Pulling up to the Hadhra Mosque
headed by Sheikh Dhafer al-Ubeidi, a key cleric in the
Fallujah resistance, shortly after noon prayers were
over one Friday, I saw several dozen armed Fallujah
Brigade soldiers, police and civilians crowded before
the entrance. Some were looking inside an old car.
Several more soldiers and police were guarding the gate,
and there were more inside. The guard, Ahmad, was my
friend and greeted me wearing a new black-and-white
keffiye around his head like a bandanna. Several
police approached and said "No journalists," but Ahmad
said, "No, he is a friend," and ushered me into the
guard room. I noticed several soldiers and policemen
standing by the door to Dhafer's office. I recognized
the same assistant to the chief of police I had noticed
on previous visits. I asked Ahmad what was going on, did
something happen? "Oh, it's nothing," he said, "a simple
thing. We arrested two spies, they're British or maybe
German."
I peered through the window trying to
see what was going on, armed men rushed about busily. A
few minutes later Ahmad knocked on the door. "Okay, come,"
he said. I walked across to the office, removed my shoes
and entered.
Taghlub al-Alusi, the head of the
unofficial City Consultative Council, stepped out
looking more worried than usual, and we greeted. The
room was crowded with men standing and sitting, and at
first I did not notice the woman sitting in a corner
before tables full of food in foam "to go" containers.
She was white, and young.
Colonel Sabar Fadhil
al-Janabi, chief of Fallujah's police force, was seated
across from her, his back to me. He greeted me warmly, a
leg of chicken in his hand. I sat down beside them and
smiled at the woman. A middle-aged white man emerged
from the bathroom and sat next to her. Taghlub returned
to his table and with another man began carefully
examining every page of two German passports, turning
them around and squinting. Sitting next to the colonel
was a young man, I took him to be 18. He looked just
like his father the colonel. When he stood up, I saw he
had a pistol on his right waist and a walkie-talkie on
the other side. He was only 16, he told me. Across, on
the other side of the table, sat a short, round man with
layers of tape covering his nose like a pig's snout,
next to him was a baby-faced man in a tailored suit.
"He's the qaimaqam," I was told, the mayor. He
was rehearsing a statement, asking the elders for
approval. An old man sat next to me and nodding toward
the German man said, "He shouldn't have worn a
dishdasha [robe], it was suspicious."
Uwe
Sauerman, a very tall, pale 55-year-old freelance
journalist and his assistant, Manya Schodche,
24, herself very pale, had driven to Fallujah that
morning. After being warned not to go to Najaf because
it was too dangerous, Uwe obeyed his hotel manager's
instructions and took a dishdasha with him and
set off with a driver and translator. On entering
Fallujah, Uwe donned his dishdasha, but was
seen doing so. The German couple were stopped at
the checkpoint where four US contractors had earlier
been killed after being spotted by young informants posing
as street sellers. They were forced out at gunpoint by six
armed men, one of them in a policeman's uniform, and
accused of being an American general and female soldier.
Soon a mob of hundreds surrounded them, including some
of the same laborers who had killed the four
contractors, beating them with shovels, sticks and
rocks. A plastic bag was placed over Uwe's head. Manya
was slapped around and severely handled. Their
translator, a Christian from Baghdad, was called a
traitor and collaborator. He wore a cross. His nose was
broken and he was hit in the back of the neck with a
machete.
Just before they were to be doused
with gasoline, the police managed to drag them into
their nearby station. The mob and mujahideen attacked
the station, calling for their prisoners to be returned
to them, and the police transferred the four to the
Hadhra
Mosque under heavy security. The mob surrounded Hadhra
with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and
Kalashnikovs. Abu Abdallah, a foreign leader of a
mujahideen unit, marched in with his Kalashnikov
demanding the return of the "American spies". The
Fallujah Brigade and the police nearly engaged the
mujahideen in a shootout.
That same day,
the committee of leaders at Hadhra had decided to
confront Abu Abdallah, hoping to disarm his unit, or at
least subordinate it to their command. They received word
that there were two dead American spies and Fallujah
went into a state of alert, expecting a US attack. The
two Germans were brought to the Hadhra office and
interrogated. Once "the committee for the investigation
of espionage" established that they were indeed German
journalists, they received apologies and were ordered to
eat.
Manya's face was swollen
beneath her eyes and her shirt had blood speckles on it.
Uwe's face was spotted with red bruises and he winced when
he moved. He had a broken tooth. His hands were
trembling. The fear and tension from whatever had transpired
in this room still lingered, and they were contagious. I realized
my heart was racing. The translator with tape on his
nose was dabbing it continuously, wiping the blood that
was dripping from it. He came to sit next to us. The
mayor told him, "If you don't eat I'll be angry." He
answered in a nasal voice as if someone was pinching his nose, "I
can't, I'll throw up." The colonel, with a mouth full of
food, commanded Uwe, "Eat, eat!" Uwe obeyed.
Uwe and Manya were ordered into a
nearby office where local stringers from alJazeera and
al-Arabiya television networks, who
had been called in, were preparing their
cameras to film the mayor's press statement. They seated
the Germans on a sofa on either side of the mayor, who
explained that on that morning an old Iraqi car entered
the city with two foreigners dressed in Arabic clothing,
the man in a dishdasha and the woman in a
hejab (veil). "The way they entered was
suspicious and illegal," he said, "and they were brought
here to the good people of the mosque." He displayed
their German passports and urged all the foreign
journalists to check in with the mayor's office or the
police if they entered the city. "We welcome all foreign
press here," he said, "Fallujah is a peaceful city, the
quietest city in Iraq." The two Germans sat in a mute
stupor next to him as Taghlub looked on in weary
boredom.
Uwe was told he could make a statement.
"When I saw the pictures of American attacks on Fallujah
I decided to go to Fallujah," he said in a thick German
accent, "to take pictures of the city and ask the
victims of these attacks what happened to them and how
are their lives. In my hotel in Baghdad they advised me
to wear a dishdasha because it is better and I
will be safer. Somebody shouted 'Amerikaner!
Amerikaner!' and then people came, and you know what
happened next? Men with guns put a bag on my head like
the Americans do and I didn't see anymore. Then I was in
an empty house and they interrogated me and after a
while I convinced them I am a German and friend of the
Iraqi people, not an American, and they were very
friendly. I would like to come again to show the German
people what happened in Fallujah so I will try to come
tomorrow."
The mayor shook Uwe's hand before the
camera and told both Germans they were welcome. Uwe was
then ordered to recant his statement comparing the
behavior of the mob to the Americans, and he readily
complied. "When I said they used a plastic bag," he
said, "it doesn't mean that we have to compare you the
people of Fallujah to the Americans. I only meant that
the plastic bag itself reminded me of the Americans."
Uwe was told to hold his dishdasha for the
cameras and then the press conference ended. Saad, a
young sniper, was serving refreshments. He asked me if
Manya was Uwe's daughter or his girlfriend. He didn't
understand how a woman could be traveling with a man not
related to her. "Just give me five minutes alone with
her," he told me with a wistful smile. Under heavy
protection, Uwe and Manya were loaded into the mayor's
car. A convoy of six cars, including two pickup trucks
loaded with multi-colored Fallujah Brigade fighters with
their Kalashnikovs at the ready, headed out. Once they
exited town the convoy halted and the armed men emerged.
For a moment I thought they would execute them. But they
only reshuffled their men and continued to Baghdad. The
Fallujah Brigade soldiers returned home. The convoy
pulled up to the heavily fortified German Embassy in
Baghdad's Mansour district an hour later and was greeted
by bewildered German security guards. At first the
guards only permitted Manya, Uwe and the mayor in. Chief
of police Janabi was very offended and puffed his
cheeks, threatening to go home. I pulled aside the
security guard and explained to him that it was better
to let the police chief in as well and he relented.
Dhafer, and two generals, had all been in the
mosque prior to my arrival, but were hastily moved out
for their own safety due to concerns about the
mujahideen that also led to the deployment of nearly 20
Fallujah Brigade members to protect the convoy taking
the Germans to Baghdad. It was clear to the men in the
committee that the rogue mujahideen had to be pacified,
Dhafer wasn't even safe in his own mosque.
Taghlub and the men were very upset - they nearly
lost control of the town and their own power. If the
Germans had been killed, the Americans would surely have
returned. The foreign mujahideen based in the Julan
neighborhood were proving especially recalcitrant. They
were harassing Iraqis for smoking cigarettes and even
for drinking water using their left hand, considered
impure. They had banned alcohol, Western films, makeup,
hairdressers, "behaving like women", ie homosexuality,
and even dominoes in the coffee houses. Men found
publicly drunk had been flogged and I was told of a
dozen men beaten and imprisoned for selling drugs.
Islamic courts were being established in association
with mujahideen units and mosque leaders, meting out
punishment consistent with the Koran. Erstwhile Ba'ath
Party members told me they were expiating the sins of
their former secularism, and Ba'ath ideology had now
become Islamist. An assistant to the mayor confirmed
that there were Islamic courts with their own
qadis, or judges, who acted independently of the
police. He added that all the spies had already been
killed, "but before we killed them we made sure they
were spies". He was concerned about "the mujahideen who
do not know Sheikh Dhafer and the men of the Hadhra",
the foreigners and uncooperative mujahideen who sought
to expand the liberated zone beyond Fallujah.
TOMORROW, the
concluding article: Radicals in the ashes of
democracy.
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2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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PART 6: Mean and clean
streets 
qaimaqam," I was told, the mayor. He
was rehearsing a statement, asking the elders for
approval. An old man sat next to me and nodding toward
the German man said, "He shouldn't have worn a
dishdasha [robe], it was suspicious." 
Mosque under heavy security. The mob surrounded Hadhra
with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and
Kalashnikovs. Abu Abdallah, a foreign leader of a
mujahideen unit, marched in with his Kalashnikov
demanding the return of the "American spies". The
Fallujah Brigade and the police nearly engaged the
mujahideen in a shootout. 
had been called in, were preparing their
cameras to film the mayor's press statement. They seated
the Germans on a sofa on either side of the mayor, who
explained that on that morning an old Iraqi car entered
the city with two foreigners dressed in Arabic clothing,
the man in a dishdasha and the woman in a
hejab (veil). "The way they entered was
suspicious and illegal," he said, "and they were brought
here to the good people of the mosque." He displayed
their German passports and urged all the foreign
journalists to check in with the mayor's office or the
police if they entered the city. "We welcome all foreign
press here," he said, "Fallujah is a peaceful city, the
quietest city in Iraq." The two Germans sat in a mute
stupor next to him as Taghlub looked on in weary
boredom. 
