Iraq overall support Palestine and the Palestinians. You are in the minority when it comes to your community and that is a good thing.”


So naturally I had to defend myself and show him that I do in fact support Palestine. I have written about Palestine on my blog. I support Palestine’s right to contiguous independent statehood, to freedom and prosperity, to peace. But I loathe the Palestinians who showed support for Saddam and Zarqawi. I will always call Arabs who supported Saddam and Zarqawi “3arab jarab”.

A few comments later my Palestinian American brother wrote this:

"Mojo, that is why i am reaching out to you but i feel that because i am Palestinians you are automatically rejecting me and judging me and my views.

I believe you support Palestine but i also believe you can't have it both ways, you can't be critical of only Arabs but not Americans who back these Arabs or who back Israel."

I asked him to give me an example of my sectarianism. He responded with: “I said i never saw you use the term Arab Jarab when it comes to Shia death squada. It is always in reference to Sunnis from what i have seen.”

Me: “There are Shia jarab, for sure. They just haven't killed any of my relatives. And the Shia jarab did not incite sectarian conflict in Iraq. There would have been no Shia Death Squads of there were no Sunni Death Squads like Al Qaeda to begin with.”

My Palestinian American brother, reaching out:

“You have no proof of that claim on death squads, it is all assumptions on your part.

Can't we argue there would be no Sunni death squads if they weren't disenfranchised?”

That’s when I found no patience left in me. I wrote “So the Baathists, with the help of 3arab jarab like Abu Musab al Zarqawi, responded to de-Baathification by blowing up markets, buses, police stations, weddings, funerals, universities.“

This is how my Arab “brothers” have reached out to me. It’s not the first time I’ve been called “sectarian”. Maybe I am sectarian. Would I be “sectarian” if the hardcore Baathists and their Wahhabi allies had not mass murdered Iraqi Shia in the first place? I doubt it.

It is not enough to commend the American President for wanting to help establish a contiguous Palestinian state. It is not enough that I have expressed sympathy with Palestinians who were expelled from their homes, who lost their children to Israeli bombing. Apparently Iraqis must express support for Hamas as well, or at least agree that Hamas is a legitimate “resistance” organization. We must condemn American support for Israel and US foreign policy in the Middle East in general, even as the same Arabs who hate America emigrate to America and become successful in America. We must not become angry when our Palestinian American friends say “bad move Shia” when we express joy or satisfaction at the hanging of Saddam or one of Saddam’s henchmen - we should at least find the humor in such statements, I am told. We must agree with our Arab “brothers” that Americans caused the sectarian conflict in Iraq, and IF Sunni Arabs caused violence in Iraq, it is because they were disenfranchised. We should not “demonize” Palestinians by linking to articles that show how some Palestinians supported Saddam or Zarqawi. We should avoid discussing Saddam's crimes before 2003, and if we must discuss life for Iraqis before 2003, we should say that it was better than after 2003, and we should blame the Americans for that and nobody else. And we must not display on our blogs books written by such “despicable” characters as Elie Wiesel.

Angry Arabs not angry about Arab hypocrisy

I want to document the apparent lack of anger or even awareness among Arab intellectuals at Arab hypocrisy. The Angry Arab wrote today 'Qatari government hearts Isarel': '"Qatar to allow Israeli football players if it wins World Cup bid". Make no mistake about it: all lousy Arab regimes would beg for peace for Israel to please the US.'

The Angry Arab has not commented on the difference between the way Arabs have treated Qatar and the way they've treated the new Iraq and its government. The Arab "resistance" have killed tens of thousands of Iraqis since the overthrow of the tyrant Saddam and his murderous regime. More than 1,100 suicide bombers, most of them non-Iraqi Arabs, have blown themselves up in Iraq since 2003. They continue to attack Iraqi security forces, and I still remember the comments on the blogosphere by Arabs from all over the world who believed that it was right to attack Iraqi security forces, because Iraqi security forces work with the infidel occupier. But the Arab resistance has never attacked Qatari security forces like they've attacked Iraqi security forces.

The rules seem to apply only to Iraq, and they definitely do not apply to Qatar. There have been no bombings of Qatari police stations, no bombings of markets in Qatar, where there are 10 Starbucks and one very large and important American military base from which the US launched two wars on Iraq. This bit of Arab hypocrisy does not seem to anger the Angry Arab. Or maybe he didn't notice.

I was curious if the Angry Arab has ever mentioned CENTCOM on his blog, so I searched for it and found this post:

'A US-supported, Shi`ite version of Zarqawi: "The Centcom commander met first with Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a languid Shiite cleric who is the leader of Iraq's biggest Shiite party. Hakim, flanked by the chief of his group's Badr Organization militia, told Fallon that "the real problem in Iraq is the Sunnis." Even if the Shiites made concessions to the Sunnis by sharing oil revenue or easing de-Baathification, Hakim said, "the enemies will never accept."" '

So the only thing As'ad Abu Khara has to say about CENTCOM is that its commander met Abdul Aziz al Hakim, who was a Shi'ite version of Zarqawi, according to the Angry professor. Is this guy really a professor? I don't remember Hakim writing a letter encouraging the Shia to mass murder Sunni Arabs, nor do I remember the Badr Brigade bombing markets in Sunni neighborhoods, but we're supposed to believe that Hakim was as bad as Zarqawi.

This is the same professor who has attacked Sistani many times. Sistani is the cleric who repeatedly called for an end to the violence in Iraq and appealed for unity between Sunna and Shia. In one post the Angry Arab wrote: 'the two people most responsible for sectarian conflict in the Middle East are the Saudi King and the Grand (not at all) Ayatullah, Sistani. (You can add others like Al-Qa`idah, the Badr militia, Hariri family, etc).'

No mention of CENTCOM in Qatar and no mention of Arab hypocrisy. OK!

The "days of Zarqawi are going to return soon"

NYT: 'Insurgents across Iraq launched their most significant and wide-ranging attacks in months on Monday, killing 68 people and wounding over 300, marking the most violent day in Iraq this year.

The violence touched nearly every region of the country, except for Kurdistan, and appeared to be aimed at security forces in both Sunni and Shiite areas.

In all, there were 37 attacks, more than double the daily average this year, nearing the level of violence at the height of the sectarian conflict here in 2006 and 2007. The attacks included 11 car bombs, 19 improvised explosive devices and 2 suicide bombers.

Coming a little less than two weeks after the Iraqi government said it would negotiate with the United States about keeping some of its 48,000 troops here after the end of the year, the violence raised significant questions about the capabilities of the Iraqi security forces.

No group claimed responsibility for the attacks on Monday. But in a voice recording posted on a Web site for Al Qaeda in Iraq last week, the spokesman for the terrorist group said that they were preparing a wide-scale attack.

“I promise you that we are on the right path,” said the spokesman, Abi Muhhamed al-Adnani. “Thank God that we are doing very well here.”

“Do not worry, the days of Zarqawi are going to return soon,” he said, referring to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq who was killed by American forces in 2006. “We have men who have divorced themselves from life and love death more than you love life and killing is one of their wishes,” he said.'

Zarqawi Fan: Kill the Shi'a First, Then the Americans

In Jihadist Haven, a Goal: To Kill and Die in Iraq

ZARQA, Jordan — Abu Ibrahim considers his dead friends the lucky ones.

Four died in Iraq in 2005. Three more died this year, one with an explosives vest and another at the wheel of a bomb-laden truck, according to relatives and community leaders.

Abu Ibrahim, a lanky 24-year-old, was on the same mission when he left this bleak city north of Amman for Iraq last October. But he made it only as far as the border before he was arrested, and is now back home in a world he thought he had left for good — biding his time, he said, for another chance to hurl himself into martyrdom.

“I am happy for them but I cry for myself because I couldn’t do it yet,” said Abu Ibrahim, who uses this name as a nom de guerre. “I want to spread the roots of God on this earth and free the land of occupiers. I don’t love anything in this world. What I care about is fighting.”

Zarqa has been known as a cradle of Islamic militancy since the beginning of the war in Iraq. It was the home of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, who was killed last summer. Today it is a breeding ground for would-be jihadists like Abu Ibrahim and five of his friends who left about the same time last fall, bound for Iraq.

Interviews with Abu Ibrahim and relatives of the other men show that rather than having been individually recruited by an organization like Mr. Zarqawi’s, they gradually radicalized one another, the more strident leading the way. Local imams led them further toward Iraq, citing verses from the Koran to justify killing civilians. The men watched videos depicting tortured and slain Muslims that are copied from Internet sites.

“The sheik, he was a hero,” Abu Ibrahim said of Mr. Zarqawi. But, he added, “I decided to go when my friends went.” For the final step, getting the phone number of a smuggler and address of a safe house in Iraq, the men used facilitators who act more like travel agents than militant leaders.

“Most of the young people here in Zarqa are very religious,” an Islamist community leader said. “And when they see the news and what is going on in the Islamic countries, they themselves feel that they have to go to fight jihad. Today, you don’t need anyone to tell the young men that they should go to jihad. They themselves want to be martyrs.”

The anger is palpable on the streets of Zarqa. “He’s American? Let’s kidnap and kill him,” one Islamist activist said during an interview with a reporter before the host of the meeting dissuaded him.

The stories of the men from Zarqa help explain the seemingly endless supply of suicide bombers in Iraq, most of whom are believed to be foreigners.

Suicide bombings in Iraq are averaging roughly 42 a month, American military officials said.

[In April, a pair of truck bombers killed nine American soldiers, another bomber blew himself up in the Green Zone killing one member of Parliament, and others killed more than 290 civilians.]

Rising Anger at Shiites

The anger among militants in Zarqa, a mostly Sunni city, is now directed at Shiites as much as Americans, reflecting the escalation in hostility between the two branches of Islam since Shiites gained dominance in the new Iraqi government. “They have traditions that are un-Islamic and they hate the Sunnis,” said Ahmad Khalil Abdelaziz Salah, an imam whose mosque in Zarqa was attended by some of Zarqa’s bombers.

Asked to name his targets, Abu Ibrahim said: “First, the Shiites. Second, the Americans. Third, anywhere in the world where Islam is threatened.”

Among a small circle of young Islamists and relatives here, the fates of the six young men are well known. Three of the men are said to have died: two as suicide bombers and one apparently by gunfire. One has been held in Iraq and the other two, including Abu Ibrahim, were turned back.

Abu Ibrahim, who spoke on the condition that his name and some personal details be withheld, told his story in interviews over five hours. To back up his account, he agreed to show reporters his passport, which confirmed he entered Syria last fall. Relatives of another one of the young men quoted from a letter he had written saying goodbye and indicating he was going to Iraq. The family of a third man, who was captured and is being detained by American troops, provided a copy of his detention records from the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The six men left Zarqa last fall, all apparently with the same goal, but driven by their own individual circumstances.

The youngest, 19-year-old Amer Jaradad, left without telling his family where he was going. But they were not surprised.

One of his six brothers, Jihad — named for the Islamic obligation to defend the religion — had already died fighting in Falluja in 2005, said his father, Kasem Mufla Jaradad.

“Amer was very close to Jihad, and when Jihad became a martyr Amer was in the last year of school. He began spending his time reading Islamic books,” Mr. Jaradad said.

That same year, 2005, Amer called to say he, too, had gone to Iraq, Mr. Jaradad said. Mr. Jaradad sent two of his older sons to Baghdad and they brought Amer home. “As a father I was thinking and hoping that we lost one son and that was enough,” Mr. Jaradad said. “But I could tell Amer was thinking, ‘This life doesn’t count anymore and I will follow the way of my brother.’ ”

“One time I tried to get him away from these things,” his father said. “I said, ‘Shall we get you a wife,’ and he said, ‘No, this is not important to me. Jihad is.’ ”
Amer left again for Iraq on Oct. 19 last year, near the end of Ramadan, when security at the borders is more relaxed. And once again, he phoned home three weeks later to say he had made it. That was the last they heard of Amer until one of his brothers got a call on Jan. 19 on his cellphone — the number of which Amer had taken with him — saying Amer was blown up in the truck he was driving with a bomb in it.

News reports cite a truck bombing in Kirkuk on the day he was said to have died, but his father and brothers say they cannot be sure that Amer was the bomber.

Praise for Suicide Bombers

At his crowded funeral in Zarqa, one of his brothers praised Amer and other suicide bombers. “They are the best youths and good persons,” he said. “He was successful in life, but decided to fight the Americans in Iraq.”

The mother of another of the young men, a 20-year-old engineering student, still believes that her son went to Iraq looking for a job. At the family’s home recently, she sank to her knees, weeping and clutching his physics book.

He walked out the door of his family’s two-room apartment, telling his mother he was meeting friends for breakfast. The next his family heard was notification from the Red Cross that he had been detained by American troops in Iraq, according to one of his sisters, who asked that her brother not be identified for fear of jeopardizing his education should he be released.

His family was large and poor, with 17 children. Going to college gave him a glimpse of opportunities, but he failed to win a scholarship to study medicine in England, the sister said.

“Rich people go to his university,” she said. “He wanted to be somebody and he couldn’t.”

At the same time, he adopted a strict adherence to Islam. “I noticed the change two years ago,” his sister said. “He stopped listening to music. He isolated himself from us. At family gatherings, he sat by himself, thinking.”

Unlike his mother, the man’s sister concedes that he probably went to Iraq to fight. In March 2007, when another of the six friends, a 19-year-old laundry worker named Abdullah Fasfous, died in Iraq, the sister showed her mother his picture.

“Oh, this poor guy,” she said her mother told her. “They also told him they would get him a job.”

Mr. Salah, the imam, said the young man prayed at his mosque and tutored youngsters in the Koran. Mr. Salah said if he had known his plans, he would have tried to dissuade him from going to Iraq.

“It’s very difficult at the moment,” Mr. Salah said. “If you do a suicide operation, the Muslims are mixed up with non-Muslims and maybe you kill Muslims.”

But he is hardly a voice of restraint. Mr. Salah counts Shiites among the non-Muslims. He joined the recent call for retribution against them, which gained fervor well beyond Zarqa after Shiite executioners were videotaped jeering as Saddam Hussein was hanged in December.

In his home he showed visitors a newly released video titled “The True History and Aims of the Shiites.” It portrays Shiites deriding the first three caliphs, or leaders of the ancient Islamic world, and saying that the youngest wife of the Prophet Muhammad, Aisha, had been a prostitute.

“You see, they hate our caliphs and they hate the Sunnis,” Mr. Salah said.

When the video showed scenes of Sunnis tortured and killed by a Shiite militia in Iraq, he added, “We didn’t see the Shiites like that before, but now in Iraq they showed their real face.”

Continued

The deranged sons of Salt

'Salt is an ancient Jordanian town, a short twenty minutes drive north of Amman. Salt was a trading center, once the most important settlement between the Jordan River and the desert lands to the east. In the Ottoman period, it was the capital of the Balqa region, which covered roughly the same territory as modern Jordan. It is a picturesque little town, with narrow streets and charming houses that have tall arched windows in the style of the late Ottoman period. During its heyday, Salt was a cosmopolitan, tolerant place where Muslims and Christians lived together in peace.

 

This town of many churches showed a different face in March 2005. During that month there was a much-publicized wake for a native son of Salt, Raed Mansour al-Banna, who had died on February 28 hundreds of miles to the south [sic, should be to the east], in the Iraqi city of Hilla, some sixty miles south of Baghdad. Raed was the suicide bomber who killed 125 Shias and wounded another 150 in one of the worst suicide bombings in postwar Iraq. His bomb had killed new recruits who were lined up waiting to join the Iraqi security forces. The government building that Raed targeted was next to an open-air market, so his bomb killed many women and children as well. Even by the standards of the gruesome violence that various "irreconcilables" were using to stop progress in post-Saddam Iraq, the massacre in Hilla was a brutal and shocking act of terror.

 

Salt, however, seemed to feel proud of its son. Many of the town's young men had done much as Raed had, going over the border during the previous two years in order to gather behind their countryman, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as their amir (commander [or literally 'prince']) and fight for him against the Americans and Shias. Raed's family held a three-day wake for him. Those who attended "celebrated" what they called his "martyrdom," as Jordanian newspapers reported. The Shias whom Raed had murdered drew no sympathy at the wake. For Raed to have been a martyr, those Shias by definition must have been infidels whose murder was justified. The tale of Hilla and Salt is emblematic of how Iraq has been changing the hearts and minds of some Sunnis in the region, and of the bloodletting that will define the boundaries between the two."  

 

The celebration in Salt brought retribution in Baghdad. Enraged by reports of the wake, a Shia mob attacked the Jordanian embassy on March 20. Iraq and Jordan exchanged strong words and withdrew their respective diplomats. Jordan, which had been Iraq's gateway to the world during the years of wars and sanctions, was now estranged from its neighbor. Sectarian tensions were driving old allies apart, replacing filial bonds of Arab identity and long-standing ties of commerce with deep suspicions. For Iraq's Shias, Jordan was the country of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the haven for Ba'thist exiles. For many in Jordan, Iraq was fast becoming a Shia country friendlier to Iran than to its Arab neighbors. Iraq would, however, be only a beginning.'

 

--Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival

Duleimi Iraq's Most Sectarian Politician

In-Depth Report

Adnan Duleimi Condemns Shias, Wants Help for Sunnis

By NIR ROSEN Posted 13 hr. 53 min. ago

 

The Conference in Support of the Iraqi People

In a December 22nd interview with the American sponsored Radio Sawa, Iraqi Sunni politician Adnan al Duleimi continued to show his true sectarian colors. Duleimi, who heads the Islamist Iraqi Accord Front, angered Shia politicians when he spoke at the Istanbul conference of Sunni Iraqi politicians held on the 13th and 14th of December. Duleimi angrily condemned the "Safavid threat" to Iraq, referring to the Persians and implying that the Shias of Iraq were in league with them. His tearful outburst not only incensed Shias but even the Islamic Party of Iraq was upset. Duleimi taught at the University of Zarqa in Jordan while he was in exile prior to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime. Zarqa's most famous son is Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Although there is no evidence that Duleimi was ever linked to Jihadist Salafis such as Zarqawi who were engaged in acts of terrorism against civilians, Duleimi and his movement are close to other groups in the resistance. The Istanbul conference may have been intended merely to raise funds for the resistance but during Duleimi's speech several audience members interrupted him and stormed out.

The Radio Sawa interviewer pressed Duleimi on why he avoided criticizing al Qaeda in Iraq but regularly criticized the Shia Mahdi Army militia. "Is al Qaeda a terrorist organization or not?" demanded the interviewer. "I will not and will never answer this question," said Duleimi, "and if you ask me again I will hang up the phone." The interviewer persisted and asked the question once more. "Al salamu aleikum," Duleimi said, or 'peace be upon you,' and he hung up the phone.

In his December 13th speech in Istanbul , Duleimi thanked the hosts for inviting them and asked God to help them make decisions that would lead Iraq's Sunnis to believe that they have brothers supporting them. He told the audience they should have named the conference "the conference for supporting Sunnis in Iraq." Iraq is worth nothing without Sunnis, he said, because Sunnis are the owners of Iraq and are the people behind Iraqi unity. Iraq's Sunnis built Iraq. Again he demanded that the conference's title should have been "supporting Sunnis" and mocked their fear of being called sectarian. "Yes we are sectarian," he said, "if you do not take care and awaken then Iraq will be gone and Baghdad will be gone too. It is a sectarian war. It is a sectarian struggle aiming to exterminate all Sunnis. And if anyone does not believe that then he is wrong and must rethink it and must study all the daily events in Iraq. We are suffering in Iraq. Be careful Arabs be careful Muslims. Your brothers in Iraq and especially in Baghdad will be destroyed and will be trampled by the Shias. And Baghdad is emptied of Sunnis. This is the exclusion of Sunnis, be careful."

In the background a voice chanted: "Iran, Iran, you Jews. Iraq's army will return".

Duleimi continued: "These slogans are worth nothing. We want your support. Where is your support? Where are you, sons of Islam? Baghdad is going to be lost if you do not get up in the right time and stop the threat, exclusion and destroying of Sunnis. We live a tragedy everyday. Our last tragedy was Hurriya, before that was Shuula, before that was Thawra (1), before that was Shaab and Hai Ur. Sunnis have been swept out of all these cities and you are here saying the struggle is not sectarian. I swear it is a sectarian struggle and a very sectarian struggle. It is not a basic political struggle but it is a sectarian struggle veiled as a political struggle. Get ready to defend Iraq, to defend Sunnis and if you do not do so, they will be crushed by the Mahdi Army and the likes of the Mahdi Army. Our mosques have been burned, destroyed and they call it the mosques of the Nawasib (2) which must be burned and destroyed. You are inattentive saying this is not a sectarian struggle. I swear it is the ultimate sectarian struggle. Awake and arise oh Arabs, the danger has flooded you up to your knees (3). We are suffering, our cities have been hit by mortars. Do you know what is happening to Adhamiya? Sliekh, Fadhil, Hai Al-Adil and Hai Al-Jamia are hit daily by artillery. And we are here saying it is not a sectarian struggle! It is a sectarian struggle and it is the peak of sectarian struggle and you are calling this conference to support Iraqis! Which Iraq? The Shia's Iraq? Iraq is going to be Shia and this will expand to the lands surrounding Iraq. Then you will all regret it but your regret will be worth nothing because it will be too late. Where is Saudi Arabia? Where is Kuwait? Where is Jordan? Where is Pakistan? And where are the Muslims? Sleep and keep sleeping while Iraq is destroying. You sleep while Sunnis mosques in Iraq are being destroyed. Sleep while Sunnis mosques in Iraq are burning. Is not this sectarianism? It is the maximum sectarianism."

"My brothers ... who do you depend on? The Sunnis in Iraq will be destroyed, will be killed. What you have just saw in the film (Duleimi points to a screen inside the hall) is a small part of what is happening in Iraq. What have you offered to Iraq? What have you offered to your brothers in Iraq? Sleep and keep sleeping but the fire of Iraq will expand to you. What is happening in Iraq has been planned for over fifty years in order to convert the region into Shiism and create the Persian Empire under a Shia cover or under the cover of Islam while Islam is free of them (4)."

"There is an agony in my heart. We in Iraq live a scathing life. We are suffering to keep our composure, and you are here. What have you offered us? Conferences, decisions and advice. What are we going to do with these things you have offered? My dearest brothers, I do not want to speak more to increase your anxieties but I cannot turn off the fire in my heart. There is an agony in my heart about Iraq and about Baghdad which is going to be lost. Baghdad of Abu Hanifa (5), Baghdad of Al Mansur (6) and Baghdad of Harun al Rashid (7). Baghdad of Ahmed bin Hanbal (8) is going to be Baghdad of the Safavids (9), Baghdad of the Buwayhids (10), and Baghdad of the new Qarmatians (11). Why are you saying it is not a sectarian war? It is a sectarian war. Everyone who says it is not a sectarian war is wrong and must change his opinion."

Notes:

(1) Thawra was the old name for the Shia slums known as Sadr City in Baghdad. Saddam then changed the name to Saddam City. Following the Samara Shrine attack of February 2006 and the intensification of the civil war, Sunnis began calling it by its old name, Thawra, or Revolution, City.

(2) Nawasib is a pejorative term for Sunnis

(3) This is a reference to the 19th century poet Ibrahim al Yaziji, who issued the first call to Arab nationalism. Al Yaziji's poem was one of the first expressions of proto-nationalism as a political identity in an Arab world then dominated by the Ottoman empire.

(4) Meaning that Shias are not Muslims

(5) Abu Hanifa is the Islamic scholar who founded the Hanafi school, one of the main schools of Sunni Islam. His tomb lies in Baghdad's Adhamiya district, in the Abu Hanifa mosque.

(6) Abu Jaafar al Mansur is the Abbasid caliph who built Baghdad

(7) Al Rashid is an Abbasid caliph associated with the idea of the "golden age" of the Arab-Islamic civilization

(8) Ahmad bin Hanbal is the founder of the most austere of Sunni schools, Hanbalism, Wahhabism is an offshoot of Hanbalism

(9) The Safavids are a 16th-17th century Azeri Dynasty that ruled Iran and converted its population to Shiism

(10) The Buwayhids are a Shia dynasty that submitted the Abbasid caliphate into a state of de facto protectorate and ruled large parts of modern-day Iran

(11) The Qarmatians (Qaramita in Arabic) are an Ismaili sect that built what is sometimes called the first communist society in history, extremely radical, rejected contemporary notions and institutions of Islam, attacked the Abbasid state and raided Basra several times. They were based in the Eastern Arabian peninsula (today's Saudi Arabia and Bahrain) and raided Mecca and destroyed the Kaaba.

Salafi ties to Iraq before 2003

"It was during the decade of sanctions, as central power weakened, that the fundamentalism and Salafism associated with the insurgency grew roots in Iraq. The works of the Iraqi exile thinker Muhammad Ahmad al-Rashid on jihad and the Islamic state, which were smuggled from Egypt, gained a following, but more important, the tentacles of fundamentalist and Salafist trends popular elsewhere in the region began to penetrate the country. 

The Muslim Brotherhood, with its strong presence in Jordan and Syria and affiliation with the Wahhabi establishment in Saudi Arabia, established itself in the Sunni regions of western Iraq that border on Jordan and Syria, and is today entrenched in the Iraqi Islamic Party. Firebrand preachers such as the Egyptian Hamid Kashk and the Syrian Mahmoud Qoul Aghassi (also known as Abu Qaqaa) were popular with Iraqi Sunnis even before the war, and copies of their sermons became ubiquitous in Sunni towns afterward. Throughout the decade of anti-Saddam sanctions, Jordanian mosques remained concerned with the plight of ordinary Iraqis and raised funds that were disbursed through mosque networks in Iraq. Also active in Iraq were Islamic activists such as Laith Shubailath of Jordan and extremist Salafist activists – some with close ties to al-Qaeda – such as Muhammad al-Maqdisi, who is a friend and by some accounts one of Zarqawi's mentors. Before the war toppled the Saddam regime, extremists from everywhere would come to the Jordanian-Iraqi border towns to buy weapons smuggled out of Iraq. Trade in weapons created ties that straddled boundaries and gave extremists contacts and allies inside Iraq, and in turn made it possible for the growing insurgency in that country to spread across the region.

Extremist activists had an incentive to move into Iraq. They were losing ground to the more moderate main body of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan and were often hounded by Jordanian or Syrian security forces. Their activism over the decade leading to the Iraq war not only introduced fundamentalist thinking in al-Anbar but also created organizational links that would facilitate the insurgency after the war. In fact, Zarqawi's emergence as a force so soon after the war reveals the extent of involvement of Jordanian Salafis in Iraq. Extremist ties between Jordan and Iraq ran in both directions. The flight of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi exiles and refugees to Jordan and Syria has only expanded the opportunity for building extremist networks that cut across national boundaries. The extremism that was exported to Iraq before and during the war, strengthened and radicalized, spread back into Jordan. The same ties also made developments in Iraq directly relevant to Islamic activism in Syria and Saudi Arabia."

–Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival

Haniyeh Aide on Zarqawi: "He's a terrorist"

From a 2006 interview by David Margolick, published in an article in Vanity Fair (thanks Molly):

'Only a few weeks earlier I had been in the building the Israelis bombed, and for anyone whose image of Hamas is men holding up AK-47s and wearing black masks and green headbands displaying Koranic verses, it was a bit disorienting. One doesn't expect Hamas people to speak American English and have an AOL e-mail address, as did one key Haniyeh aide I met, or to have a cell phone that rings to the tune of a Bach minuet, as did another, or to have congratulated me over the killing that day of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's man in Iraq, as had a third. "For us too, it's good," he told me. When I asked why, he seemed taken aback. "He's a terrorist," he explained.'

Just another market bombing

It's strange as I sit here, wondering if I should post this. I thought about posting only the text from the article, without commentary. I thought about asking if Safavids blew up the market, but then I thought that would be inappropriate. Does this bombing make the US and Iraqi government look bad? Does it highlight the lack of security in Baghdad, despite all the talk of improved security? Of course it does. On top of that, a bunch of apostates were killed today - the icing on the cake for Al Qaeda.

"Iraqis were enjoying a pleasant spring evening when a roadside bomb hidden under a vendor stall detonated in the primarily Shiite, middle-class Baghdad neighborhood of Karradah. Five minutes later, a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt detonated, Mohammed al-Rubaie, the head of the Karradah municipality, told the state-run Al-Iraqiya TV.

He said more than 50 civilians were killed and more than 100 injured. Many of the victims were teens or young adults, and four were women, police and officials at three hospitals said."

Some people found it odd that there were no explosions during Ahmedinejad's visit to Baghdad. Could it be that Ahmedinjad or one of his agents left that bomb in Karrada? Or perhaps it was one of those Psy-Ops operations, designed to create hatred for Al Qaeda. These theories seem so far fetched to me, so ridiculous. Just a year ago while having dinner with a friend (Palestinian), I started talking about Zarqawi and she interrupted “IF he existed” – I was shocked. IF he existed?? Then today I read some comments that reminded me that MANY people believed that Zarqawi was the work of the US government or never even existed!

Also I find strange the cartoons depicting Ahmedinejad as being protected by the US military during his visit to Baghdad. In one cartoon, a US soldier is actually saluting the Iranian president (yeah I don't think so), on the same day that UN sanctions were imposed on Iran. IraqPundit said that Ahmedinejad was NOT protected by the US military, and IraqPundit also pointed out that Ahmedinejad did not even visit Najef or Kerbela! What? Sistani, the Safavid, would not see Ahmedinejad?? What do critics of Sistani have to say about that?

PS: This Wikipedia list of suicide bombings in Iraq needs to be updated.

Remembering the KABOBfest about Iraq

Before I go for a long drive, I wanted to document here, to remember how the Arabs on KABOBfest, whose authors appear to be mostly North Americans of Palestinian and Lebanese descent, reacted to the war in Iraq. In general they did not condemn the Arabs who mass murdered Iraqis as much as they condemned the Americans who overthrew Saddam the murderous dictator. I think some of my comments and those of a few Kabobers are worth posting here:

My first comment was "The Kabobers would probably condemn the bombing of a volleyball game if Americans did the bombing." You responded be telling me that your are concerned about the consequences of US policies, as if this justifies the Kabobers' lack of condemnation of Arab terrorism.

I searched for "Iraq" on KABOBfest, hoping to find strong condemnation of the extremists who have been responsible for the mass murder of Iraqis.

A few interesting posts, some of which I've read before, like "18 Arab Leaders You Would Want with You in a Bar Fight" By Hanitizer, who summarized the criminality of Saddam. Also I read with great interest "Western Hypocrisy Shines at the Racism Conference" By Will, who wrote "Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have paid with their lives. " But he blamed the deaths of Iraqis directly on "Westerners". No mention of the thousands of Arab "mujahideen" and "resistance" dickheads who repeatedly bombed and attacked innocent Iraqis.

Also I just read "A Moving Diatribe to Mobilize the Iraqi Police" By Will, who condemned the American soldier's lecturing of Iraqi police, even though they deserved to be lectured like that because Shia militias had infiltrated the Iraqi police and some of them killed innocent people, often attacking Sunni Arabs. One would think that Sunni Arabs should applaud the soldier's lecture. But no, Will wondered "if this video is planted by Military strategic communication experts to show why the Iraqi police are inadequate and a US presence is needed, and how the US is trying to get them in shape to take control of their country." WOW

I noticed Kalash wrote on March 8, 2009 in which he appeared to condemn the suicide bombers (he actually mentioned them!), and he wrote that "Sunni residents of Samarra welcomed over a million Shia pilgrims. No major acts of violence were reported. Three years ago, the Golden Mosque was attacked sparking a bloody civil-war." WOW I thought, this Kabober is not like the others. But at the bottom he wrote : "Ali Hassan Al Majid (aka Chemical Ali) was given his third death sentence… That court is more of a joke than the ICC." So Iraq isn't even allowed to try and convict a mass murderer? The court is a joke?

I noticed this Kalash guy has written many posts that mention the horrendous violence in Iraq. Almost a year ago he wrote in "Remembering Iraq (Dec 19 – Jan 18)": "Well over 175 people have died in Iraq over the past month (in addition to any casualties resulting from military operations). That number pales in comparison to the dead in Gaza, but it is a clear sign that the beleaguered nation still has a long way to go."

At first glance it appears to be a condemnation of the terrorists who kill innocent Iraqis, but it's just a condemnation of America and Bush, who according to the Kabobers have caused the deaths in Iraq, which was hunky dory before 2003. In that post Kalash wrote: "Although he’s already been given two death sentences, a new trial began for Ali Hassan al Majid (aka Chemical Ali). This time the charade is centered on his role in the Halabja massacres ."

So Kalash, the smartest of the Kabobers, does not know of Ali Hassan al Majid's role in the massacres of Kurds and called his trial a "charade". How fitting!

In "Remembering Iraq: House of Saddam" Kalash criticized the film for not covering US support for Saddam in the 80s, the crippling effect of sanctions, and most importantly, the atrocities following the 2003 invasion. I wonder if Kalash even knows about the 1991 intifadha and how Saddam's goons mass murdered Iraqis. Also, if the film were to cover the atrocities following the 2003 invasion, wouldn't they have to tell the story about Zarqawi and the thousands of Arabs who travelled hundreds of miles to ostensibly fight the American occupiers, but ended up mass murdering mostly Iraqi civilians and Iraqi security forces?

But Kalash did write: "Saddam Hussein was a ruthless thug responsible for the misery of millions of Iraqis. There were good reasons to take him out". I agree with him on this! Kalash wrote a few of these "Remembering Iraq" posts and on Nov 28, 2008 he called it "Iraq’s elected representatives" - that is progress for an Arab! Kalash has written a lot about Iraq, and I thank him for it. But like most Arabs, he seems more interested in condemning Americans and their "occupation" of Iraq rather than condemning the Saddamist and Salafi scum of earth who continue to mass murder Iraqis.

I will search further back because many posts (507) mention Iraq, and I thought surely one of you Kabobers must have been angered by the civil war of 2006 and 2007. Very interesting reading on KABOBfest that symbolizes how biased (and sometimes clueless) the Arabs are on Iraq.

Maybe that was a bit harsh, because the more I read, the more I did find condemnation, albeit light and infrequent and certainly not as strong as their condemnation of Bush & Cheney:

"Nabeel: "I do not want to be one of those people who was not publicly criticising Zarqawi & Co. when he was blombing Shia areas, but immediately took offense to his targeting of Arab Sunnis."

Iraqi Mojo: "Actually that is the first time I've seen any Arab say something like that. A big SHUKREN to Nabeel, even though it's more than 4 years late."

Then I found this golden nugget:

I just read this: 'what about the militants that come into Iraq to defend “Islam” and all its glory at the present state. I’m sorry but this is disgusting, another sign of why we don’t get along and why arabs will never be friends.'

on "Saudi Jarabia" By NarcelX.

EXCELLENT! Thank you NarcelX!

So NarcelX is the smartest Kabober, not Kalash. Where is NarcelX these days?

Then I wrote this:

I just discovered that NarcelX is Iraqi, and that he quit this blog after one of the clueless Kabobers called NarcelX an idiot for hating the 3arab jarab of KSA. No wonder I agreed with NarcelX, and no wonder the other Kabobers attacked him for expressing his outrage, which other Kabobers evidently did not share. His post "Saudi Jarabia" was the strongest condemnation of "mujahideen" I've seen on KABOBfest. But he is Iraqi, and that makes sense!

Interview With a Terrorist

An interesting interview with an Al Qaeda member in Lebanon who fought in Iraq as the "Emir of Training".  He discusses his activities in Iraq and admits that he is a terrorist.  He also admits that it is in the interest of Syria and Iran to cause violence in Iraq. He says "The more Iraq is destroyed, the more pleased they are..."  Watch the clip or read the transcript.  Excerpt about Iraq:

Interviewer: How did you come up with the idea of going to Iraq?

Jawhar: Most of the Muslim youth in Lebanon would set their sights on Jihad in Iraq. As you know, in general, the Lebanese structure and system prevent you from going to fight in Palestine, even though Palestine take precedence over Iraq and all the other countries. Palestine is our main cause. The structure here in Lebanon is completely messed up. You have to pass a hundred thousand obstacles in order to be able to fight the Jews is Palestine. That's impossible, because nobody – without any exception – wants the Muslim youth to go and fight the Jews. Even those who do fight the Jews do this out of their own considerations, and not out of ideology. I say this about everybody, with no exception. Therefore, Iraq is closer than Palestine – not in terms of distance, but in the sense that you can fight there, because everybody opens the gates to Iraq, but closes the gates to Palestine, even though it is more important.

Interviewer: So you went to Iraq to wage Jihad.

Jawhar: Yes. Did you think I went there to join their bowling or basketball team?

[...]

Interviewer: How did you get there? Through a mediator? Who was he? Where did you go from 'Ein Al-Hilweh?

Jawhar: From the Syrian border, a Syrian guy took us...The smuggler was Syrian, and he took us to some place I don't know in Damascus, and then a van came and took us to the heart of Damascus. Then one of the brothers in charge of receiving [the mujahideen] came. All this was coordinated in advance. It's not like when you go on a trip. Everything was coordinated – from here to Shtura, from Shtura to Damascus, and from Damascus to Iraq. Everything was coordinated by the brothers in charge of this stuff. They receive brothers and send them on. It's all organized. Nothing is improvised.

[...]

Interviewer: So when you got [to Iraq], they put you in a "guesthouse."

Jawhar: It was a regular house. We call any house where we stay a "guesthouse."

Interviewer: And after the guesthouse?

Jawhar: To work.

[...]

Interviewer: What was your role? What did you do?

Jawhar: I went there to conduct military training.

Interviewer: What kind of training?

Jawhar: I trained the brothers to wage guerilla warfare.

Interviewer: What kind of guerilla warfare?

Jawhar: By definition, guerilla warfare in the war of the weak against the strong. Guerilla warfare differs from war between two regular armies.

Interviewer: So you trained them to fight with weapons?

Jawhar: I trained them in urban warfare, raids, ambushes, and attacks. That's what guerilla warfare is about.

Interviewer: Did you participate in operations?

Jawhar: Yes.

Interviewer: What kind of operations?

Jawhar: Regular things. We used to attack the Americans. We used to carry out operations against the American bases in Iraq. We also used to set ambushes and attack American posts.

[...]

Interviewer: You say "against the Americans," but did you target only the Americans?

Jawhar: Everybody was targeted, but the Americans took precedence.

Interviewer: Who is "everybody"?

Jawhar: Whoever fights against "there is no god but Allah." Is someone who defends the Americans any better than them? The infidels are one and the same. An infidel is an infidel – whether he is a Palestinian, a Jew, or an Argentinean. The infidels are one and the same, while an American Muslim is a Muslim. So what's the problem? What, an Iraqi who is an apostate and who helps the Americans should be treated like a VIP? He is worse than the Americans.

Interviewer: Did you support the ideology of Al-Qaeda when you left for Iraq?

Jawhar: What, Al-Qaeda invented this ideology? They got their ideology from the Koran and the Sunna.

[...]

Interviewer: Did you meet people of different nationalities...

Jawhar: By Allah, people came and were martyred, and we didn't even know their nationalities. Let me tell you something – one brother was martyred, and we are still trying to guess whether he was from Eritrea, Yemen, or Sudan.

Interviewer: Brother Abu Omar, from your experience, what nationalities were prevalent there, apart from the Iraqis, of course...

Jawhar: There were Iraqis there?!

Interviewer: I mean apart from the Iraqis...

Jawhar: There were no Iraqis with us.

Interviewer: Are you serious?

Jawhar: They would go to sleep in their homes, while we slept in our posts.

Interviewer: They weren't afraid to sleep in their homes?

Jawhar: Why should they be afraid? Most of them were not known [as Al-Qaeda members]. Only a few of them were known to be Al-Qaeda members. They protect their identity when they move about.

Interviewer: So there are Iraqis...

Jawhar: There are many who are not recognized as Al-Qaeda members. They all wear ski masks.

Interviewer: When they carry out operations?

Jawhar: Yes. We had with us brothers from Tunisia, from Libya, Algeria, Morocco...To be honest, I never saw anyone from Mauritania there. There were Egyptian brothers, brothers from the Arabian Peninsula...I met several brothers from Kuwait, a brother from Qatar...There were Palestinians, Syrians of course, and Jordanians...

[...]

Interviewer: How many squads did you train in Iraq?

Jawhar: By Allah, many. I conducted training throughout the time I was there.

Interviewer: How many members did each squad have?

Jawhar: It depends – five, six, seven...In some areas, we couldn't have large squads. It depended on the area. In some areas, we could train without any problem, and in other areas, training was a little difficult.

Interviewer: The security forces were after you, of course.

Jawhar: If it was just the security forces, there wouldn't be a problem. The problem was the airplanes above. You didn't even know when a plane was following you from above.

Interviewer: Where would you conduct training?

Jawhar: In forests and woods...The only thing we worried about was [the planes] above. We didn't worry about anything but the spy planes. The thing the fighters in Iraq worried about most was these planes, because the Americans have superiority in the air only. A plane, several kilometers away, can see you, hear you, and take pictures of you. The only problem in Iraq is the air force.

Interviewer: Where did you conduct your training? How could you possibly train so many people, without anybody hearing the shooting, and without raising the suspicions of anybody in the region?

Jawhar: These areas were basically under our control. It's impossible for me to go into a house, knowing that someone might go and turn me in. These areas were entirely secured.

Interviewer: So the entire region belonged to you – to the Al-Qaeda organization or its supporters.

Jawhar: If it didn't belong to us, it was at least under out control. All these areas were under the control of the Al-Qaeda organization.

Interviewer: Who are "Ansar Al-Sunna"?

Jawhar: Originally, they were Kurds. They were near the Jordanian-Iraq border, and later, they spread throughout Iraq. At first, they were called "Ansar Al-Islam," and then they became "Ansar Al-Sunna."

[...]

Interviewer: Is Ansar Al-Sunna in agreement with Al-Qaeda? Do they participate in the operations, and share the same ideology, in theory and in practice?

Jawhar: Of course, totally. There is an alliance, and they share the same ideology. Their Emir was called Abu Hassan Al-Shaf'ei.

Interviewer: Did you meet Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi?

Jawhar: Sheik Abu Mus'ab did not appear very often. Not all the brothers met him. But sometimes, Sheik Abu Mus'ab would conduct a visit to our bases, and he would come unannounced. We would be sitting around, and the guys would walk in along with the sheik. They would sit with us for 15 minutes, half and hour, and then they would say goodbye and move on.

Interviewer: What exactly did he ask you to do?

Jawhar: Once he sent a brother as his representative, and asked me to carry out operations in the Baghdad area.

Interviewer: Did you carry them out?

Jawhar: Yes, Allah be praised.

Interviewer: What kind of operations?

Jawhar: Car bombings and killings. Regular stuff. What else could he be asking from us?

Interviewer: Against Iraqis, or...

Jawhar: No, against the Americans.

[...]

Jawhar: I have the ability to produce [explosives] from chemicals, and I can also use [ready-made explosives].

Interviewer: And these substances are available?

Jawhar: Yes, they are available in the markets. I cannot reveal exactly how I make them, because tomorrow someone might start selling them in the market.

Interviewer: From where would you get your cars?

Jawhar: Some of the cars we drove belonged to the brothers, and others were booty we took from the Americans or the Iraqis. So we used these cars.

Interviewer: From where did you get money? Where did the funding of Al-Qaeda in Iraq come from?

Jawhar: We used to get aid from abroad and we used to take booty. If we took 200-300 cars as booty – do you expect us to drive them all? So we sold them to the Kurds, and this way we got money.

Interviewer: Did you sell them specifically to the Kurds?

Jawhar: Yes, the Kurds buy even police cars. If we took a police car as booty, they would buy it without a problem. The Kurds have a lot of money now. The richest people in Iraq are the Kurds, then come the Shiites, and the Sunnis are the poorest of all.

[...]

Interviewer: Could you elaborate on the organizational structure, from the top of the pyramid to the lower divisions?

Jawhar: Brother Abu Mus'ab, Allah's mercy upon him, was at the top of the pyramid. Then came the brothers who were in charge of the different regions, like the Emir of the Baghdad belt, the Emir of Al-Anbar, the Emir of Mosul. Then came the administrative emirs. Then came the Emir in charge of religious ruling, and then the military Emir. The military Emir commanded the Emir of explosive devices, the Emir of shelling, the Emir of attacks, who was in charge of attacks, and the Emir in charge of booty. There is the administrative Emir, and then there is the military Emir. Under the military Emir, come the rest of the emirs in charge of the military activity.

Interviewer: Were you an Emir over there?

Jawhar: I was the Emir of training. I was the Emir who trained the brothers, and I had a training camp.

Interviewer: Where?

Jawhar: In Al-Haditha.

[...]

Jawhar: People from the Syrian intelligence came, and asked to meet with Shiek Abu Mus'ab. They said to him: "Brother, what weapons do you need?" They wanted to help, but [Al-Zarqawi] said: "No, we've got everything we need." He wouldn't take anything from them, even though we were in dire need of weapons. We didn't want to take anything from the Syrians, so it wouldn't be said the next day that we cooperated with them. This was the position of Sheik Abu Mus'ab. He was in need of every single bullet, and was offered whatever he wanted. He said: "I'm fighting the Americans, with or without you. Why should I fight the Americans on your behalf?"

Interviewer: How could the Syrian intelligence reach Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi? What was their purpose? What did the Syrian intelligence want?

Jawhar: It is not in the Syrians' interest that Iraq remain calm even for a moment. They benefit from this. The more Iraq is destroyed, the more pleased they are, because if the Americans feel comfortable in Iraq, they will move on to many other places. For the same reasons, it is not in the Iranians' interest...I don't know if you noticed, but the Shiites started fighting the Americans only two years ago. It's not the Shiites – the Iranians asked them to fight, and sent them weapons, explosive devices, and so on, because if the Americans feel comfortable in Iraq, they will move on to the other areas. Have you forgotten about the New Middle East?

[...]

Jawhar: We had with us a Tunisian brother, may Allah accept him [as a martyr], who managed to intercept the signals from the spy planes, and he could see everything the Americans were seeing.

Interviewer: So there were people who specialized in technology?

Jawhar: We had an American brother with us, we had a Belgian brother and French brothers with us. They were all educated intellectuals. I had with me a brother who had an M.A. in economics. He once conducted a study about the losses incurred following 9/11. He calculated the American economic losses down to the last cent.

Interviewer: Where was he from?

Jawhar: He was a Palestinian from Jordan. He had British citizenship as well.

Interviewer: Was there any contact between the main Al-Qaeda organization and Al-Qaeda in Iraq and the other branches?

Jawhar: When Sheik Abu Mus'ab, Allah's mercy upon him, pledged allegiance to Sheik Osama, naturally, contacts were formed.

Interviewer: How were these contacts held? Through the Internet?

Jawhar: This I don't know.

Interviewer: Through mediators?

Jawhar: I don't know.

[...]

Interviewer: When did you join 'Usbat Al-Ansar?

Jawhar: In 1991.

Interviewer: Why did you join them?

Jawhar: Because of their ideology. They call for Jihad, the revival of the Islamic Caliphate, and the liberation of Palestine, and these ideas appealed to me. After all, I'm a Muslim, so I joined 'Usbat Al-Ansar.

Interviewer: You train people now. Who trained you?

Jawhar: I received training when I was in 'Usbat Al-Ansar, and before that, I was a member of the Fatah youth. In general, most Palestinians know how to use weapons.

Interviewer: Did you go to Afghanistan or Pakistan?

Jawhar: I wish I had, but it didn't work out. I didn't have the honor of going there.

Interviewer: Do you hope to return to Iraq?

Jawhar: No, what for? Palestine in closer.

[...]

Jawhar: We had a clash with the PLO. It's nothing to be ashamed of. What, they can kill us, but we can't kill them? It's only natural. They should prove whatever they accuse us of. Do they have any evidence? They have no evidence, but they issue verdicts.

Interviewer: Were you sentenced to death?

Jawhar: I got several death sentences and was also sentenced to life imprisonment. There's nothing to it. What's the problem? They can pile on as many sentences as they like. This is a sign of honor for me.

Interviewer: Do you consider yourself to be a terrorist?

Jawhar: Yes, a terrorist. What's the problem with that? If I want to terrorize the enemies of Allah, what's the problem with that?

[...]

Iraq's neighbors a "lurking menace"

But Iraq must talk to them and try to be "neighborly" with them, and the US must help. David Ignatius writes:

The Baker-Hamilton recommendations are mostly forgotten, swept away by President George W. Bush's 2007 surge of U.S. troops. That certainly improved security, but the recent bombings in Iraq are a reminder that the surge didn't usher in a new era of peace and love. Political reconciliation is still more slogan than reality -- and the neighbors are more a lurking menace than Baghdad's partners.

He is certainly right. Let's review the list of Iraq's neighbors:

Turkey

Lying to the north of Iraq, Turkey has been the least menacing. Turkey has enjoyed good relations with Israel, Europe, and the US. Turkey has a robust tourism industry, and they've been able to contain extremists and provide relatively good security. But in Turkey, you may be arrested for teaching or studying Kurdish. Recently Turkey has bombed Kurdish militia inside Iraq, and most worrying, the Turks have dammed the Tigris and Euphrates at several places, squeezing Iraq's historically life-sustaining rivers and resulting in more severe droughts in Iraq. But in a country that has experienced at least 1,200 suicide bombings in the last 6 years, Turkey's offenses seem minor.

Iran (aka Persia)

Going clockwise on the map, we see Iran to the east, which shares 1,458 kilometers of border with Iraq. Persia occupied the land between two rivers for almost two centuries, and in 539 BC, Cyrus of Persia sacked Babylon and freed the Jews.

It can be argued that Iran has had the greatest influence on Iraq, especially since the rise of Khomeini and his Islamic Revolution. In 1965 Khomeini moved to Najaf, home of the Imam Ali shrine, and there he lectured and instilled in young Shia the notion of Islamic revolution and Islamic government. By the late 60s he became a marja taqlid or "model for imitation" for hundreds of thousands of Shia. By 1975 support for Khomeini the leader of the Islamic Revolution had grown in Iran and among the Iraqi Shia. The Ayatollah was forced out of Iraq by Iraqi VP Saddam Hussein in 1978, and in January 1979 the Shah left Iran. The following month Khomeini moved back to Iran and became the first Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, changing the course of history in the region for decades to come.

In the 70s in Iraq the Islamic Da3wa Party had gained popularity, and they too wanted an Islamic government, which put them at odds with the ruling Ba3ath Party and Saddam Hussein, who pushed aside his President-cousin Ahmed Hassan al Bakr and took control of Baghdad in 1979. By the summer of 1980, Saddam and his security apparatuses had murdered and expelled tens of thousands of Iraqi Shia and pushed Da3wa out of Iraq. In September 1980 Saddam's Iraq invaded Iran, beginning a horrible war that cost a million lives by 1988 and ruined the economies of both countries. In the 80s Iraqi Shia who were able fled by the hundreds of thousands to the US, Europe, and of course to Iran.

Today the Iranian influence in Iraq is even greater, with Da3wa in charge of Baghdad, Hakim's Islamic Supreme Council party garnering about 10% support among Iraqis, and with Muqtada al Sadr studying quietly in Qum in an effort to become the next big Ayotallah. Iran was happy to see the end of Saddam's dictatorship, but they did not want to see the the Iraq become a colony of the US. Instead, some Iraqis fear that Iraq will eventually become a colony of Iran.

Kuwait

In July 1990 I became a citizen of the United States of America. Less than one month after I became naturalized, Saddam's Iraq invaded Kuwait. After Bush Sr. crossed his line in the sand and built a case for war against Iraq, my father became afraid. For a while there my dad really thought I might be drafted, if it ever became a real war, which it never did become. It was interesting to see my father go through the effort to find out if I could ever be drafted into such a war. The answer was no, I couldn't be drafted because I could be considered an "conscientious objector". It turns out my help would not be required anyway, as the US military, with the help of the British and many Arab states, bombed Iraq into the Stone Age, and making life very difficult for Iraqis for many years to come.

On the face of it poor little Kuwait looks to be the least menacing of Iraq's neighbors. There are unknown numbers of Shia in Kuwait, and many of them are Iraqis who fled Saddam's tyranny. But Kuwait is ruled by a Sunni Arab family, and in general they were friendly with Saddam and shared his fear of Iran. So what happened to the love? Saddam invaded Kuwait because, basically, Kuwait was being a punk ass bitch (please pardon the vernacular), giving money (the Kuwaitis say loaning) to Saddam to fight Iran, and then after the war, after Iraq's economy was devastated, Kuwait produced oil way beyond their OPEC quota, and thus resulting in lower oil prices, which hurt Iraq's bottom line. The Iraqis also claimed Kuwait was slant-drilling into Iraq's oil field.

In the end Saddam invaded Kuwait and stole many of its riches and refused to leave Kuwait. However he intentionally kept his Republican Guard out of Kuwait, which was a wise move for him, because he would need them to put down the Shia rebellion after the war and keep himself in power. The allied forces, led by the US, pounded Iraq's army, first by 40 days of air strikes, and then by a ground invasion, killing tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers, and accidentally, of course, killing thousands of Iraqi civilians. The Iraqi army was expelled from Kuwait, and on their way out of Iraq, Saddam had his guys burned nearly 700 Kuwaiti oil wells, creating a huge environmental disaster. The US military, led by Colin Powell and Norman Swartzkoff, won a quick war in Iraq and could have easily overthrown the Iraqi dictator, but in the end Bush decided to allow Saddam to live, and ordered US troops not to intervene in the Shia rebellion. It is said Bush's decision was influenced by the Saudis, who did not want to see the Shia take control of Iraq.

Today Kuwait has good relations with Iraq, and the two countries have restored diplomatic ties. Kuwait was the only non-Iraqi Arab country to support the American overthrow of Saddam. They understood Saddam's tyranny very well. But Kuwait still wants its money back, even though Iraq's debt to Kuwait was racked up by Saddam's regime, and many Wahhabi-influenced Kuwaitis have entered Iraq and mass murdered Iraqis since 2003.

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The Saudis, the founders of Wahhabism, have been a royal pain in Iraqis' asses for decades. An analysis in 2007 revealed that half of suicide bombers in Iraq came from Saudi Arabia. The majority of the hijackers on 9/11 (80%) were also Saudi. The two statistics, from two very different places, have one thing in common: Wahhabi terrorism.

KSA never wanted to see the Shia take control of Iraq, and they have ben the biggest funders of the insurgency in Iraq. The Saudis were also the biggest funders of the war between Iraq and Iran.



The Saudis did not want to see Saddam take control of Kuwait, but they did not want to see the Shia take control of Baghdad either. Thus the Saudi government, led by King Fahd, urged Bush Sr. to keep Saddam in power in 1991, and thus they funded the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq after 2003, their clerics preaching "resistance" against the "infidel" occupier and the "agents of Iran", this despite the presence of many Iranians, Arab Shia, and Americans in the Arabian peninsula. The US launched two wars on Iraq from CENTCOM in Doha, Qatar, but Qatar enjoys peace, even Starbucks, while Baghdad burns. Nevertheless the Wahhabis sent hundreds of brainwashed suicide bombers to Iraq, to murder mostly Iraqi Shia.

With full control of the oil that Saudi Shia live on and near, the Saudi royals are not interested in democracy, and they are not interested in restoring diplomatic ties with the new Iraq. “To isolate itself from Iraq, Saudi Arabia has signed a $1 billion contract with the European defense company EADS, for the construction of a 900-kilometer [562-mile] fence." Iraqis wait anxiously and hope the fence will protect them from the backward Wahhabi cultists.

Jordan

I've heard the weather in Amman is beautiful. In the summer of 1991 my mother and sister visited Amman to see my aunts and cousins who fled Iraq earlier that year. By 2000 approximately half of my relatives had fled the wars and tyranny of Saddam Hussein, starting new lives elsewhere, mostly in the UK. I don't understand why those refugees did not receive the same attention that our Arab brothers have paid to recent Iraqi refugees from the current war. Jordan deserves praise for accepting such a large number of refugees, and not just Iraqi. 60% of Jordan's population is of Palestinian descent. Twice there were large influxes of Palestinian refugees into Jordan - in 1948 and 1967. Also twice there were large influxes of Iraqi refugees - 1991-1992 and 2005-2007. Iraqi Baathists have fled to Amman in large numbers.

But there is a dark side to Jordan's relationship with Iraq. The person most responsible for inciting the sectarian violence in Iraq was a Jordanian terrorist named Abu Musab al Zarqawi. He was born and raised in Zarqa, not far from occupied Palestine. Even closer to occupied Palestine is the Jordanian town of Salt, whose deranged sons were compelled to join their mujahideen-brothers in Iraq, to attack the new Iraqi government and its security forces, and to participate in the most gruesome sectarian conflict the world has seen in decades.

The Jordanian government, to its credit, has fought extremists and has at times been at the receiving end of Salafi terrorists like Zarqawi, but in my opinion they have not done enough to fight extremist and backward ideology in their country. Honor killings are still common in Jordan, and when the killers are punished, they are in most cases not punished nearly severely enough.

Syria

Syria is an enigma. Its population is 80% Sunni Arab, but for decades it has been ruled by a Baathist Alawi family that has had cozy relations with Iran since the Islamic Revolution. Syria's alliance with Iran was the reason for the split between Saddam and Hafez al Assad. Recently I asked my cousin if Alawis are true Shia, and I asked him if they are true Shia, how could they allow so many "mujahideen" to enter Iraq via Damascus and cause so much death and destruction against their Shia brethren in Iraq? "NO" the Allawites are not true Shia, he said, and even if Assad wanted to prevent Baathists and Wahhabis from planning and coordinating in Damascus, he couldn't because most Syrians are Sunni Arab, and many of them have been influenced by Baathism or the Muslim Brotherhood and maybe Wahhabism. So it is even more ironic that Syria has been supported by Shia-dominated Iran.

Syria has been home to the largest number of Iraqi refugees since 2003, and although their existence in Syria has been relatively peaceful, many Iraqis in Damascus are worried about raised tensions between the two governments. Iraqi PM Maliki has blamed Damascus for the August 19 explosions in Baghdad. In the end, the Syrian regime may decide to normalize relations with Iraq at least for economic reasons.

This Ramadhan we have seen fewer violent deaths in Iraq than in previous years, but in general Iraqis continue to suffer as a result of sectarian conflicts than seem never to end. This year the average number of deaths per day from suicide attacks and vehicle bombs (7.8) is still higher than in 2004 (5.2), but the number of deaths per day from gunfire/executions is 4.6, the lowest since 2003. With continuing violence and an inept government in Baghdad that still cannot provide security or 24-hour a day electricity to all Iraqis, there's not much to cheer about in Iraq these days. Many Iraqis are looking forward to the crucial elections in January, and many are hoping for real change in Iraq.

How strong is Baathi alliance with AQI?

I wonder exactly when the Baathists allied themselves with AQI, and how strong the alliance is today.

Iraqi terror suspect arrested in Italy

By ARIEL DAVID, Associated Press Writer Fri Sep 28, 2:35 PM ET

ROME - An Iraqi allegedly linked to al-Qaida in Iraq and suspected of plotting a terrorist attack on U.S. bases there using ultra-light aircraft was arrested Friday in northern Italy, authorities said.

Saber Fadhil Hussien, 45, was arrested on international terrorism charges in a morning raid in Padua, Carabinieri paramilitary police said.

Hussien, a former member of ex-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, had been in touch with aides of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of al-Qaida in Iraq who was killed last year in a U.S. airstrike, said Col. Francesco D'Auria, head of the Carabinieri unit in Padua that conducted the investigation.

"It is documented that he was in contact with the al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist group," D'Auria told The Associated Press by telephone. "He was organizing an attack against American bases in Iraq."

The attack would have employed suicide bombers, anti-tank weapons and ultra-light helicopters that the group planned to buy from an Italian company, investigators said.

"These would have been used because they fly low and cannot be spotted by radar," D'Auria said.

Police also conducted searches at the homes of three other Iraqis in the Venice area, turning up maps and other documents, but there was not enough evidence to arrest them, police said.

D'Auria said he did not have more details on the intended target because Hussien and his contacts never named it in telephone conversations wiretapped by police. The target may be identified once investigators study the maps found in the raids, he said.

The searches also turned up the names of Hussien's contacts in Iraq, and D'Auria said the Italians would relay the information to Iraqi police and U.S. authorities.

Investigators who trailed Hussien for nearly a year would have liked to learn more about the plot before arresting him, but they were forced to act when they learned he planned to travel Sunday to Romania and then on to Syria.

"There he was to meet an Iraqi contact and give him detailed information about the target," D'Auria said.

Hussien had been living in Italy for 25 years and operated kiosks that sold kebabs. D'Auria said Hussien also provided financial support to his cell, using money transfer agencies to send about $4,200 a month to Iraq.

Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?

Good documentary by Morgan Spurlock, the same guy who did Supersize Me. He interviewed people in Egypt, Morocco, Palestine, and KSA, and he asks them questions about Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. He points out how easy it is for Al Qaeda to recruit poor people, and he discusses the bombings Al Qaeda carried out in Morocco. I haven't seen all of it (I will continue watching tonight) but he hasn't talked about what Al Qaeda has done to Iraqis, which is a shame because more people have died in bombings by Al Qaeda-linked terrorists in Iraq than any other place in the world. Still it's a good documentary. He dives into the politics and problems plaguing Palestine and Israel. He shows what Israeli security do when they see a suspicious object lying on the road. That's what Iraqi cops should be doing.

The first time he mentions Iraq is at 45 minutes into the documentary, when he interviews a Jordanian who had met Zarqawi. The Jordanian says if the US had not entered Iraq, Al Qaeda would not have grown so big. Then he goes to Saudia Arabia, where he interviews cleric who preaches death for Jews and Americans in Iraq. He tells the people in the mosque to go after the Christians. That cleric belongs in Dickipedia. Then Spurlock says the Saudi government censors all kinds of websites, but sites supporting Al Qaeda get through just fine. I gotta go to airport, might add to this later.

PS: Spurlock also went to Afghanistan and Pakistan, asking people if they've seen Osama bin Laden.




Thanks Ayrab Jayrab for linking to the YouTube clip.