Nir Rosen - Aftermath

“I remember,” Wilhite said, “after a raid, an old man even gave us a big smile and a thumbs-up sign. I felt we were starting to gain momentum because the population of Washash saw us pulling these guys off the streets.” Whenever possible, they also tried to bring the Iraqi army out with them too, though initially “buy-in” was difficult. Then, on the night of September 20, Naji was killed on the streets of Washash and all hell broke loose. Immediately, there were a few retribution killings of Sunnis. Elements of Wilhite’s Red Platoon drove headlong into a firefight while attempting to gather information on what had transpired. The next three days were “days of madness,” he recalls.

The Iraqi army moved three companies into the area and left them there to keep the peace. Those loyal to Naji wanted to kill and provoke every Sunni left in Washash and everyone connected to them. Several Sunni families piled everything they could carry and attempted to leave the first day. “I remember on the third day JAM attempted to intimidate anyone from leaving the area by detonating an IED on a group of males trying to leave the mahala ,” Wilhite said grimly. “For the next eight days, we patrolled Washash heavily until a balance was restored.”

“In the fall of 2007,” he continued, “we continued our strategy of attacking JAM’s network.” His troops did more raids, captured more low-level guys, and started building the wall around Washash. The purpose of the wall was to prevent them from having free access in and out of the mahala without submitting to searches at IA checkpoints. It also served as a physical barrier to contain Mahdi Army movements south into Mahala 615. After they completed building the walls in Mahala 617, they began building in Mahala 615 to measure the effects of the sectarian violence and Shiite expansion into mixed areas. They were also waiting to see who would emerge as the “next Naji.”

The last Black JAM assassination was carried out in early November of that year. “An Iraqi army soldier had actually stopped a kidnapping from occurring and killed one of the midlevel managers of the Washash JAM network,” Wilhite said. “Unfortunately, he was killed in the process. What we were missing was a persistent presence in the area that could remain on the streets.” On the national level, the Awakening movement came to full steam. U.S. forces began recruiting Sons of Iraq in eastern Mansour. “Ultimately,” Wilhite explained, “the constant presence of the Sons of Iraq working with the Iraqi army in Dur Sud and Arabi prevented any more JAM movement into these areas to the south. Additionally, it motivated many families to work with our local neighborhood council members to bring displaced families, Sunni and Shiite, back into the communities.” At that point, the Mahdi Army was effectively contained through physical barriers and the presence of security in the southern mahalas .

Wilhite’s low-intensity campaign against the Mahdi Army operations continued until Muqtada al-Sadr’s “falling out” with the government in late March and early April 2008, when Prime Minister Maliki declared full-scale war on the Mahdi Army. “At this point, things transitioned very rapidly to a kinetic fight, and for a few brief moments all hell broke loose,” Wilhite said. On March 27, the Mahdi Army began attacking symbols of the government of Iraq (like Iraqi army safe houses and checkpoints), and verbally threatened and intimidated workers in several government buildings in the area. Just about every predominantly Shiite community experienced a skirmish of some kind that day. At midday the Third Company safe house was attacked with small-arms fire and three RPGs from inside Washash. Wilhite’s company teamed up with their attached military transition team and the remainder of the Iraqi army to respond. Unlike previous engagements that were short in duration, this one continued even after U.S. forces moved in to support the Iraqi army. “By the end of the day,” Wilhite said, “all four of my platoons, the ‘mitt,’ my sniper assets, and half of the IA battalion had been involved in what turned into a five-hour engagement.” Under orders from his Iraqi army superiors, Wael, the local IA commander, was prevented from entering Washash to root out pockets of resistance. As the Mahdi Army drew short on ammunition and it got dark, the firefight petered out. Similar to the September 2007 operation in which Naji was killed, this one continued with persistent security operations for several days after the fighting subsided, with no new contacts except for when a Mahdi Army sniper killed an IA soldier the first night. It was a turning point—Wael and the Iraqi army wanted the Mahdi Army out of the area for good.

Naji had operated in a very brutal manner, freely using torture and aggressive intimidation tactics to hold on to power. He had used contacts in Kadhimiya, Shula, and Sadr City to assist and support his operations in the first few months of the U.S. presence in the area. For the most part, under Naji, the Mahdi Army operated fairly independently from a “higher headquarters.” There were occasional clashes within the Sadrist community, but outside Washash, no real divisive internal disputes were monitored. By the time Hakami replaced Naji as leader, his power base was not nearly as extensive and his ability to expand to the south was limited.

“Salim never saw Naji’s body, nor did I,” Wilhite said. Word on the street was that he had been killed by rival members of the Ugaidat tribe from another mahala . With everyone fixated on Naji, Wilhite found it strange that Salim had recorded conversations with him on his cellphone. Some questioned whether Salim was actually colluding with JAM, though it became clear, as Wilhite got to know him and his family situation, that he was not. “He walked a thin line in the beginning,” Wilhite said. “He dove pretty far into the deep end to find out critical information. He often got in trouble with his brigade, division, or Ministry of Intelligence for his actions. I have to say, he was keenly aware of second- and third-order effects of what we were doing at the time. I am happy to see he came out fairly unscathed.”

THE CONSTANT HARASSMENT by U.S. forces was putting pressure on the Sadrists, and in early 2008 Baha al-Araji, the Sadrist member of Parliament, privately complained that “we lost our respect on the streets. We can’t stay like this anymore with everybody attacking us.” It was the holy month of Muharram when I spent much of my time with Abul Hassan in the Ur district. During this month Shiites commemorate the singular event in their history, when Hussein, grandson of the Prophet, and his followers were slaughtered by the hated Yazid. Ceremonies culminate on Ashura, the tenth day of Muharram, the anniversary of Hussein’s martyrdom in Karbala. Shiites continue to lament Hussein’s martyrdom and view his battle as a struggle against injustice and tyranny. Ayatollah Khomeini declared the Shah of Iran to be Yazid before the Iranian Revolution and Shiite militiamen declared Israel to be Yazid following its invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Abul Hassan and his followers now agreed that America was even worse than Saddam. He compared Hussein’s battle against Yazid with the Sadrist battle against America. “They rejected what we reject today,” he explained, reminding me of the expression “Every day is Ashura and every land is Karbala.” “In every time there is a Yazid and a Hussein,” he told me, adding that America, Israel, and Great Britain were the new Yazid.

I revisited the Shurufi Mosque after Ashura in February 2008. It was a Friday, and straw mats were placed outside for the overflowing crowds. I saw a pistol partially covered by one man’s prayer carpet. Fans hung down from the ceiling. Hundreds of men strolled in. Many were fit young men in tracksuits, members of the Mahdi Army. As they sat to listen to the sermon, men would periodically stand up and shout a hossa in hoarse voices, to which the audience would respond, “Our God prays for Muhammad and his family!” One man called for freeing the prisoners from American prisons. Another shouted, “Death to spies and the Americans!” Other hossas I heard were: “He sacrificed his life for us, death is an honor for us, arrest is honor for us, resisting the Americans is honor for us!” and “Pray for Sadr, release of all the arrested people, and in a loud voice, death to the Americans and to their agents!” and “Pray in a loud voice, please God, give victory to Sadr’s son and the Mahdi Army!”