Nir Rosen - Aftermath

Abul Abed and his men went in and captured their five targets without firing a shot. They questioned them and turned two over to Kuehl. “They wanted to release the other three, which is an interesting part of this,” Kuehl said. “In our negotiations Sheikh Khalid asked for the ability to give amnesty. He said many of the AQI fighters were the young boys of the community. He wanted to release them after they signed an oath to not fight for Al Qaeda and for their parents to also sign for them. I thought this was a great idea and agreed. I think this did a lot to undermine AQI’s base.”

The other part of destroying Al Qaeda involved local civil oversight, which was also risky. Kuehl saw Sheikh Khalid as the most legitimate local leader. The Neighborhood Advisory Council was seen to be ineffective and had links with AQI and corruption. On the other hand, Kuehl suggests, Sheikh Khalid seemed to be respected by many in the community. Sheikh Khalid was a strong critic of the Maliki government. He shared the perception with many in Amriya that the Maliki government was intentionally denying services to Sunni areas. He was fairly soft-spoken, but despite his quiet exterior he had strong opinions and definite influence in the community.

Sheikh Khalid’s mosque was located next door to Gallagher’s company’s combat outpost, which helped facilitate communication. He would provide recommendations to Gallagher on how the locations of concrete barriers should be less obtrusive to the local pedestrian traffic, particularly for Iraqi children who walked to the nearby school. “We therefore adjusted the barrier locations to meet his request. I believe following through on such reasonable requests helped sustain a positive working relationship, which in turn helped sustain our credibility and respect in the area,” Gallagher said.

Abul Abed seemed to respect Khalid. “I tried to get Khalid to sign the security contract we were establishing, but he kept delaying,” Kuehl said. “He never said no, but there was always some new demand. I think he was also getting pressure from other people behind the scenes. After months of haggling I finally made the decision to have Abul Abed sign the contract. In retrospect, I think Khalid wanted to keep out of direct involvement. Still, I thought it important that we get some voice of the people. We asked Khalid to organize the local leaders within the community. He formed a local council from the community to include tribal leaders, former military officers, and other professionals. He took great risk in doing this since it would have no official government legitimacy. However, he was politically connected, and I think he did a great job of adding legitimacy to the effort. One group that never really got on board was the Iraqi Islamic Party. They were jealous of the power that this movement was gaining, and I think they saw it as a threat.”

“Money was not the primary motivator for Abul Abed,” Kuehl later wrote, noting that Abed’s men were not paid for the first three months. When they did get paid in September 2007, Kuehl described the sum as a “pittance” compared with the risk they were taking, much less than what Al Qaeda were paying their men. “[Abed] was driven by a desire to protect his family and bring stability to the Sunni areas. While he was very much against [the Mahdi Army], I would not label him as sectarian. Several of his closest aides were Shiites. I would classify him as a nationalist if anything.”

Over time restrictions had to be put on the Fursan’s operations. All operations had to be conducted with the Iraqi army. The problem was that the army had difficulty keeping pace with the Fursan. But multiple security outposts were established throughout Amriya with the Fursan, protecting key infrastructure in the community. “Between their outposts, the Iraqi army outposts, and our two combat operation posts, you could not move two blocks in Amriya without running into someone involved in security,” Kuehl said. “Violence dropped significantly.”

With Abul Abed’s intelligence as well as information coming from other sources, Kuehl was able to map out the insurgent network. “The information provided by Abul Abed and his men allowed us to target much more accurately,” he said. “We had names and in some cases pictures. We posted wanted posters that proved very effective. Tips from locals increased significantly. We hit Al Qaeda pretty hard, detaining some, killing others. Those that remained fled. Civilian deaths pretty much ceased.”

Other than a couple found dead in their home in August, Amriya did not have any other murders until Christmas Day. IED attacks dropped off completely, as did small-arms fire and indirect-fire attacks. The last IED, a deep buried one that went off on August 6, ended up killing the driver of a Bradley. Within thirty-six hours of the attack, Abul Abed and his men were able to determine that it had been carried out by a cell from an insurgent group that was brought into Amriya for a joint operation. “We had never been able to do this before,” Kuehl said.

Like many I spoke to, Gallagher characterized the initial relationship between the Americans and the Fursan as tenuous; many U.S. soldiers were skeptical of working with men who had been their enemy. “Some of the volunteers had almost certainly been emplacing IEDs against my soldiers just a few months earlier,” he said. But trust was built over time. Gallagher described a turning point for him and his men: “We were conducting a company cordon and search in northeastern Amriya, Mahala 630. We received a report that there was an IED just a few meters from one of our Bradleys on an exterior blocking position. I began to call up EOD [Explosive Ordinance Disposal] to destroy it,” Gallagher recalled. But before anyone could react, one of the new volunteers, a daring young nineteen-year-old named Ali, got out his small pocketknife, walked over to the location, unearthed the IED with his bare hands, and disconnected it. “He came back with a smug look of contentment on his face. To this day, this still strikes me as fairly crazy. Obviously he knew what he was doing, but at the same time it was extremely reckless. Events like this demonstrated that the volunteers were technically competent. It also demonstrated that they were not afraid to risk their lives to defeat AQI and gain our confidence.”

But there were strains and rivalries within Abul Abed’s organization. One of his lieutenants, Abu Sayf, operated mainly in Mahala 634. Gallagher’s team began hearing reports that he was acting far too aggressively. He was alleged to have been stealing people’s belongings, stealing cars, forcing people from their homes. This culminated in a brief power struggle with Abul Abed in September and October. “One day Abu Sayf pulled me aside at his operational post and started making wild accusations against Abul Abed. His underlying implication was clear, that Abul Abed needed to go away and he should be the rightful leader of the volunteer organization. He asked me not to tell anyone about what he had just told me. However I felt I could not keep that a secret from my battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Kuehl, so I informed him.” The battalion was able to substantiate the rumors that Abu Sayf was corrupt and had been stealing property. His suggestion that he should replace Abul Abed caused him to lose even more credibility. “We rapidly detained him,” Gallagher said, “and Abul Abed kicked him out of his organization.” Some of Abu Sayf’s comrades, led principally by his brother, threatened to quit if he was not released. The brother was subsequently expelled from the organization.

KUEHL BELIEVED THAT Abul Abed was controversial because he was a charismatic leader who inspired others. “He had kind of a Robin Hood reputation within the populace and became quite popular in a short period of time. I think his rise in popularity was seen as a political threat both by the government and by the Iraqi Islamic Party. Overall he did pretty well with the press. Part of the controversy is his shadowy past. I know he was in the Iraqi army before the war—still not sure what rank, either major or captain. He claims to have been a sniper during Desert Storm. I believe he was in intelligence. His family lived in Baghdad and owned some bakeries. The biggest thing that concerned me about his behavior was his volatile temper and his violent tendencies. He used to beat his subordinates when they crossed him.”