One man's resistance: 'Why I turned against America'

Jason Burke in Baghdad
Sunday September 12, 2004
The Observer

'There is no greater shame than to see your country occupied'

Early one morning this week, when the police have yet to set up too many checkpoints, Abu Mujahed will strap a mortar underneath a car, drive to a friend's in central Baghdad and bury the weapon in his garden. In the evening he will return with the rest of his group, sleep for a few hours and then take the weapon from its hiding place. He will calculate the range using the American military's own maps and satellite pictures - bought in a bazaar - and fire a few rounds at a military base or the US Embassy or at the Iraqi Prime Minister's office. Then Abu Mujahed will shower, change and, by 10am, be at his desk in one of the major ministries.

Last week he sat in a Baghdad hotel speaking to The Observer. A chubby man in his thirties with a shaven head, a brown sports shirt, slacks and a belt with a cheap fake-branded buckle, he gave a chilling account of his life fighting 'the occupation'. He talked for more than three hours and revealed:

· How his resistance group, comprising self-taught Sunni Muslim Iraqis, is almost completely independent, choosing targets and timings themselves, but occasionally receiving broad strategic directions from a religious 'sheikh' most of them have never met.

· How it receives intelligence from 'friends' within the coalition forces.

· How it runs a counter-intelligence operation that has resulted in the execution of two suspected spies in recent weeks.

· How it is learning increasingly sophisticated techniques and plans to detonate big bombs in Baghdad soon.

He also spoke about the difficulties of continuing security operations against them and admitted that many Iraqis do not support their actions. Much of Abu Mujahed's account is corroborated by various independent sources.

Intelligence experts in Iraq talk of three main types of insurgent. There is the Mahdi Army of Shia Muslims who follow the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and have led recent resistance to coalition forces in northern Baghdad, the central shrine city of Najaf, and Basra, the southern port under British control. There is also 'al-Qaeda' - non-Iraqi militants who have come to Iraq to wage jihad. And finally the 'former regime loyalists', who are said to want the return of Saddam Hussein or, if that is impossible, his Baath party.

Abu Mujahed, worryingly for the analysts, fits into none of these easy categories. For a start, he was pro-American before the invasion. 'The only way to breathe under the old regime was to watch American films and listen to their music,' he said. He had been a Bon Jovi fan.

'It gave me a glimpse of a better life. When I heard that the Americans were coming to liberate Iraq I was very happy. I felt that I would be able to live well, travel and have freedom. I wanted to do more sport, get new appliances and a new car and develop my life. I thought the US would come here and our lives would be changed through 180 degrees.'

He spoke of how his faith in the US was shaken when, via a friend's illicitly imported satellite TV system, he saw 'barbaric, savage' pictures of civilian casualties of the fighting and bombing. The next blow came in the conflict's immediate aftermath, as looters ran unchecked through Baghdad.

'When I saw the American soldiers watching and doing nothing as people took everything, I began to suspect the US was not here to help us but to destroy us,' he said.

Abu Mujahed, whose real name is not known by The Observer, said: 'I thought it might be just the chaos of war but it got worse, not better.'

He was not alone and swiftly found that many in the Adhamiya neighbourhood of Baghdad shared his anger and disappointment. The time had come. 'We realised. We had to act.'

Nothing had been planned in advance. There has been speculation, and especially among American officials, that Saddam's henchmen had planned a 'guerrilla war' if defeated. But Abu Mujahed, who described himself as 'a Muslim but not religious', and the others in his group were not working to any plan. Everything they did was improvised. And each of his seven-man group had a different motive: 'One man was fighting for his nation, another for a principle, another for his faith.'

Significantly, his group contains several former soldiers, angry at the controversial demobilisation of the Iraqi military by the coalition last year. Others, like Abu Mujahed, have salaried government jobs. The cell is not part of any broader organisation and does not have a name, he said. 'We are just local people ... There is a sheikh who co-ordinates some of the various groups but I do not know who he is.'

To start with, the group lacked armaments and know-how. 'We made some careful inquiries. Some people gave us weapons, others sold us stuff they had looted,' he said. The group also sought out experts, often former military officers, who gave impromtu tutorials in bomb-making and communications .

The group's first operation - in June last year - was an attempted ambush of three US soldiers in Adhamiya. It was a fiasco. 'We were so confused and scared we opened fire at random,' Abu Mujahed said. 'They took cover and we ran away.'

Their next try was more successful. The lead vehicle of an American military convoy ran over an anti-tank mine the group had laid in a road. 'We think we killed the driver,' he said. 'We found the mine in a house that had been used by the military during the war. The Americans were not expecting that sort of device.'

Over the next months the group varied the tactics. 'One day we try and snipe them, the next we use an IED [Improvised Explosive Device], the next a mine. We never get any orders from anybody. We are just told: "Today you should do something," but it is up to us to decide what and when.'

Black soldiers are a particular target. 'To have Negroes occupying us is a particular humiliation,' Abu Mujahed said, echoing the profound racism prevalent in much of the Middle East. 'Sometimes we aborted a mission because there were no Negroes.'

In contrast to many militants, who have killed hundreds of Iraqis in the last year, Abu Mujahed said his group was careful not to kill locals. 'We are now planning to use bigger bombs in central Baghdad. But it is hard because there are so many civilians.' Support for the militants is far from universal. They are not attracting new recruits and finances are tight, he admitted.

'We used to be able to use banks and bank transfers. Now it is harder,' Abu Mujahed said. 'Often sympathisers buy cars in Saudi Arabia or Jordan and we get them driven to Baghdad or Basra and we sell them. A supporter in the UK has recently sent an Opel pick-up. But most of our money comes from local people who support what we do but can't fight themselves.'

Tactics depend on resources. The price of rocket-propelled grenades has gone up recently as supplies dried up during August's heavy fighting between Americans and the Mahdi Army in Najaf. The missiles now cost 25,000 Iraqi dinars (around £10) in markets in Sadr City, the northern Shia Muslim-dominated area of Baghdad - 10 times the immediate post-war price. The group is restricted to one attack every few days.

There are also spies. He boasted of information from 'friends within the coalition' and said that his group have executed two suspected informers within Adhamiya. One was killed less than three weeks ago, after being under surveillance for a month. 'He had a wife and child but I did not feel bad. He was a fox. He was made to kneel and shot in the head.' Other suspected spies have been threatened and fled Baghdad.

Western intelligence analysts worry that various resistance elements might combine. But Abu Mujahed dismissed the Mahdi Army as 'thugs and traitors who ... welcomed the Americans to Iraq with flowers and then went looting' and said that relations with Islamic militants coming from overseas are worse.

'Some have no allegiance to any group, others have so much money they must come from al-Qaeda. It is impossible to work with them. They are bloody people, far too irrational. They do not care if they kill innocent Iraqi people. They are terrorists.'

Last week US military casualties in Iraq passed the 1,000 mark, most killed since the end of the war by the actions of men like Abu Mujahed. The former engineering student said he does not know how many his group has killed: 'It is impossible to say what has been hit. I could boast of killing maybe 25, but to be honest we don't know,' he said. 'Maybe only five or six.'

'I know the soldiers have no choice about coming here and all have a family and friends,' he added. His justification for the struggle was an inconsistent mix of political and economic grievances and wounded pride: 'We are under occupation. They bomb the mosques, they kill a huge number of people. There is no greater shame than to see your country being occupied.'

He dismissed the interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, as 'the Americans' Barbie doll' but then says that if everyone had 'full bellies' no one would fight.

'Iraqis' top priority is to provide a good living for their families. I take home less than 250,000 ID (£100) a month and I have four children. I have to pay the rent, doctor's bills, my wife needs something, my house needs something. And a kilo of chicken costs 2,500 ID.'

'The US or the UK are not my enemy. I know that any individual US or UK citizen is very good, but we will keep fighting the occupying forces. We have no choice.'

And with that he left. The Observer was told not to contact him again.



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Dead and injured Iraqi civilians on Haifa Street, Baghdad,
after a US helicopter attack.
Photo: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad/Getty Images

On Sunday, 13 Iraqis were killed and dozens injured in Baghdad when US helicopters fired on a crowd of unarmed civilians. G2 columnist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, who was injured in the attack, describes the scene of carnage - and reveals just how lucky he was to walk away

Tuesday September 14, 2004
The Guardian

It started with a phone call early on Sunday morning: "Big pile of smoke over Haifa Street." Still half asleep I put on my jeans, cursing those insurgents who do their stuff in the early morning. What if I just go back to bed, I thought - by the time I will be there it will be over. In the car park it struck me that I didn't have my flak jacket in the car, but figured it was most probably just an IED (improvised explosive device) under a Humvee and I would be back soon.

On the way to Haifa Street I was half praying that everything would be over or that the Americans would seal off the area. I haven't recovered from Najaf yet.

Haifa Street was built by Saddam in the early 80s, part of a scheme that was supposed to give Baghdad a modern look. A long, wide boulevard with huge Soviet high-rise buildings on both sides, it acts like a curtain, screening off the network of impoverished alleyways that are inhabited by Baghdad's poorest and toughest people, many of whom are from the heart of the Sunni triangle.

When I arrived there I saw hundreds of kids and young men heading towards the smoke. "Run fast, it's been burning for a long time!" someone shouted as I grabbed my cameras and started to run.

When I was 50m away I heard a couple of explosions and another cloud of dust rose across the street from where the first column of smoke was still climbing. People started running towards me in waves. A man wearing an orange overall was sweeping the street while others were running. A couple of helicopters in the sky overhead turned away. I jumped into a yard in front of a shop that was set slightly back from the street, 10 of us with our heads behind the yard wall. "It's a sound bomb," said a man who had his face close to mine.
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A few seconds later, I heard people screaming and shouting - something must have happened - and I headed towards the sounds, still crouching behind a wall. Two newswire photographers were running in the opposite direction and we exchanged eye contact.

About 20m ahead of me, I could see the American Bradley armoured vehicle, a huge monster with fire rising from within. It stood alone, its doors open, burning. I stopped, took a couple of photos and crossed the street towards a bunch of people. Some were lying in the street, others stood around them. The helicopters were still buzzing, but further off now.

I felt uneasy and exposed in the middle of the street, but lots of civilians were around me. A dozen men formed a circle around five injured people, all of whom were screaming and wailing. One guy looked at one of the injured men and beat his head and chest: "Is that you, my brother? Is that you?" He didn't try to reach for him, he just stood there looking at the bloodied face of his brother.

A man sat alone covered with blood and looked around, amazed at the scene. His T-shirt was torn and blood ran from his back. Two men were dragging away an unconscious boy who had lost the lower half of one leg. A pool of blood and a creamy liquid formed beneath the stump on the pavement. His other leg was badly gashed.

I had been standing there taking pictures for two or three minutes when we heard the helicopters coming back. Everyone started running, and I didn't look back to see what was happening to the injured men. We were all rushing towards the same place: a fence, a block of buildings and a prefab concrete cube used as a cigarette stall.

I had just reached the corner of the cube when I heard two explosions, I felt hot air blast my face and something burning on my head. I crawled to the cube and hid behind it. Six of us were squeezed into a space less than two metres wide. Blood started dripping on my camera but all that I could think about was how to keep the lens clean. A man in his 40s next to me was crying. He wasn't injured, he was just crying. I was so scared I just wanted to squeeze myself against the wall. The helicopters wheeled overhead, and I realised that they were firing directly at us. I wanted to be invisible, I wanted to hide under the others.

As the helicopters moved a little further off, two of the men ran away to a nearby building. I stayed where I was with a young man, maybe in his early 20s, who was wearing a pair of leather boots and a tracksuit. He was sitting on the ground, his legs stretched in front of him but with his knee joint bent outwards unnaturally. Blood ran on to the dirt beneath him as he peered round the corner. I started taking pictures of him. He looked at me and turned his head back towards the street as if he was looking for something. His eyes were wide open and kept looking.

There in the street, the injured were all left alone: a young man with blood all over his face sat in the middle of the cloud of dust, then fell on to his face.

Behind the cube, the other two men knew each other.

"How are you?" asked the man closer to me. He was lying against the cube's wall and trying to pull out his cellphone.

"I am not good," said the other, a young man in a blue T-shirt, resting against a fence. He was holding his arm, a chunk of which was missing, exposing the bone.

"Bring a car and come here please, we are injured," his friend was saying into his cellphone.

The man with his knee twisted out, meanwhile, was making only a faint sound. I was so scared I didn't want to touch him. I kept telling myself he was OK, he wasn't screaming.

I decided to help the guy with the phone who was screaming. I ripped his T-shirt off and told him to squeeze it against the gash on his head. But I was scared; I wanted to do something, but I couldn't. I tried to remember the first-aid training I had had in the past, but all I was doing was taking pictures.

I turned back to the man with the twisted knee. His head was on the curb now, his eyes were open but he just kept making the faint sound. I started talking to him, saying, "Don't worry, you'll be OK, you'll be fine." From behind him I looked at the middle of the street, where five injured men were still lying. Three of them were piled almost on top of each other; a boy wearing a white dishdasha lay a few metres away.

One of the three men piled together raised his head and looked around the empty streets with a look of astonishment on his face. He then looked at the boy in front of him, turned to the back and looked at the horizon again. Then he slowly started moving his head to the ground, rested his head on his arms and stretched his hands towards something that he could see. It was the guy who had been beating his chest earlier, trying to help his brother. He wanted help but no one helped. He was just there dying in front of me. Time didn't exist. The streets were empty and silent and the men lay there dying together. He slid down to the ground, and after five minutes was flat on the street.

I moved, crouching, towards where they were. They were like sleeping men with their arms wrapped around each other in the middle of the empty street. I went to photograph the boy with the dishdasha. He's just sleeping, I kept telling myself. I didn't want to wake him. The boy with the amputated leg was there too, left there by the people who were pulling him earlier. The vehicle was still burning.

More kids ventured into the street, looking with curiosity at the dead and injured. Then someone shouted "Helicopters!" and we ran. I turned and saw two small helicopters, black and evil. Frightened, I ran back to my shelter where I heard two more big explosions. At the end of the street the man in the orange overall was still sweeping the street.

The man with the bent knee was unconscious now, his face flat on the curb. Some kids came and said, "He is dead." I screamed at them. "Don't say that! He is still alive! Don't scare him." I asked him if he was OK, but he didn't reply.

We left the kids behind the bent-knee guy, the cellphone guy and the blue V-neck T-shirt guy; they were all unconscious now. We left them to die there alone. I didn't even try to move any with me. I just ran selfishly away. I reached a building entrance when someone grabbed my arm and took me inside. "There's an injured man. Take pictures - show the world the American democracy," he said. A man was lying in the corridor in total darkness as someone bandaged him.

Some others told me there was another journalist in the building. They took me to a stairwell leading to the basement, where a Reuters cameraman, a cheerful chubby guy, was lying holding his camera next to his head. He wasn't screaming but he had a look of pain in his eyes.

I tried to remember his name to call his office, but I couldn't. He was a friend, we had worked together for months. I have seen him in every press conference, but I couldn't remember his name.

In time, an ambulance came. I ran to the street as others emerged from their hiding places, all trying to carry injured civilians to the ambulance.

"No, this one is dead," said the driver. "Get someone else."

The ambulance drove away and we all scattered, thinking to ourselves: the Americans won't fire at an ambulance but they will at us. This scene was repeated a couple of times: each time we heard an ambulance we would emerge into the streets, running for cover again as it left.

Yesterday, sitting in the office, another photographer who was looking at my pictures exclaimed: "So the Arabiya journalist was alive when you were taking pictures!"

"I didn't see the Arabiya journalist."

He pointed at the picture of the guy with V-neck T-shirt. It was him. He was dead. All the people I had shared my shelter with were dead.




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That caught me by surprise too. I don't even know what to make of it.