The Insurgency in Iraq

[tagos]

Not so much a debate in itself but a contribution to the ongoing debate here on the nature and composition of the insurgency. I fully subscribe to the ‘know thy enemy’ (and regardless of my view on the war and the actions of the UK and US Govts they are my enemy) dictum and pass it on for what it’s worth. This very long article is worth reading in full but I’ve tried to edit it down to key points.

It shows the complex nature of the whole mess. The fanaticism, the role of Iraqi’s, the importance of Saudi funding, the differing levels of Syrian involvement including internal rivalries. It’s not a simple case of ‘outside agitators’ but our good friend Saudi Arabia seems as culpable as Syria in supporting the domestic insurgents.

How can we deal with this problem when there is such widespread fervour coupled with endless Saudi funding? I don’t know but maybe learning more about things through good journalism like this rather than the chest-beating posturing, blind-eye turning of politicians is a start. Certainly the Saudi’s need dealing with every bit as firmly as Syria in cutting outside support. Along with ‘stop creating more terrorists by our own, seemingly bottomless stupidity.’
From Here to Eternity

Aleppo, Syria. Ten brothers were sitting in the courtyard of their house in one of Aleppo’s myriad lanes, with a plastic bag full of small pieces of paper, from which they drew lots. Five of them would stay in Syria and look after all 10 families. The others, the winning five, would enjoy the ultimate prize: a jihadi trip to Baghdad. It was March 2003, the Americans had just started bombing Baghdad

<snip>

The call to jihad was openly encouraged by the Syrian government, says Abu Ibrahim (a nom de guerre); it also arranged for buses to ferry fighters, speeded up the issuing of documentation and even gave prospective jihadis a discount on passport fees.

<snip>
Two years after Syria first encouraged resistance to American troops in Iraq, the country claims to have cracked down on Islamic networks and cross-border activity. But many of these claims have fallen short of expectations, a fact that regional analysts attribute to two different factors. The first is that Syria is dominated by many and sometimes competing security apparatuses, which often behave quasi-independently, according to the leadership and specific agenda of each. The second is that while the Syrians, publicly at least, have considerably reduced the amount of support given to the insurgents and have put hundreds in jail, they are happy to keep the jihadi networks alive for a day when they might be useful again.

<Snip>
Abu Ibrahim is furious at American imperialism, outraged by Palestine, repelled by the secular Syrian regime. He is angry, as many Arab young men are, and like many of his generation, has grown to see the holy war of jihad championed by Osama bin Laden as the only way to salvation.

Abu Ibrahim’s goal is to re-establish the Islamic caliphate, and he sees the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan as one of the few true Islamic governments since the time of the Prophet. He thinks the Qur’an is “a constitution, a law to govern the world”. His views are severe, narrowly defined and impractical. But it is important to understand his anger and his contradictions, because Abu Ibrahim is as close to al-Qaida as it is possible to get.

By 2002 they were organising anti-American “festivals” twice a week.

<snip>

"Officials used to come to these festivals, security chiefs, advisers to the Syrian president. We had Palestinian flags and scarves saying, ‘Down America’. It was very well organised - we tried to inspire young men and encourage them.
<snip>
With the beginning of the Iraq war came the jihad frenzy, and the busloads of mujahideen. Saddam’s government considered them manna from heaven; as the Americans rapidly advanced, they branded them Arab Saddam Fedayeen, and gave them weapons and basic training. But when Baghdad fell, the stories the Syrians brought home were bad. Often the Iraqis shot at them or handed them over to the Americans.

<snip>

In the summer of 2003, the insurgency in Iraq began to organise itself and there was a further call for men. Places to stay and a network of routes, weapons and safe houses had been established.

<snip>

The main bulk of the insurgency at that time was led and organised by Iraqis who functioned in cells, often with no coordination.

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“Young men are fighting with zeal and passion, there are Saudi officers, Syrians, Iraqis, but not those who fought for Saddam. The man who is leading it for the most part”, says Abu Ibrahim, “is Zarqawi.”

<snip>

“Until six months ago, Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden were different: Osama did not legitimise the killing of Shia. Zarqawi did that. Six months ago, Zarqawi gave the beyaa [allegiance] to Bin Laden. Anyone, Christian Jew, Sunni, Shia, who cooperates with the Americans, can be killed. It’s a holy war.” (Our conversation took place before Zarqawi was supposedly injured near Ramadi last month.)

By January 2004, Syria was coming under increasing pressure from the US to halt the jihadi traffic into Iraq. Jihadi cell leaders in Syria were summoned to Amen [internal security] headquarters and told that it could not continue. Passports were confiscated; some were detained for a few days.

It may not be terribly significant in halting the violence, however. According to Abu Ibrahim, insurgents in Iraq are not presently in need of fighters, but funds - which usually come from wealthy Saudi young men.

“Our brothers in Iraq are asking for Saudis. The Saudis go with enough money to support themselves and their Iraqi brothers. A week ago we sent a Saudi to the jihad; he went with 100,000 Saudi riyals [$27,000]. There was a celebration among his brothers there!”

[Eolbo]

Considering that Syria itself has had its own problems with Islamic fundamentalists and has killed thousands of them I thought this was another interesting dimension from that article:

During this time, Abu Qaqaa was arrested by the Syrian authorities, but was released within hours. "We thought, ‘Oh, how strong our sheikh is that they do not touch us,’ " Abu Ibrahim remembers. “How stupid we were.”

(snip)

But slowly they began to suspect that their charismatic leader was a stooge for the state security and had long been an agent for them. “In the 80s, thousands of Muslim men died in Syria for much less than we were saying. We asked the sheikh why we weren’t being arrested. He would tell us it was because we weren’t saying anything against the government, that we were focusing on the common enemy, America and Israel.”

Their suspicions hardened when they discovered that Abu Qaqaa had provided the state security with a list of all the Wahhabis in Syria.

With the beginning of the Iraq war came the jihad frenzy, and the busloads of mujahideen. Saddam’s government considered them manna from heaven; as the Americans rapidly advanced, they branded them Arab Saddam Fedayeen, and gave them weapons and basic training. But when Baghdad fell, the stories the Syrians brought home were bad. Often the Iraqis shot at them or handed them over to the Americans.

Abu Ibrahim, who had his own group of jihadis and was actively ferrying people across the border during this time, said that his Iraqi contacts “asked us to stop sending people, they said, ‘There are Shia everywhere, Americans,’ and they couldn’t do anything.”

(snip)

But the Syrian authorities didn’t want cross-border traffic in fighters to stop. The security services pressured them to keep sending people. “Why were they so keen for us to go and fight in Iraq?” asks Abu Ibrahim. “So we would die there?”

Sounds like Syria is more then happy for Americans to kill this lot. She keeps her hands clean that way, gets rid of her own enemies and may get a few US soldiers killed in the process.