Nir Rosen - Aftermath

“I don’t think Abul Abed and the Iraqi army relationship was ever good,” Sergeant Yosef added. “I remember Colonel Sabah, who Abul Abed was supposed to work with. The first time I saw them butt heads was one night when the AFF and the Iraqi army were supposed to do a patrol together. Colonel Sabah wanted to head the patrol, with the AFF acting as neighborhood advisers. Abul Abed refused. He wanted the patrol to be conducted by AFF, with the Iraqi army acting as observers, because there had been accusations by the neighborhood residents that the Iraqi army had been too aggressive. The other issue was that Colonel Sabah didn’t want Abul Abed on the ground with his men. Colonel Sabah wanted to be in command of all the men, both Iraqi army and AFF.”

This argument took place in Abul Abed’s office at AFF HQ. Colonel Sabah had two other officers with him, one younger and one very gray one, who would take turns trying to persuade Abul Abed to play by their rules. Abul Abed’s skill as debater was apparently brilliant, said Yosef. He would listen to Colonel Sabah and officers yell until they were exhausted, and then he would quickly answer with sharp responses.

“After about fifteen minutes, the oldest of the three Iraqi army officers basically gave up,” Yosef reported. “He had a look on his face like, ‘This really isn’t my fight.’ Then the younger one slowly sputtered out of steam. It was obvious that this Iraqi army officer was not very intelligent. Abul Abed really didn’t even acknowledge him. Colonel Sabah ended up nudging him out of the argument. Finally, it was Colonel Sabah against Abul Abed. Colonel Sabah laid all his cards down with what he thought was the final blow. He said the following, and I remember because I asked my interpreter what he said: ‘If you don’t patrol under my command, then you will be considered an enemy force, and I will arrest you and your men.’ Abul Abed stood there for a minute thinking, then took his pistol belt off and threw it into his closet and said, ‘Fine, if I have to patrol under your command or else get arrested if I command my patrol, then I will not patrol, and neither will my men. You are on your own,’ and then he walked to the door, as the three Iraqi army officers stood there dumbfounded, and yelled to his men, ‘No one is going anywhere tonight!’ Colonel Sabah and his guys stormed out infuriated, and some heated words were said with lots of pointing and angry eyes.

“Abul Abed was obviously furious. But he knew that Colonel Sabah wouldn’t do the patrol alone. Abul Abed knew where the enemy forces were hiding. It was his AFF intelligence on Amriya that had gathered the Iraqi army and even the Americans here tonight. If Abul Abed didn’t go out, then the Iraqi army would be blind. Colonel Sabah came back, he compromised, and said that it would be a joint command that night. During the patrol, if I remember correctly, the AFF and the Iraqi army men worked well together, but the rift between Abul Abed and Colonel Sabah grew greater as the night went on. I was on patrol so I don’t know exactly how it happened, but I remember hearing afterward that they continued to argue throughout the patrol. It makes sense, too. Abul Abed was about Colonel Sabah’s age, and Abul Abed was an officer under Saddam. These two men should have been peers in the same army, but one was excluded from the mainstream security forces, and the other was not.”

The relationship between the Iraqi army and Abul Abed’s Awakening group was always contentious, especially at the leadership level. Gallagher said that they always had to a walk a tightrope to maintain the support of the Iraqi army. There was one incident that nearly shut down the whole effort. Four bodies had been found in the southeast corner of Amriya. Gallagher was in Sabah’s office at the time, and Sabah was convinced that Abul Abed was behind it. This was on a day when a number of local contractors had been invited to Abul Abed’s HQ to start generating projects to repair the infrastructure and get some money flowing in the community.

When Sabah arrived at Abul Abed’s headquarters, he started shouting at the Fursan (as the AFF were called, taking their name from the Arabic word for “knights”) while ten of his security detachment formed a tight, protective circle around him. Sabah’s men had weapons drawn on the Fursan, and the Fursan had weapons drawn on them. Gallagher managed to get into the center of his tight circle with his interpreter. “Sabah was yelling that there was only one army in Amriya and that it was either Abul Abed or him. It turns out that some knucklehead in the Fursan had refused Sabah’s security detachment entry into the HQ building.”

Yosef was also present, filming with his video camera. “I guess the day before the IA wouldn’t let one of Abul Abed’s food trucks into Amriya and then called the AFF ‘sons of animals.’ When the Iraqi army showed up at the AFF HQ, Abu Bilal, one of Abed’s lieutenants, ordered his men to get their guns and grenades and get ready for a fight, and they all started running out to the gate with their AK-47s.”

Abu Bilal apparently was in a terrible mood. His brothers had just been kidnapped by Al Qaeda. But when Abul Abed emerged from his building, he was furious as he tried to stand down his men, especially with Abu Bilal. “I set my camera on the gate’s wall and videotaped the whole thing,” Yosef noted later. “Major Daniels came running out into the street from his meeting with Abul Abed, without any armor or helmet, just sunglasses. He and his men positioned themselves between the IA trucks and the AFF at the gate. It was a zoo. Finally, the IA left. Luckily, before I turned my camera off, I recorded Abu Bilal striding out after them, with his shirt untucked. His shirt is never untucked. In the video, it’s apparent he’s got multiple weapons under his shirt. I wonder if he ever caught up with the IA patrol and took some pop shots at them.”

“This incident,” Gallagher said, “set us way back, and I spent the next forty-eight hours dealing with the fallout. From this incident we hammered out a written agreement between us, the Iraqi army, and the Fursan. While it put more restrictions on the Fursan, they were generally positive and a step toward rule of law. It also placed more emphasis on the Iraqi army to conduct joint operations with the Fursan.”

Kuehl’s own relationship with the Awakening men in his area was tentative at first, but eventually they grew close. “For a long time I was not sure how far I could trust Abul Abed,” he said. “I knew he was a bit of a hothead. Some members of the group were just thugs. I believe some were brought in by Abul Abed and Sheikh Khalid to gain local political support for the movement. There were times where I had to discipline members of the group. At one point I arrested one of the leaders of one of the factions. I never trusted the guy because we suspected him of pushing people out of homes and stealing their furniture. I had even detained him and three of his brothers during an operation just before the Fursan came forward. One brother we kept, the others we released due to lack of evidence. I ended up detaining this guy after we connected him to an attack on Abul Abed and excessive use of force. I think we also got some other incriminating evidence on him.”

Over time Kuehl developed closer relationships with the Awakening men at his level and also at subordinate levels. Abed’s men were brought into the planning and targeting process along with the Iraqi army. “In a sense, each of us gave legitimacy to the other,” Kuehl said. “Not everyone trusted the Fursan, nor did everyone trust us or the IA. When we did operations together, complaints went down.” Initially Abed’s men, who could move easily within the population and were not burdened with heavy equipment, conducted missions with U.S. oversight. They identified five targets on their first mission. Kuehl provided an outer cordon with his D Company, consisting of tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. These vehicles were fitted with great optics so they could keep a close eye on what was going on, even at night.