Nir Rosen - Aftermath

The day after the raid, an Iraqi soldier named Hussein Naas was killed by Muhamad Karim Muhamad, a sniper from Washash, while on a foot patrol. Muhamad was a former Iraqi National Police officer who had been trained by the Americans. A source gave Salim his location, and a force of Iraqi and American soldiers closed off the area for five hundred square meters, conducted dismounted raids, and captured the suspect while he was in bed with his wife. At first he denied killing Naas, but Salim showed him all their evidence. He, in turn, led them to a house with four sniper rifles, sticky bombs, rockets, IEDs, and ammunition.

During Ramadan in late 2007, while Salim was visiting his family in Egypt, he learned that a small team of American and Iraqi special forces had ambushed Hamudi Naji and killed him. Mahdi Army guys were up very late, eating and loudly playing games. An Iraqi member of the team called Hamudi Naji and pretended to be a neighbor complaining about the late-night noise. Hamudi came with three of his security men to see what his men were doing. The Americans killed him and one of his guards. Salim told me that Hamudi’s body was riddled with sixty bullets. After this ambush, the Americans increased their raids in Washash and Iskan.

At that time the Mahdi Army was at its peak, according to Salim. Two people in the prime minister’s office supported the Mahdi Army, he explained. One was Maj. Gen. Adnan al-Maksusi, an intelligence officer, and the other was the notorious Dr. Bassima al-Jadri. “They used to fire all officers who were against the Mahdi Army or who arrested the Mahdi Army,” Salim told me. “Petraeus told Maliki, ‘Either you fire these two people or we fire you.’” The Mahdi Army was taking over Sunni areas, Salim explained, “so the Americans came up with the Awakening—former insurgents but officially armed, so it created a balance. We knew the Awakening men, we had their names, we knew that they were wanted. The first time I heard about it I was against it, armed men on the street. The Americans said, ‘Cooperate with them, use them now, and we’ll arrest them later.’ The Awakening created a balance between Shiites and Sunnis in early 2008.” I told him about my Awakening friends in Dora being arrested. “It’s just like what they did in the Jamia district and Amriya,” he said. “Every Humvee that went to the airport road, Abul Abed would place an IED against it—so later they arrested the bad Awakening men. We found dead bodies of Shiites in Abul Abed’s house in Amriya.”

With Hamudi Naji gone, Salim’s campaign against the Mahdi Army began in earnest. There were orders to arrest all Mahdi Army leaders, he told me. The Iraqi army closed off the Iskan, Tobchi, and Washash areas for four days. “In Washash we arrested over seventy men,” he said. “In Iskan we arrested twenty men. In Tobchi we arrested twelve senior men with weapons.” Naji was replaced by his nephew Hikmat Hussein Maan. Hikmat, known as Hakami, had a brother called Hossam al-Awar, or One-eyed Hossam, who was the main sakak in Washash. These two men escaped to Rusafa in eastern Baghdad. “The Mahdi Army freeze is a lie,” Salim told me. “It’s just information operations, like when the Americans said they stopped operations in Falluja but they continued them.” Hakami fled to Ur, which was outside Salim’s area of operations, but the young captain was determined to get him.

Salim had a female source in Washash. The Mahdi Army had killed her husband and left her with six children. Hakami had been in love with her, Salim told me. Salim arranged to meet her at a restaurant in Mansour, “like civilians,” he said. “Next we met in an apartment, but nothing happened,” he joked. He told her he wanted her to resume her relationship with Hakami, and she called him in Ur. “They met in Najaf and fucked,” he told me. The next time they met in Zafraniya at her friend’s house. The third meeting was arranged to take place in Karada. Salim called a military transition team (MTT, pronounced “mitt”) whose captain he liked. “Hakami had been in Iran the week before,” he told me. “He got six thousand dollars and the names of a cell to organize in Shula. It was to be an assassination cell.”

Salim met the American intelligence officers in charge of his area. They wanted Hakami too, but Salim’s source did not know the Americans were involved; she thought it was only the Iraqi army. Salim agreed on the plan with her the day before, but he didn’t tell her that U.S. Special Forces in civilian clothes would arrest Hakami. On the day of the meeting in Karada, she would be wearing an abaya and carrying a yellow government file so that she could claim to be going to a ministry. She would meet Hakami at her friend’s house at 7 a.m. She would write a text message but send it only when she saw Hakami.

“The Americans don’t trust anybody, so they came at midnight,” Salim told me. They had a Lebanese translator with them and told Salim to wear civilian clothes. They drove in a black GMC and covered Salim’s eyes with black goggles so he couldn’t see. He was offended, but one of the American intelligence officers said he would wear them too. After driving around for thirty minutes, they took him to a room with two beds and a couch and removed the goggles. American Special Forces men with beards came in. One spoke Arabic. Then Iraqi special forces came in. Salim told them the details. They left him at 3 a.m. and came back with more questions, as well as food and drinks. At 5 a.m. they told him that they could not conduct the operation because they didn’t have enough information. “Special Forces didn’t trust anybody,” he said. “They thought it was an ambush for them.” Salim was frustrated. He asked them if they could at least give him permission to operate in Karada. They told him they would send regular forces and he could sit with them in a Humvee.

At 6 a.m. they blacked out his eyes again and drove him to the checkpoint, where he found the MTT team and an African American lieutenant waiting for him along with four Humvees. They gave Salim an American uniform and a pistol. The interpreter working for the Americans did not speak English well, he recalled. They waited for the woman’s message at the Jadriya JSS. She called at 7 a.m. to say that Hakami had not yet appeared. The convoy of Americans acted like a normal patrol in Karada and stopped in Dalal Square. At 7:20 a.m., the message came: Hakami had arrived.

The Americans came very fast. They arrested Hakami and the woman. The MTT team was very pleased, Salim recalled. “Hakami thought I was an interpreter because I was wearing an American uniform,” Salim said. “He said to me, ‘Please, brother, help me, it’s not me.’ I said, ‘Do you know who I am? I’m Captain Salim.’ He started crying.”

In detention in Washash, Hakami revealed his bases and arms depot. The Americans then took him to Camp Bucca. Hossam al-Awar was never caught, but it was widely rumored that he worked as a bodyguard for a general in the Interior Ministry in Kadhimiya.

“Many people were deceived by the Mahdi Army,” Salim said. “We Iraqis are not well educated. The Mahdi Army manipulated.” Salim insisted that I had to distinguish between the Mahdi Army and the Sadrist Current. “The Current defended Shiites from Al Qaeda,” he said. “The Mahdi Army used bad guys for personal gain. Al Qaeda was the same. They said, ‘We have to protect your area from the Mahdi Army and the Americans,’ and then they turned on the people and harmed the area. But we good people were the victims.”

One hundred and forty Sunni families returned to Washash, he told me. Salim also returned sixty-four Shiite families to Mansour’s Dawudi area, formerly an Al Qaeda stronghold. IDPs took their papers and identification cards to the returnee center in the Harthiya district. When they received a letter approving their return to their house, they gave it to the local unit in charge of the area. The family occupying the house had three days to leave, he told me. “If they don’t leave, they are treated like terrorists,” he said. “They must go back to their house.” Some families had agreed to exchange their houses.