With
Fallujah being touted by Iraqi fighters as a successful
example of how to liberate their country from the US-led
occupation, and by the occupation leaders as a
successful example of how to hand over the country to
its people and avoid further bloodshed, I set out to
discover the reality behind the "Fallujah model".
What I found was a city run by the Iraqi
resistance, itself divided between those who supported
the ceasefire with occupation forces in May that ended a
month's heavy fighting in the city and those who sought
to continue the struggle throughout Iraq "and all the
way to Jerusalem".
To learn more about the
history of Fallujah's resistance, I visited the opulent
home of Abu Mohammed, a former brigadier-general in the
Iraqi military. We sat in his guest hall, decorating
with expensive but gaudy art, flowery and uncoordinated,
typical for the region, watching a news broadcast on the
assassination of Iraqi Governing Council president
Izzedin Salim.
The brigadier-general's three
cheerful young boys were play-fighting on a sofa,
grinning at me shyly, hoping to get the attention of the
foreigner. Abu Mohammed has a baby face and dimples, and
smiled as much as his frolicking boys. Like most of
Fallujah's people, he traced the beginning of the
resistance to the US Army's killing of 17 demonstrators
in late April of last year.
Abu Mohammed
explained that Fallujah was more traditional than most
Iraqi cities. "It is conservative and the influence of
mosques is great and widespread." Saddam Hussein's
control of thought and ideas, he said, meant that "you
could only express yourself through the mosques and it
was in the mosques that people felt there was an
authority who cared and listened to them". Abu Mohammed
added that "the level of education of imams in the
mosque was not high".
Abu Mohammed, like all
members of the previous army, lost his job when the US
occupation dissolved it, along with outlawing the Ba'ath
Party. He explained that this had only created enemies
for the Americans. He spoke of "the massive use of
force" and "disrespect for our traditions" that Fallujah
experienced, as well as the "media showing American
raids and attacks", meaning that "former regime people
like me were forced to support revenge".
"After
the war ended," he said, "we expected things to improve,
but everything became worse, electricity, water, sewage,
draining, so mosque speakers openly spoke of jihad and
encouraged prayers to join it after a month of
occupation." Abu Mohammed explained that the "mosque
culture developed against the Americans in this year.
The mosques were free. Mosque culture in Fallujah
centered on the jihad. This attracted foreign Arabs who
felt constrained by their own regimes, and of course
there were neighboring countries who supported this
financially. Nobody in Fallujah opposed the resistance
and many different resistance groups came in. Weapons
were very available in Fallujah. All soldiers and
security personnel took their weapons home, and the
Ba'ath Party had also distributed weapons."
Abu
Mohammed was bewildered by what he called "the stupidity
of the Americans", explaining, "They didn't seize
ammunition depots of the army that contained enormous
amounts of weapons." The military experience, the
financing and the weapons were all present in Fallujah,
he said, and "the nature of the people here is violent
because they grow up with weapons from childhood and
weapons become part of our personality". He added that
"the imams of mosques took over the defense of Fallujah
efficiently".
When the fighting in April
started, "the people here were monitoring American
movements and had the upper hand. Military experience
let them know where the Americans would attack.
Fallujans were expecting this to happen, especially
after the four [US] contractors [were killed], and they
prepared themselves for the fight. The resistance spread
into positions assigned to them by Sheikh Dhafer
[al-Ubeidi] and Abdallah Janabi, and the military
planning and street fighting in defense of one's home
requires less strategizing."
Abu Mohammed
admitted that "the presence of alJazeera's [Qatar-based
television station] exaggerated pictures and incitement
of people led people inside and outside Iraq to
sympathize with Fallujah." He compared alJazeera's
Fallujah correspondent to a sports commentator: "His
broadcasts were like a sports commentator, not a
journalist, encouraging people to support one team
against the other. And he raised the spirits of
fighters."
Abu Mohammed was concerned about the
new status of Fallujah. "There is no law in Fallujah
now," he said. "It's like Afghanistan - rule of gangs,
mafias and Taliban. If they decide somebody is a spy
they will kill him. There is no legal procedure. Imams
of mosques who left during the fighting were prevented
from returning to their mosques." He feared that soon
differences would emerge among different mujahideen
groups, leading to further violence.
He told me
a new Fallujah army had been formed "to contain the
former army and resistance leaders from taking over and
subverting the rule of law". Abu Mohammed was skeptical
about the new army that he had joined. "What is the
point of this new army? Who does it kill? Who does it
defend?" he asked, adding that "the religious leadership
decides who gets into the new army". He himself was
approached by delegates from a leading mosque run by
Janabi, who brought him forms and told him he was
approved.
After the first five days of fighting,
the former brigadier sent his family out of the city.
Now they had returned, and his oldest boy was serving me
coffee, but he wanted to leave the city. He told me his
beliefs were different than most of his neighbors. "I am
looking for the future of my children," he said.
Across the town, I visited the headquarters of
the Islamic Party. One of the 25 parties belonging to
the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, its
controversial leader was Dr Muhsin Abdel Hamid. The
party had strong anti-Shi'ite undertones, and Hamid had
already claimed, incorrectly, that Sunnis were the
majority in Iraq.
The party offices were located
in an old cinema, earning it the nickname "the cinema
party" by Fallujans who viewed it as too cooperative
with the Americans. The Islamic Party dominated the city
council, but its members were not active during the
fighting and some left the city, earning them the
contempt of Fallujans, who divided their community
between those who stayed and fought and those who left.
By the doors boxes of medical supplies were
piled high and several men in sweatpants were sprawled
in front, holding Kalashnikovs. Inside the theater, piled
on seats and on the stage, were thousands of boxes
containing medical supplies, as well as food for the
families of "martyrs" and the wounded. The party was
sending hundreds of these by truck to Karbala and Najaf,
where Shi'ite militias were battling occupation forces.
By the door I found a poster advertising an "Islamic
music band" called "the voice of the right". It showed a
bloody heart in the center of Iraq with a hand plunging
a spear through it. Another poster showed two pages, one
with American soldiers and one with Iraqis and mosques:
"With the Prophet's guidance we will unite to turn the
page on the occupation." On a table they sold copies of
the party's newspaper, Dar Assalam, and a radical Sunni
magazine it supported called Nur, meaning "lights".
I met with Khalid Mohammed, the office director,
who insisted on speaking only classical Arabic, or
Fus-ha, an annoying habit akin to speaking
Shakespearean English in daily conversation. Though the
Islamic Party had been a key player in the negotiations
with the Americans that brought about the hudna,
or ceasefire, Mohammed was worried about groups in the
city "who reject the hudna and want to turn
Fallujah into a center to export the rebellion". Three
differences had emerged during the fighting, he said,
"and when we worked on the ceasefire there were other
fighters who want fighting to continue until the
occupation ends". Mohammed confirmed to me that former
Iraqi Republican Guard general, Jassim Mohammed Saleh,
had not been dismissed as some reports said but was in
fact the No 2 man in power in the
city.
The Islamic Party's main competition comes
from the Association of Islamic Scholars, headquartered
in the Abdel Aziz Mosque of the Nazal neighborhood,
which was a key battle zone during the siege.
The association, long committed to resisting the
occupation, commanded its own mujahideen units during
the fighting. According to a Coalition Provisional
Authority official familiar with Iraq, Sheikh Harith
al-Dhari, one of the association's leaders in Baghdad,
is also an important leader of the resistance. The
mosque was alleged by Americans to contain mujahideen
and was attacked, its green dome speckled with bullet
holes. On one of the mosque's walls a banner announced
that "violation of the mosque's sanctuary dishonors the
world's Muslims". Papers taped to columns on either side
of the entrance gate said, "God chose for you a group of
martyrs from the city of clerics and religious science
and congratulations to them who now live in the stomachs
of the green birds," a reference to heaven for martyrs.
Another paper said, "Congratulations on your victory, O
people of pride and virtue, O heroes of Fallujah."
Colorful stickers I had also seen on car bumpers in the
streets showed an Iraqi flame burning the Israeli flag
alongside the new Iraqi flag that the governing council
had approved. Abdel Hamid Farhan, the mosque leader,
told me his city was not yet free and would not be until
the rest of the country was liberated.
On the
large concrete blocks that guard the Fallujah
provisional council from attack, I found the same
resistance posters I had seen elsewhere in the city and
throughout the west of the country. The resistance had
capable graphic designers working for it. "Iraq is the
beginning of the end of the occupation," it said,
showing a fist lunging out of Iraq into an Iraqi flag.
On the flag it said, "Congratulations to Fallujah's people,
jihad, martyrdom, victory." Two armed resistance
fighters were on either side, their faces covered by
kafiyas, scarves. A US flag with a Jewish star on
it was on fire, its flames burning American soldiers.
The poster was produced by "the Islamic Media League".
Inside, Saad Ala al-Rawi, a lawyer and head of
the local provisional council, was receiving petitioners
behind his desk. He had a thin mustache and wore the
Ba'athist "safari" uniform of matching shirt and pants.
An elderly woman draped in a black abaya, her
face wrinkled and full of traditional tribal tattoos,
had come to ask for help and was shouting her problems
in the presence of several sweating portly men wearing
dashas and kafiyas.
Al-Rawi had
taken part in the negotiations with the Americans, but
was surprised to learn that simultaneous negotiations
were being held without their knowledge to establish the
Fallujah army and appoint General Jassim. He didn't want
to answer questions about this. Though he appreciated
the role played by three Iraqi Governing Council members
in the negotiations, "we were expecting something
stronger", he said, "because they are Iraqis and we are
Iraqis from the same country. The minimum they could do
was threaten to resign because their people were being
slaughtered in Fallujah." I pressed him about the other
negotiations, but he refused to discuss them.
He, too, mentioned the April 29, 2003, school
demonstrations as a key event. "The resistance started
that day," he said. "Fallujah was the first city that
resisted the occupation. The killings continued when
they would open fire randomly on us and raid our houses.
Because of these events, sympathy with the resistance
increased." His 45-member council was formed on April 1
this year. "We have spent most of our time negotiating
with them [the Americans] over their human-rights
violations."
Referring to the attack on the four
American contract workers, he told me, "For us as
Muslims and Arabs, we condemn the mutilation and burning
of the four, but in a war killing happens on both sides.
We are at war, so killing is normal. But mutilating
bodies is not acceptable." He added that the Americans
used the incident as an excuse to attack Fallujah. I
asked him if they would shoot at US troops should they
re-enter the city. "Let me ask you this," he said, "if
someone invades your house, will you just stand by?"
TOMORROW: All power to the
sheikh
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
PART 1:
Inside the theater, piled
on seats and on the stage, were thousands of boxes
containing medical supplies, as well as food for the
families of "martyrs" and the wounded. The party was
sending hundreds of these by truck to Karbala and Najaf,
where Shi'ite militias were battling occupation forces.
By the door I found a poster advertising an "Islamic
music band" called "the voice of the right". It showed a
bloody heart in the center of Iraq with a hand plunging
a spear through it. Another poster showed two pages, one
with American soldiers and one with Iraqis and mosques:
"With the Prophet's guidance we will unite to turn the
page on the occupation." On a table they sold copies of
the party's newspaper, Dar Assalam, and a radical Sunni
magazine it supported called Nur, meaning "lights".
fact the No 2 man in power in the
city. 
"Congratulations to Fallujah's people,
jihad, martyrdom, victory." Two armed resistance
fighters were on either side, their faces covered by
kafiyas, scarves. A US flag with a Jewish star on
it was on fire, its flames burning American soldiers.
The poster was produced by "the Islamic Media League".
