Monotheism and Struggle: The Story of Iraqi Insurgency (2003-04)

In the first of a multi-part series, Rob Ashlar surveys the history of Iraqi Insurgency from 1990 to 2004.

Author’s Note: Page numbers in each section refer to their respective chapter of the Study. Where necessary, administrative language has been omitted from quotations to ensure clarity. Content remains unchanged. Unless otherwise stated, all emphases are mine. I encourage readers to read the footnotes since I discuss Islamic State history which could not be addressed in the main body of the piece. I would like to thank Zarp for his helpful suggestions and comments throughout the writing of this piece. Lastly, I recommend listening to Vatican Shadow’s music while reading this piece–it’s the soundtrack of the Terror War.

Introduction

In March 2003, the American-led Coalition invaded Iraq, sending into chaos the country and eventually the entire region. The war killed over one million Iraqis and destroyed the lives of millions more. Its most grotesque product was the Islamic State “Caliphate”, which at one point controlled territory greater in size than the U.K. This organization became world-infamous because of its conquests in Syria during the civil war, but its roots and much of its DNA are in the Iraq War, without which it cannot be understood.

A few years after the invasion, in 2007, the U.S. military wrote an extensive analysis of the insurgency in Anbar Governorate, heart of the Iraqi resistance, and titled it Study of the Insurgency in Anbar Province, Iraq. In 2015, Chapters 2 through 7 of the Study were declassified and released for public use ¹ They remain an obscure reference, cited by only a few scholars in the war studies field. Indeed, the present writer first discovered the Study through the endnotes in Volume 1 of The U.S. Army in the Iraq War (2019). While skimming through the chapters, it became clear that this was something special, but a second opinion was needed. I contacted Craig Whiteside, leading scholar on the Islamic State, and asked him of his thoughts on the Study. He wrote: “It’s the best source I’ve come across. You can read it and understand why there is an ISIS a decade later. Still some limitations but I find myself going back over and over and finding new stuff.”

Whiteside’s review is quite correct. Despite its age and numerous redactions, the available material (570+ pages) is still the single best resource on the Iraqi insurgency, which alongside the Taliban (and now Al-Qassam Brigades), remains one of the most important guerrilla forces since the Vietnamese National Liberation Force. For this reason, Marxists must understand it–doubly so for those of us in the U.S., the country most responsible for Iraq’s misery since 2003. During this series, we will disturbingly learn that Al Qaida in Iraq was the premier fighting force against the Coalition. In 2006, when Al Qaida had taken almost full control of the Sunni insurgency, the U.S. military privately admitted that: “The social and political situation has deteriorated to a point that MNF [Multi-National Forces] and ISF [Iraqi Security Forces] are no longer capable of militarily defeating the insurgency in al-Anbar.”² This troubling discovery raises certain questions. How do we make sense of national liberation struggles led by odious organizations? To what extent and how does the democratic character of these struggles express itself through these organizations? How must Marxists respond during the struggle and prepare for the day after its conclusion? With these in mind, let us begin with the first three declassified chapters of the Study, which take us through the end of 2004.

Iraq and Anbar Between the Wars: Desert Shield to OIF (1990-2003)

Face towards the Tribes

In 1991, the Baathist government experienced rebellions in the Shia and Kurdish regions of Iraq after its military defeat to the Coalition. The government successfully suppressed the revolts, but lost substantial legitimacy with both communities. Shia Arabs increasingly turned to the Islamist Dawa Party, which had supported Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. After 2003, the Dawa would rule Iraq in cooperation with the American government. Meanwhile, Kurds turned to the bourgeois nationalist Peshmerga, co-led by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which have ruled Iraqi Kurdistan since 2003. This left Sunni Arabs as the last major pro-government constituency, whose support for the Baath Party grew in response to the rebellions:

They believed that a Shi’a revolt (with Iranian help) would mean the demise of the Sunni Anbari tribes. Saddam understood these fears well and warned the Iraqi people that if they allowed a revolt to succeed, Iraq would become like Lebanon, split into warring factions where chaos ruled [prescient warning – R. Ashlar].(3)³

The Baathist government leaned into this community to shore up domestic support. This was done through large economic patronage of Sunni Arab Iraq in general and Anbar Governorate in particular:

During the years of the embargo, public servants, army officers and career soldiers received extra food rations, government cars, special shops with luxury goods, plots of lands for home, subsidized loans and even loan forgiveness after the birth of their second or third child. Saddam’s belief in the value of tribal fighters from rural areas was as strong as ever and Anbaris experienced consistent upward social mobility. In fact, the security system was even happy with young men who failed high school studies. Knowing that the private market would not take them, such men were sure to be very grateful and intensely loyal. […] The sanctions also made smuggling even more profitable. The Anbaris’ strong transnational tribal relationships allowed them to cross the borders at will. (6)

Further:

Anbari fortunes followed their success in the Ba’ath party hierarchy. While the number of Anbaris at the very top levels decreased after 1995, they held by far the highest percentage of mid-level positions. Even Tikritis, Baghdadis and Mosulites, who came second, had a far lower representation. This relative success in the party meant that mid-level Anbari party officials could promote their own tribesmen and regional neighbors. A typical senior ex-Ba’athi who escaped from Iraq would say: ‘I joined the party as a part of the tribe. This was done automatically; you didn’t really feel that you had joined the party. The family is sweeping you with it when [as a collective] it becomes Ba’athi.’ (7)

Unsurprisingly, support from Anbar stayed strong throughout the sanctions regime (though ideological loyalty to Saddam and the Baath was weak). Tribal identity, mobilization, and economic privilege would come to have great importance later on during the insurgency and the history of the Islamic State. As we will see, competition over smuggling networks and organized crime would be a key factor in the rise of the Sunni Awakening (or Sahwat) and the misfortunes of the Islamic State of Iraq.⁴ Moreover, mobilization as a tribe would be a theme throughout the post-2003 period.

Further, Baathist patronage of the tribes included three major political concessions: cultural sponsorship of tribal identity; support for tribal military mobilization; and formal integration into the Baath Party apparatus. Saddam Hussein himself began to boost tribal culture by publicizing his visits to tribal regions, meeting with shaykhs, and inviting tribal leaders to the Republican Palace. He even encouraged these leaders to fly their flags and perform war dances and songs, legitimizing tribal identity as an authentic part of Iraqi national identity and culture–a major departure from historical Baathist Pan-Arabism. Further, the government supported the creation of tribal militias by providing training, organization, and light and heavy armaments. Sunni tribes were entrusted to help police the Iraq-Iran border. Indeed, the Baath Party reinstated the tribes as legal entities and went so far as to directly include them into the Party itself:

On December 2, 1992, Saddam made a stunning declaration: “al-Ba’ath ‘ashirat kull al-‘asha’ir” (“the Ba’ath [party is] the tribe of all the tribes”). By this he meant that the ruling party would from then on incorporate the tribes without, however, dissolving them. In other words: rather than a one-to-one relationship between each individual Iraqi and his government, a new system was put in place under which many Iraqis would legitimately be represented by their sheikhs and through their tribal affiliations. This was nothing short of an ideological revolution. (8)

Prior to the 1990s, the Baath Party was deeply suspicious of, if not hostile to, the tribes and worked to dismantle tribal identity and society.⁵ This is a modernist political theme across the spectrum in the Arab World. Islamists, Communists and Pan-Arabists all oppose “assabiya qabliya”–loosely translating to “tribalist pride”–because it represents a competing loyalty. One cannot be simultaneously loyal to one’s tribe and one’s nation, class, and religion. Conjunctural factors may bring these two loyalties together, but structurally they are at odds with one another. Thus, the Baath suppressed tribal identification and loyalties both within the Party and within Iraqi society. For example: “In the 1970s, the Party had forbidden members to mention their tribal or even regional origins. Even Saddam, who usually had the title ‘al-Tikriti’ after his name and sometimes also ‘al-Nasiri,’ deleted both titles.” (7-8) However, with the weakening of the government’s popular support, such measures were repealed to secure a loyal base in Sunni Arabs, as discussed above.

Faith Campaign and Its Consequences

In addition to sponsoring the tribes, the Baathist government reinforced its public support with the 1993 Faith Campaign, during which it loosened secularist restrictions on religion and encouraged Iraqis to become more pious. The Campaign arose from a broader religious awakening among Iraqis in response to the Iran-Iraq War. The government was initially suspicious and attempted to crackdown on this renewed piety, but soon realized the most effective response would be to control it from within. If the Baath Party could not suppress public religiosity, it could wrest it away from potential subversives like the Dawa Party or Salafi Jihadis. Thus, the government closed bars, pubs, and other un-Islamic establishments, built hundreds of new mosques, printed millions of copies of the Quran, and mandated its study in schools. It also recruited many new clerics, increased their salaries, and provided additional religious services. This led to two significant social changes. First, mosques became a major social space in Sunni Iraq in a way they had not been before the Campaign. Second, the clergy’s prestige substantially increased, turning them into local leaders and putting them into competition with tribal shaykhs and Baath officials. Indeed, many Baath members and even mid-level leaders experienced renewed piety. It was only natural, then, that the neo-Baathist JRTN was explicitly Sufi and was led by Saddam’s enforcer, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri.⁶

However, it would be wrong to claim (as many have) that the Faith Campaign represented a turn towards Islamism, allegedly setting the stage for Al Qaida in Iraq and the Islamic State movement. The Baathist government’s newfound toleration of open religious practice did not equate to support for Islamism or Salafism, both of which it viewed with intense suspicion:

Indeed, we found that the Iraqi Baath Party records contain thousands of pages from the 1990s and early 2000s on the regime’s policies toward religious leaders in Iraq. The Baathists were ruthlessly consistent in their attempts to track down and “neutralize” anyone with the slightest hint of Salafist or Islamist sympathies. In fact, throughout the 1990s, the regime kept spreadsheets containing the names of every Islamic leader in every mosque. The party secretariat asked the local branches, which created these spreadsheets, to take special note of adherents to “Salafism, Wahhabism, and the Muslim Brotherhood.” Throughout the 1990s, the regime also fine-tuned the organization of its security services, creating special sections to deal with the Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabis, and various Shiite Islamists.⁷

Iraqi Salafism already existed by the time of the Faith Campaign, during which it continued to agitate underground at a distance from the Baath. The men who later became prominent members of Islamic State–like much of its top leadership–had long been participants of this underground. Indeed: “It was the veteran jihadists–most with experience gained in al-Qaeda’s camps in Afghanistan before 2001– that put together the blueprint for the future Islamic State.”⁸ In contrast, the Faith Campaign’s chief role was to add Islamic ‘flavor’ to the Baath Party’s Arab nationalism, fusing the two.

Even so, the Campaign inadvertently accelerated popular disillusionment with Baathism and degraded ideological support for the regime:

What served as a catalyst in this process was a growing sense, even inside the party, that Ba’ath ideology had lost its relevance. It dawned on people that the Ba’ath were just looking out for themselves. They had no inspiring vision to improve the lot of the Iraqi people. This ideological and intellectual crisis in turn became an emotional one. People need something to believe in and, when they could no longer believe in Ba’ath ideology, the fallback alternative was to return to Islam. Iraq, long regarded as a secular state, was joining much of the Middle East in its movement back to Islam. (11)

As the author of the Study notes: ‘The moment the Ba’ath regime collapsed, and party officials were gone, the clerics became important key leaders.’ (10) To a large extent, the social power of clerics and tribal leaders would fuse during the insurgency.

Fallujah Case Study

Fallujah–the city which later defined the early insurgency–serves as a microcosm of the Baathist government’s reforms during the 1990s. Its social and economic structure and its religious life were representative of Anbar Governorate. This makes the city a good case study for the experiences of Anbar in particular and Sunni Arabs in general. It also helps explain Fallujah’s intense resistance to the Coalition and the ferocity of the insurgent forces in the city after 2003.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Fallujah was a marginal town of less than 5,000 people, but by 2003, its population had increased to roughly 300,000 due to several factors. First, there were extensive government investments in industrialization, public healthcare, education, and agriculture. Fallujah had several major state-owned factories which provided good employment for the population, while diversified and modern agriculture ensured food self-sufficiency for the city. Second, many residents were directly employed by the government through the military, police, intelligence service, and internal security. Third, the city was highly tribal and well-located for cross-border smuggling:

Fallujah was more tribal than most provincial towns. Since much of its population lived in surrounding small villages, everyone had tribal kin. In fact, Fallujah was described as a center for cross-border smuggling in 2003. These tribal connections helped Fallujans prosper during the international embargo, by providing ready-made routes for smuggling goods from neighboring countries. (12)

The tribal countryside would later be a major source of native recruitment and rear base for Al Qaida in Iraq and other insurgent groups. Tribal villages throughout Anbar would be the safe haven for the insurgency. Moreover, Fallujah would become a hotbed for Islamism before 2003 because the Faith Campaign indirectly facilitated Islamist organizing in the already conservative city. Thus: “As a result, the line between tribal and religious duties blurred in Fallujah in the mid-1990s. To some, there was no line separating religion and politics; everything they did was service to God and decreed by the Qur’an.” (13) This had the unintended consequence of emboldening Islamists to operate in a freer environment. For example, militants blew up cinemas and music/video shops. One such militant was Umar Hadid, an electrician who later co-led the defense of Fallujah (discussed at length below).⁹ The government harshly punished such bold stunts and repressed further attempts–Hadid fled from city to city to evade Baathist authorities–but otherwise did not disturb religious agitation since doing so would alienate Fallujans (and Anbaris as a whole), jeopardizing the Baath’s last support base. All of these factors would contribute to Fallujah’s central role early on in the Iraqi insurgency.

Anbar Insurgency: The Seeds are Planted – The Formation and Motivating Factors (2003)

Overview

In March 2003, the Coalition invaded Iraq, and by early April, it had toppled the Baathist government.¹⁰ Over the next few months, the Coalition began its occupation, starting in May with the creation of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). With the failure of conventional warfare, the Iraqi population soon took initiative in defending Iraq from the invaders. The Coalition encountered popular resistance from the beginning, but it was not until the end of the year that this would escalate into a full insurgency. The nine months following the invasion proved crucial in setting the course of the Iraqi insurgency, especially in Anbar Governorate, which soon became central in the conflict.

Pre-War Planning by the Participants

Coalition

The Coalition’s pre-war plans focused on economic and political liberalization, but not formal counter-insurgency, of which the strategy would be developed as the fighting escalated. Liberalization would serve the main war aim, which was to reduce oil prices and weaken OPEC by breaking Iraqi control of its oil reserves. As the International Institute of Strategic Studies observes:

The key American interest in the Persian Gulf remains the free flow of oil and natural gas. It is certainly true that the United States imports less oil from the region now than in the recent past, given the revolution in fracking and therefore in American energy production. But America’s need for Persian Gulf oil has always been modest. It is the Gulf’s role in the global oil market that counts. Disruptions there can substantially reduce world oil production, with price effects that immediately ripple through world markets. Oil producers in Canada, Mexico and even Texas are not going to give American consumers a price break if they can get a better deal in China or Japan. Saudi Arabia and its partners Kuwait and the UAE are still the oil producers that have the spare production capacity that can most easily bring extra oil to the market in times of crisis and cut production to support prices. Thus, the Gulf remains centrally important in the world oil market, despite increased American oil production.¹¹

In an official UK Foreign Office memo, titled “Could or should we break Opec?,” the author notes:

How could we put additional pressure on OPEC?

• A change of regime in Iraq would provide a unique opportunity to encourage greater Iraqi oil production.
• […]
• Encourage OPEC producers to make greater use of investment from private oil companies–production by private firms is likely to be more difficult and expensive for OPEC governments to restrict in order to manipulate prices. The access to foreign capital and expertise can also be presented in the interests of OPEC’s governments […] [Their emphasis]¹²

As it turns out, both options were aggressively pursued in Iraq, much to the opposition of the population. In doing so, the final aim was to ensure that revenues generated from the oil industry were not valorized or used within the Iraqi economy (e.g., for developmentalism), but circulated back into the global economic system. Without active state intervention, capital built in the Third World is typically invested in the First World for any number of reasons. This is best illustrated by the flood of investments in the West from the Gulf monarchies. However, due to these regimes’ privileged relationships with the West, they are still able to retain substantial control over their oil revenues and ensure high living standards for their citizens–but this, of course, is not the case with every oil-producing country. It goes without saying that this system greatly benefits Western economies, which in every sense rely upon cheap fuel. By breaking Iraq’s control of its own oil, major risks to Western economies would be eliminated. Through military force, Iraqi oil would be made to primarily benefit the West (and the First World writ large) rather than the Iraqi population.¹³ The Coalition’s oil plans would be one of the main factors in the development of the insurgency and the broader destruction of Iraq.¹⁴ In Anbar Governorate, it would discover the full extent of Iraqi resistance, which organized itself largely independent of Saddam Hussein.

Baathist Government

There is no evidence to suggest that the Baathist government had developed plans for insurgency or protracted conventional warfare. The government had attempted to prevent the war by diplomatic means–such as inviting U.N. weapons inspectors–but these efforts were to no avail. The U.S. was set on invading and occupying Iraq. However, in light of the 1991 revolts, the Baathist government made three important decisions:

First, in order to protect himself from another Shia or Kurd uprising, Saddam established irregular and paramilitary organizations like the Saddam Fedayeen and the al-Quds Army (or Jaysh Quds). Second, as early as January 2003, the regime began giving large numbers of weapons (including RPGs, anti-aircraft guns, and anti-tank weapons) to loyalist tribal sheikhs to assist in controlling his borders and dissidents. Finally, in early 2003, Saddam decentralized command and control of the Iraqi military by dividing Iraq into four military districts.

Saddam’s intent was to ensure his commanders had the forces, equipment and authority necessary to take immediate action against anti-government uprisings in their sectors. To protect himself against potential uprisings, Saddam was forced to grant local and regional commanders more autonomy than in the past. In doing so, Saddam enabled them to initiate their own pre-planning for guerrilla and terrorist operations without central direction from Baghdad. (2-3)

The first gave parts of the population paramilitary and militia experience. The second gave them the weapons with which they would later fight the invaders. The third gave commanders the ability to autonomously organize and act. All of these factors would greatly contribute to the organization of the post-2003 insurgency. Further, certain sectors of the government made their own post-invasion preparations, independent of Saddam and the Baath party:

These plans called for the IIS [Iraqi Intelligence Service] to operate as a clandestine organization, take over Sunni mosques under an Islamist façade, preserve arms caches and accumulate weaponry, assassinate members of the returning Iraqi émigré population who might be able to identify them, and infiltrate any new political parties and NGOs to sabotage these institutions from within. While these plans were only known to senior IIS officers, they helped to form the framework for many FRE [Former Regime Element] and FRL [Former Regime Loyalist] groups to organize in the early stages of the insurgency. (3)

It is worth noting that after the capture of Saddam in December 2003, FRE and FRL insurgent groups would be increasingly subsumed by the Islamists, who soon took the helm. Al Qaida (AQ) in Iraq eventually became the main Islamist militia and the leader of the insurgency. This was no surprise since the Islamists were the most prepared for guerrilla warfare.

Islamist Militants

In 2001, the Taliban’s defeat forced many Afghanistan-based Salafi Jihadis to flee, of whom most traveled through Iran into Iraq, where they began organizing. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi–whom we will come to know quite well–was among these Jihadi “refugees.” He and other AQ associates–such as Abu Ayyub al-Masri,¹⁵ Abu Muhammad al-Lubnani, and Luai Saqa–based themselves in Kurdistan to cooperate with the Kurdish Islamist group, Ansar al-Islam. The Coalition’s no-fly zone over the Iraqi North–in which most Islamist activity took place–prevented the Baathist government from taking action against these groups. This would have great consequences after the fall of the Baath. From the beginning, AQ Central Leadership took keen interest in the events in Iraq: “Senior Al Qaeda leaders including ‘Usama bin Ladin and Sayf al-‘Adl called on Iraqis to resist the Coalition, with al-‘Adl even going as far as to write a military manual for Islamists fighting in Iraq which included Al Qaeda’s “lessons learned” from Operation ENDURING FREEDOM in Afghanistan.” (4)¹⁶

War Comes to Anbar

Save for skirmishes in al-Qaim and the K3 Pumping Station, the invasion of Anbar was relatively bloodless and the region was largely secured by late April. Coalition forces were deployed to major cities such as Fallujah, Ramadi, and Haditha, which left peripheral settlements like Hit unattended. Indeed, Hit and its neighboring communities were spared the kind of assault inflicted upon Baghdad. Basic infrastructure remained intact, but necessities–like cooking oil, gasoline, and other goods–stopped coming in from the central government. This embittered the population, about which the Coalition either did not care or did not know. The settlement, like many in Anbar, was left to its own devices well into May–that is, while the insurgency was first taking shape.

A Marine’s Travelogue

What would a Marine observe in the streets, shops, and mosques of a typical Anbari city following the collapse of government authority in early April 2003? What lessons could he draw from his observations, and how might the sights and sounds of that time inform his understanding of the events that followed? (8)

He would first note that the region’s agricultural sector was in severe economic distress. Before 1991, “about 20% of Anbaris made their living from agriculture, mainly growing dates, wheat and barley, and raising livestock such as sheep, camels, goats, and cattle.” Indeed, “collectivized agriculture around the provincial capital of Ramadi constituted one of the province’s main sustainable employers.” (8) However, after 1991, with the onset of the sanctions regime, the UN Oil-for-Food Program became the primary means by which most Iraqis, including in Anbar, received their staple foodstuffs. Although this program was vital to mitigating the brutal effects of the embargo, it “devastated the market for agricultural products in Anbar and thus the Anbar agricultural system.” (8) It is no surprise that the countryside became a major source of insurgent fighters and the main rear base of insurgent militias.

The Marine would also note that the region’s key industries and oil infrastructure had largely come to a halt, leaving most of the population unemployed. These sectors of the economy were state-owned, meaning that with the fall of Baghdad came the end of funding. Cement factories, construction firms, hydroelectric dams, oil pumping stations, and other enterprises laid off workers, and cut or withheld wages from those still employed. Critical amenities such as healthcare, education, law and order, water treatment, etc. effectively collapsed, while key goods such as fuel became inaccessible to the population.

The situation for ordinary Anbaris was, however, grim. Unemployment in Fallujah reached as high as 80%, and in Ramadi between 40-60%. In the spring of 2003, a typical Anbari breadwinner could find food, but not cook it; find a hospital, but not receive medical treatment; and if lucky enough to find work or retain an old job, not be paid. The disintegration of Anbar’s infrastructure and command economy, including the officially sanctioned oil convoys, left Anbaris two employers: the farm and the black market. (10)

Thus:

Our Marines would see convoys of trucks headed toward the Syrian border. Under Hussein, many Anbaris found employment trucking oil and refined petroleum from Iraq to Syria. The oil and oil products trucking system continued to function until 2003 and was used as a means through which Iraqis illegally sold oil through Syria. Other Anbaris found illicit employment smuggling oil and other goods into Syria and Jordan, a vocation perceived as entirely legitimate by Anbari merchants, tribal leaders, and other elites who profited from the trade. (9)

The economic and political importance of these smuggling networks would only increase as the war progressed. They would be among the chief means by which AQ in Iraq became near-hegemonic in Anbari society and the Sunni insurgency. Likewise, restoring control over the networks would be the main motivation for tribes to join the pro-Coalition Awakening movement in the latter half of the war. Further, after the invasion, religion became even more central to Anbari social life:

If the Marine spent a day or more in a post-Ba’athist Anbari city, he would observe high traffic at the local mosques, and probably conclude these places of worship were the strongest remaining centers of authority in the chaotic scene before him. Indeed, after April 2003, mosques and other religious establishments assumed even greater significance in the life of ordinary Anbaris. The fall of Saddam released religious as well as political controls. Islamist and jihadist preachers could, for the first time, spread their ideas freely in the mosques, away from the eyes of our American Marine. To the outside observer, it might seem as if all were quiet, but within the mosques radical opinions about the Americans, the Coalition and the need for resistance were already being spread. (10)

In short, “Widespread unemployment, lawlessness, and criminality would gradually undermine the goodwill toward Coalition forces created by the ouster of Saddam Hussein, and fuel a budding insurgency.” (11)

Insurgency Begins to Form (April – May)

In April and May 2003, the insurgency was in its early organizational phase. It was mostly a local phenomenon characterized by individual resistance that looked like isolated acts of violence. At the same time, recruitment and organizational activity was occurring as insurgents formed groups. The budding insurgent groups were overwhelmingly FREs and FRLs, motivated by nationalist sentiment, by personal grievances, by resentment over the loss of Sunni power, and by the terrible economic conditions in Anbar. […] FRE and FRL insurgents were quietly taking advantage of the perceived grievances of ordinary Anbaris to build organizations capable of executing attacks throughout the province. (18-19)

Three factors turned popular resentment into active resistance: Coalition blunders, de-Baathification, and Islamist political mobilization.

First, in forming the new administration, the Coalition represented sects and ethnicities according to their real demographics. This slighted Sunni Arabs who disliked the loss of their former power. Likewise, the Coalition’s heavy-handed attempts at stabilizing local governance were (correctly) seen as undemocratic impositions. Similarly, its poor responses to a number of (usually avoidable) problems enraged the population. On April 11, 2003, an American airstrike killed a major tribal leader and his family–who, in fact, were sympathetic to the Coalition–which incited his clan and tribal confederation to take arms and cooperate with other insurgents.

It is worth noting that in discussing Sunni responses to the new Coalition-installed administration, the author of the Study makes an uncharacteristic error. He claims that Sunni Arabs “thought, after all, that they were the majority of the Iraqi population and the true representatives of Iraqi nationalism, while the Shi’a were more Iranian than Iraqi.” (12) Here, the author projects his own views–representative of American perceptions of Iraqi society–onto Sunni Iraqis. Although Anbaris and other Sunni Arabs held latently chauvinist views, this kind of sectarian thought would neither emerge until well into the insurgency nor become hegemonic until after the formal end of the war. The Coalition discovered the extent of popular, cross-sect Iraqi nationalism with its failure to push through the Oil Law, which would have legalized private oil exploration and drilling.¹⁷ By the early 2010s, this unity had collapsed.

Second, de-Baathification rendered hundreds of thousands of soldiers unemployed and without benefits. Most were enraged, and as they returned home, they began to put their military experience to use: “These trained men would bring to the developing insurgency skills in interrogation, bomb making, and intelligence gathering—as well as irregular tactics and operational planning. Even more important, they maintained their professional connections which created a network spanning the province.” (15)

Third, Islamist organizations–ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood to AQ–began to mobilize their members, agitate among the population, and collaborate with other insurgent forces. The most moderate of these organizations was the Muslim Brotherhood, officially the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), which “quickly grew from an underground organization to a legitimate Islamist party, to the point where it could maintain 2,500 party activists in Fallujah and 2,000 in Ramadi by the summer of 2003.” (16) However, the IIP was internally split between pro-Coalition and anti-Coalition wings, the latter of which soon began to collaborate with AQ and FREs to attack Coalition forces. This also put them in the orbit of the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS) which was resolutely anti-Coalition: “This all-Sunni religio-political organization claimed to represent the legitimate voice of the Sunni community. They seized control of Sunni mosques, appointed mosque preachers, and took over the Ministry of Awqaf. Anti-Coalition in outlook, AMS received the support of many local SRE [Sunni Religious Extremist] and FRE groups opposed both to the Coalition and the rise of the Saudi-supported Wahhabis’ influence.” (16)

Last was AQ itself, which was quite weak and overshadowed by all other militants. They ‘had only an extremely small network inside Iraq during this time and focused primarily on recruiting, propaganda, and indoctrination.’ (18) A camp was reportedly established in Anah to train new Iraqi recruits and foreign fighters crossing in from Syria.¹⁸ This portended the later waves of foreign fighters, as documented in the Sinjar Records.¹⁹

Insurgency Takes Root (May – August)

Through the summer of 2003, the insurgency surfaced as FREs and FRLs began to more actively mobilize and openly resist the Coalition:

In keeping with historical norms, FRE organizations formed along social, tribal, and former regime status lines. In numerous cases former officers contacted as many individuals as possible from their old units or tribes to ask if they would be willing to reenlist with them to fight the Coalition. In other cases, former Iraqi military and intelligence officials used religious rhetoric that they themselves did not agree with as a means of motivating local Islamists to fight for them. (19)

There was a curious development in the early insurgency: growing distance between FREs and FRLs, and growing affinity between FREs and Islamists. Although FREs were quite willing to use FRL resources, assistance, and propaganda, they had little interest in a restoration of the Baathist regime or in obeying their one-time comrades. In contrast, FREs closely collaborated with Islamists–with whom they once clashed–due to the Islamists’ often better organization and funding alongside sincere ideological affinity. “In retrospect, this is not surprising as many low-ranking FREs had grown up under the influence of Saddam Hussein’s mid-1990s Faith Campaign.” (20) To some extent, one could call the Sunni religious nationalist groups “Faith Campaign Baathists” (not to be taken too literally).²⁰

In the first few years of the war, little evidence existed on if or how the insurgents had developed a concrete strategy–with the notable exception of Zarqawi and his associates. In January 2004, he wrote a letter to AQ Central Leadership, detailing his view of the best strategy in Iraq.²¹ The Coalition intercepted this letter and published it in February. Alongside interrogation reports, it created an outline of Zarqawi’s strategy:

• Inflame existing sectarian tension
• Force the West to lose political will to wage war, and eventually leave
• Reverse Shi’a domination
• Bring the jihad to regional “apostate” regimes in the Arab Middle East, and then spread the global jihad. (20)

This (or at least, a strong attempt at it) is precisely what happened over the next decade. In other words, the seeds for the Islamic State were planted in the ground set by the Coalition.

Insurgent Groups

At this stage, in decreasing order of importance, the four major insurgent group ‘types’ were FREs, FRLs, Iraqi SREs, and AQ.

FREs: 

During this time period, the vast majority of insurgent groups appear to belong to local FRE organizations, which had relatively few members and relied on local or tribal support and access to nearby weapons caches. […]

A major focus of FRE organizations early on was identifying and retrieving Iraqi weapons caches and recruiting former members of IIS’s [Iraqi Intelligence Service] M-14 and M-16, both of which had specialized units skilled in creation of explosive devices. While a majority of the early improvised explosive device (IED) attacks in Anbar appear to have been the work of unskilled amateurs, as 2003 progressed, the IEDs became far more sophisticated as a result of insurgent groups successfully recruiting trained individuals who had been members of these IIS directorates. (21, 23)

FRLs:

The other major insurgent groups in Anbar were composed of FRLs. In contrast to the FRE insurgents that frequently rebuffed Saddam’s efforts to control them, FRL organizations enjoyed close relationships with Saddam and his inner circle and sought nothing less than the restoration of his regime. The leaders of FRL groups were often former high-ranking military officers, Ba’ath party officials or even members of Saddam’s family who had a personal loyalty that outweighed (at least during 2003) religious, tribal or ethnic partisanship. […]

Saddam, meanwhile, was unable to take an active role in the insurgency, though his name was often invoked to coerce behavior by the population. He attempted to influence events by issuing periodic audiotapes exhorting Iraqis to take up arms against the Coalition and by sending letters via couriers to trusted subordinates ordering them to take certain actions, but his primary role in the insurgency was financial. His knowledge of those individuals entrusted with the care of Iraqi funds stored in Syria, Lebanon, and the UAE, combined with the infamous reputation he made for himself as dictator of Iraq, made him invaluable as a symbol to those elements of the insurgency that sought to restore the former regime. (23, 26)

Iraqi SREs:

In addition to the IIP extremists [i.e. anti-Coalition militants – R. Ashlar], smaller groups of isolated SREs also existed throughout Anbar. Those IIP splinter groups which disagreed with that organization’s political engagement with the Coalition began purchasing weapons, looting arms caches, and recruiting former al-Quds Army members into clandestine cells in Fallujah, Ramadi, Balad, and Samarra to carry out attacks against Coalition forces. Often allied with local FRE organizations and supported financially by Islamist groups in [REDACTED],²² these early SRE organizations would form and then collapse or be reabsorbed into either the IIP or existing FRE organizations following the capture of their leaders. (26)

AQ:

Compared to FRE groups already mentioned, Al Qaeda, Ansar al-Islam (AI), and Zarqawi’s Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l Jihad (JTJ. In English: Group of Monotheism and Struggle) were far less active during this time period. Zarqawi spent much of the summer of 2003 organizing for future warfare and traveling to neighboring states (Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon) to link up with the facilitators and financiers of his JTJ organization. […]

According to Zarqawi’s January 2004 letter to the Al Qaeda leadership, the Al Qaeda groups active inside Iraq throughout 2003 were still extremely weak and believed that claiming responsibility for specific terrorist attacks inside Iraq would draw attention to them and jeopardize their security situation. (28, 29).

Insurgency Consolidates (August – November)

Through the fall of 2003, the insurgency noticeably escalated as groups began to consolidate and more actively attack the Coalition and Iraqi infrastructure. FRL forces merged into fewer but larger organizations which maintained a steady pace of attacks and attempted to take leadership of the insurgency. The latter effort failed:

As noted previously, many Anbaris were wary of Saddam Hussein during his rule of Iraq and thus regarded his attempt at consolidation of FRL insurgent organizations with disdain. While FRE and SRE organizations continue to cooperate tactically with FRLs, they made it quite clear they would not subordinate themselves to Saddam. In one such case, Saddam attempted to reach out to AMS leader Harith al-Dhari, only to be told that al-Dhari had grown powerful enough that he did not need Saddam or his support. The threat of Saddam’s power and the consequences of defying him were no longer able to motivate insurgent commanders. New leaders had moved into the power vacuum and saw little need for Saddam or his money. (34)

In other words, the insurgents were fighting not for the Baath Party but for Iraq:

During this period, FRE and FRL propaganda framed the conflict within both a nationalist and a jihadist context. The Coalition was portrayed as an infidel power that occupied Iraq with various nefarious motives, such as neo-colonialism or as part of a conspiracy to destroy Islam. The average Iraqi saw the CPA announcement that the U.S. was an occupier as explicitly comparable to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. Further, they saw a parallel between those Iraqis who supported the Coalition and those nations that supported Israel, thereby legitimizing their murder under either a political or a religious rationale. (35)

The scale, severity, and type of attacks escalated because insurgents (correctly) believed that these attacks could be conducted without major popular backlash. In addition to the Coalition, militants began striking critical Anbar infrastructure (e.g. railways, electrical grids, oil pipelines, etc.) and police, who had been deputized as the main local counter-insurgent force. In a sign of things to come:

The police were under siege throughout the province. Various insurgent groups apparently concluded that only the defeat of the police would allow them to succeed. The situation was worst in al-Qa’im and Husaybah. As we have seen, the police chiefs in al-Qa’im were repeatedly attacked or intimidated into quitting and the entire police force was also threatened. Twenty armed men entered the al-Qa’im station on October 16 and told the officers that they would be killed if they continued to work with the Coalition. The police station at Husaybah was also repeatedly attacked by insurgents during October, culminating in nine separate attacks during the last week of the month and the assassination of the police chief. On November 6, insurgents launched a coordinated attack against municipal buildings in Rutbah,, including the police station, while also engaging responding units. In Hadithah there were two spectacular attacks on the police station in November: The first involved insurgents boldly entering the station and seizing weapons from the hands of the police, while in the second, dozens of insurgents gathered along the main road on November 12 and carried out an attack on the beleaguered city police station using RPGs. (38)

Such attacks would become routine by 2006, but they were not without controversy in the early years. Most of the nationalist-oriented groups opposed attacking Iraqi troops and police, whom they viewed as fellow (albeit misguided) countrymen. As cooperation between Coalition and Iraqi forces increased, the line between “misguided countrymen” and “traitorous collaborator” blurred in the eyes of many militants, especially as AQ came to dominate the insurgency. This process closely corresponded to the sectarianization of the conflict as well.

Looming in the background of all this escalation was AQ, which grew in prominence but remained comparatively inactive. In July, Zarqawi had returned to Iraq, and in August, JTJ had conducted several major terrorist attacks. By year-end, JTJ had conducted 25 suicide attacks, but all were unclaimed since the organization was too weak to afford the attention. The emergence of the foreign-fighter dominated, hardline JTJ “was reflected in an early September statement by IIP leader al-Kubaysi that attacks on Coalition forces were being coordinated by ‘outsiders.’” (34) Unsurprisingly, cooperation between AQ-linked groups, Iraqi SREs, FREs, and FRLs substantially grew–as did cooperation between insurgents and the criminal underworld.

Through the fall of 2003, organized crime (specifically smuggling) and the insurgency began to merge. To a large extent, this merger was ‘pre-done’ since many insurgents had mobilized with their tribes and clans, which already controlled substantial smuggling networks, beginning in the early 1990s. The Baathist government heavily backed these efforts as the primary means to break the sanctions regime. This was the key motivation behind the promotion of tribal identity and religious orders during the Faith Campaign. With the overthrow of the Baath Party, it was only natural that militants would exert even greater control as the conflict spiraled. Thus:

As Coalition forces attempted to create a system of order and economic stability, those who had profited from crime and patronage frequently made common cause with insurgents. This dynamic of criminal elements allying with insurgents–or insurgents acting as profit-driven criminals–became a constant problem for the Coalition. It was particularly serious in the border towns such as Husaybah and Al-Qa’im, where unregulated cross-border trade had long been a way of life. (43)²³

The author is not entirely honest in this description since he does not mention the content of smuggling. The vast majority of smuggled goods were items like medicines, medical equipment, basic consumer products (e.g. spoons), certain foodstuffs, etc. The black market played a key role in stabilizing the pre-war Anbar economy. That said, the merger between militants and smugglers would later expand to the entire insurgency.

Collapse of FRLs and Its Effects

By late 2003, all FRL groups had come under Saddam’s ultimate control, which made them extremely vulnerable to his eventual capture. Baathist influence continued to degrade in Anbar, doubly so during Saddam’s return to hiding. This provided an opportunity for AQ-linked groups, who began to recruit in local mosques, agitate among the population, and ally with other insurgent forces. “While the vast majority of insurgents fighting the Coalition in Anbar, even those described as ‘Wahhabi,’ did not agree with Al Qaeda’s political or religious views, insurgent leaders […] were able to persuade enough FREs and SREs to support them that by November 2003 JTJ had a viable organization in Anbar.” (46) Saddam’s capture by the Coalition on December 13 splintered FRL forces and incited infighting over control. While some of these groups succeeded, they all lost leadership of and considerable influence in the broader insurgency. The Islamists soon took their place, and religious nationalism became the main ideology of the insurgents–this set the stage for JTJ/AQ’s debut in 2004.

The Insurgency Grows and Fights Pitched Battles (2004)

Insurgent Profile

Before turning to the insurgency in 2004, let us profile the average insurgent of that year:

In 2004, the typical street-level insurgent captured in Anbar was an Iraqi male about 28 years old, was more likely to be married than to be unmarried, and was educated at a high-school level or less. Most captured detainees were associated with tribes and also had some military experience. These conclusions are based on an analysis of more than 4,300 tactical interrogation reports gathered from intelligence sources. (56)

Further, most of the fighters were working-class and a non-insignificant amount were employed by the police or security forces, in which they likely acted as infiltrators. The latter phenomenon would worsen as the war progressed. In other words, the insurgency was proletarian at the grassroots and most of the leadership. Regarding tribal backgrounds:

The tribe with the most captured members in 2004 was the Fahad tribe. The most captures of Fahad happened in April, coincident with Fallujah I [First Battle], and in the latter part of the year. In November 2004, coincident with Fallujah II [Second Battle], the Albu Alwan and Albu Khalifah tribes were most captured, while there was a significant dip in Fahad captures from 75 in October to 9 in November. Though these were the most frequent tribes claimed, there were many tribes well-represented, as only 52% of the detainees associated themselves with one of the top 20 tribes. (57)

Indeed, Fallujah and Ramadi represented well over half of the insurgents, followed by Habbaniyah, al-Qaim, and even Baghdad. This reflected the severity of violence and insurgent influence in those cities, which would worsen with each passing year, but let us return to the insurgency where we left it.

All Quiet in Anbar: Insurgent Reorientation

Owing to the capture of Saddam Hussein, by early 2004, Baathist restorationism had lost all influence in the insurgency. The secular nationalist phase had come to an end. As a result, almost all FRL fighters and leaders joined the FRE, SRE, and even AQ-affiliate groups. This was part of the broader ‘Islamization’ of the insurgency, which accelerated as AQ took leadership, beginning in late 2004. However, in early 2004, Anbar Governorate saw relatively little anti-Coalition activity as the insurgent groups, particularly SREs, focused on reorganizing and consolidating. The “Islamic Army of Iraq, Ansar al-Sunna, and JTJ all put out propaganda (leaflets and internet statements in particular), recruited heavily, and took over mosques in preparation for launching an insurgent campaign against the Coalition.” (3) Of these three groups, JTJ was the most active and prominent, regularly staging and claiming attacks, in contrast to 2003, when it maintained secrecy. Its targets were Coalition forces, Iraqi security forces, and Iraqi Shia:

Relatively little of this terror campaign, however, took place within Anbar proper. There were several reasons for this. First, insurgent groups typically avoid carrying out mass casualty attacks near their primary recruiting grounds and centers of support. While Zarqawi and other insurgents had few reservations about killing perceived collaborators, they didn’t target Sunnis in the way they did Shi’a or Kurdish populations. Second, JTJ was still building local alliances. These alliances – with other SRE and FRE insurgent groups and with anti-Coalition elements within powerful Anbari tribes such as the Mohamdi, the Albu Nimr, the Zobai and the Albu Eissa – might have been jeopardized by conducting mass casualty attacks in the province. Third, Zarqawi was interested in starting a civil war between Sunni and Shia and needed the support of the Sunnis. (4)

However:

Despite JTJ’s public debut, the majority of day-to-day attacks inside Anbar continued to be conducted by local and provincial FRE or SRE organizations (though the line between FRE and SRE became increasingly blurred as a result of Islamization). Infighting and rivalries initially hindered FRLs or FREs coordination of activities. Religious organizations stepped into the void and began facilitating cooperation by creating loose but not well-organized coalitions between the various insurgent groups. This cooperation enabled a great deal of permeability between insurgent groups, with members of one organization often blending or merging into another depending on the situation. (5)

This permeability was a key catalyst in the broader Islamization and radicalization of the insurgency. Fighters frequently fought for several groups, depending on which one(s) was present for a particular skirmish or battle, or held influence in a particular settlement. An individual fighter may work with the 1920 Revolution Brigades, the IAI, JRTN, and JTJ without holding fixed membership in any one group. He would be influenced by all of them and would bring this influence to other insurgents and sympathizers. Eventually, this process formed an eclectic insurgent ideology–loosely, Salafi Arab nationalism–representing the various groups for which the fighter had fought. As the more ideological groups (such as JTJ) grew, so too did their influence over the overall recruiting pool, on members of other militias, and on the general ideology of the insurgency. In part, this explains the control which AQ in Iraq eventually exerted over other groups. They shared the same fighters–who were often more loyal to AQ than to their rivals. We will examine this in further detail in subsequent parts of this series.

Several loose coalitions formed to facilitate such porosity in the insurgency. One key coalition was the Ramadi Shura Council (RSC), which coordinated insurgent activities in Ramadi and in Anbar writ large: “Similar informal and formal shuras soon appeared in other major cities in Anbar. Though not tightly hierarchical, these shuras remained, in principle at least, subordinate to the Ramadi Shura Council and later the Fallujah Mujahideen Shura.” (5) However, in early 2004, there were not many insurgent activities to actually subordinate to the Shura. Ramadi and Fallujah had the largest insurgent presence, but other cities were relatively quiet–al-Qaim saw fewer than ten attacks on Coalition forces from January to March. The RSC primarily reflected its titular city, which saw over 150 anti-Coalition attacks in the aforementioned three-month period. There were even more attacks in Fallujah, portending the two major battles later that year.

In the background, JTJ began to merge with AQ itself and with local Iraqi groups. At the time of the Study, few details on the former process were available, so the author’s discussion is limited. Due to the Usama bin Ladin raid, we now possess the Abbotabad Letters, which provide the missing details on JTJ’s merger with AQ. The present writer refers the reader to Kévin Jackson’s analysis, which is the latest work on the subject.²⁴ In brief, both parties were eager to join together. For JTJ, it gave access to AQ’s global networks and resources, while for AQ, it established a presence in Iraq, a major arena for jihadi efforts. In addition to bin Ladin and Zawahiri, Abu al-Faraj al-Libi was the key figure in (micro)managing the merger, which was formalized in June 2004, four months before it was publicly revealed. The central leadership’s eagerness in the merger is partially explained by “the difficult security environment faced by al-Qa‘ida in Pakistan [which] pushed the organization to eye Iraq as an alternative terrain for its operations” (Jackson, ‘Part 1’). Back in Iraq:

While negotiations with Al Qaeda leadership were taking place, JTJ expanded its activities in Fallujah and Ramadi. Although often characterized as foreign terrorists, by 2004, JTJ had recruited enough Iraqi members that they now represented a majority of the organization’s rank-and-file members. While foreign fighters constituted most of JJ’s leadership, Iraqi jihadis also held senior positions within the organization. In addition to Thamir Mubarak Atronz (mentioned in Chapter 3), by early 2004 Umar Husayn Hadid al-Khurayawi al-Mahamdi (Umar Hadid) had become one of Zarqawi’s most trusted lieutenants and facilitators in the Fallujah area.²⁵ This allowed Zarqawi to recruit Iraqis into his organization by exploiting mosque connections, family ties, and tribal rifts (in addition to his ruthless command style and robust international support). (12)

JTJ also formed the Secret Islamic Army, led by Abu Muhammad al-Adnani (Syrian foreign fighter and future spokesman of the Islamic State),²⁶ which “acted as an umbrella organization to facilitate cooperation” with Salafi Jihad, a militia with an estimated 3,000 fighters in several governorates and funding from across the Arab world. (13) Concurrent to the Islamization of the insurgency was its Salafization. Although unrelated to JTJ, this process created a favorable ideological environment for them. Insurgent groups, such as Jaysh Muhammad, independently came under the influence of a Salafi Jihadi worldview. Salafization expressed itself in six forms:

1. Implementation of shari’a, especially the hadd punishments;²⁷
2. Inclusion of clergy in insurgent leadership and decision-making (through the issuing of fatwas that the groups saw as binding);
3. New emphasis on creating an Islamic state (the Caliphate);
4. Establishment of a shura council;
5. Creation of committees to promote virtue and prevent vice;²⁸
6. Belief in a Jewish-led American global conspiracy against Islam and the need to defeat it in Iraq through jihad. (15-16)

These were most common in insurgent hotbeds like Ramadi and Fallujah. However, this did not mean that the insurgency adopted AQ’s ideology–groups which did, such as Saraya al-Jihad, were in the minority:

Insurgents came to view their activities from an Islamist (rather than nationalist) perspective. They saw supporters of the Coalition as apostates instead of collaborators. They viewed the Shi’a as heretics. And, they believed the Coalition’s actions occurred within the context of a global conspiracy against Islam. However, in an overwhelming majority of cases, this did not translate into support for Al Qaeda or its tactics (particularly the use of suicide bombers) or Zarqawi’s strategy to trigger sectarian war and eradicate the Shi’a. Even within Al Qaeda, Zarqawi was regarded as an extremist and sectarian. This became an issue of contention and negotiation between Zarqawi and the Al Qaeda leadership when he sought to serve as their representative in Iraq. (16)

The line between nationalist and Islamist worldviews was not as clear as the author suggests. Insurgents viewed Shia as heretics because they supported the Coalition (vice versa), while supporters of the Coalition were collaborators because they were apostates (vice versa). The absence of AQ-aligned extremist views can be best seen in the aforementioned RSC. One of its major backers and financiers was Abd al-Latif Humayim al-Kharbit who “was a deeply religious Sufi with a moderate view of shari’a. He sought to restore Sunni power in Iraq and saw himself as a defender of the Qur’an.” (5) Even the Salafi, a man called “Daham” (the author does not reveal his full name), was personally quite moderate. This non-Salafi Jihadi influence would not last for long. Its zenith would be the Battles of Fallujah, where Sunni and Shia forces united to repel the Coalition.

First Battle of Fallujah

Prelude

As alluded to above, Fallujah was one of the few cities in Anbar experiencing significant violence, with regular attacks on and skirmishes with Coalition forces.

The surge in violence reached a tipping point on March 31, 2004. Albu Eissa tribesmen from Islamic Army of Iraq murdered four American Blackwater contractors. International TV (with sources among the insurgents) broadcast video images of their bodies being burnt and mutilated. As noted in Chapter 3, following the detention of Sheikh Barakat Albu Eissa in September 2003, his followers had threatened to target Coalition contractors in Fallujah. This attack made good on that threat. In response to the attack, the Coalition initiated Operation VIGILANT RESOLVE. The operation’s mission was to deny the insurgency a sanctuary in Fallujah and apprehend those responsible for the murder of American civilians [sic]. (18)

As alluded to above, tribal dynamics were central to insurgent activities and mobilization. The detention of a tribal shaykh was avenged by an attack by fighters who had likely first mobilized as tribesmen before formally joining the IAI. The overlap between tribes and insurgent groups would be a defining trait of the insurgency. Note also the author’s odd label for the Blackwater agents, “civilians.” Blackwater is a private military contractor, whose employees typically have military training and carry firearms, making them combatants. The company would later become infamous for its role in the Nisour Square Massacre, in which Blackwater contractors murdered 17 Iraqi civilians. In this regard (and many others), Blackwater is a typical American defense contractor, not unlike DynCorp, but this is a subject for another time.

Battle

In preparation for the attack on Fallujah, formally begun on April 4, the Coalition isolated the city and assembled substantial forces. First, Marines “set up a traffic control cordon around Fallujah to isolate the city’s insurgent forces and prevent their escape. While food and medical supplies were allowed into the city, only women, children, and old men were allowed to leave.” Meanwhile, separate “Coalition units conducted operations in Ramadi, Khalidiyah, Karmah, and northern Babil to prevent outside insurgent groups from aiding Fallujah.” (20) Next, 2,000 Coalition troops and another 2,000 Iraqi soldiers and police–supported by tanks, assault vehicles, artillery, and armed aircraft (like AC-130s)–began their assault. Significant portions of the Iraqi forces deserted, forcing Marine units to reposition to maintain the cordon. The first two days showed success, but the Coalition soon encountered major insurgent resistance:

The Coalition faced groups spanning the full range of the insurgency, from Al Qaeda to SRE, FRE, and FRL organizations. The ease with which these groups were able to operate in Fallujah was due to cooperation with local tribesmen. Tribesmen were generally anti-Coalition in outlook and supportive of the insurgency, though they preferred that violence not affect their own territory. (19)

Within the city, there were three major insurgent networks–two FRE, one SRE (close to JTJ)–which together formed an impressive but not well organized defending force.

Fallujah lacked a city-wide organization, but its diverse array of insurgents were led by Sheikh Abdullah al-Janabi, backed by the IAI, JTJ, and former Republican Guard forces. Under Janabi, the most prominent commanders were JTJ’s Umar Hadid, who led the group’s Iraqi fighters, and allegedly Zarqawi himself, who led the foreign fighters and “personally oversaw the defense of 5-10% of the city”. Islamic State media later revealed that Zarqawi was absent from Fallujah, but his close lieutenant Abu Anas al-Shami (early core member of JTJ) was present and likely led the foreign fighters.²⁹(21) Among the foreigners, there were apparently 75 Hamas members, who formed the Sheikh Ahmed Yassin Brigade, and 10 PFLP-GC members, who served as advisors to the larger insurgent groups. In total, there were up to 1,000 insurgent fighters, with substantial armaments and training:

They possessed small arms, RPGs, machine guns, IEDs, and mortars. Operating in small teams and conducting hit-and-run attacks, insurgents moved from building to building as they fell back on pre-positioned weapon and supply caches. In addition, insurgents had hardened certain areas of the city with barriers, dug-in positions and traps designed to kill Coalition forces as they advanced. (20)

By this point, insurgent IEDs had increased in complexity–having progressed from simple mines to remote-controlled explosives–and would become even more sophisticated as the war dragged on. Although weakly organized, the insurgents put up significant fight:

There was no city-wide central command responsible for coordinating the activities of Fallujah’s fighters. While an organization akin to the later Fallujah Mujahideen Shura existed, it was still informal and ill-defined. A limited amount of operational planning – such as assigning defensive zones to major groups, setting up observation posts, and pre-registering mortars – took place. Once the fighting began, command and control became chaotic and decentralized with many insurgent cells acting autonomously.

Yet it would be false to claim that no command and control existed. Some cells had a clear chain of command, issued written orders, set up observation points, and used organized scouts on motorcycles. Others simply ran towards the nearest sounds of fighting, relying on smoke and fire as reference points for their RPGs and machine guns.

The insurgents generally employed a dispersed, nonlinear defense in depth, although there were some tactical advances by small mobile combat cells. These mobile combat cells carried out hit-and-run attacks, ambushes, and standoff attacks using mortars and IEDs. They did not attempt to defend, nor did the Marines attempt to clear every house in a given area. Most insurgents moved in groups of 5-10 as they ran forward, opened fire, and then retreated back into the alleys. (21)

Fighting in the city ignited the rest of Anbar Governorate, ending the relative peace experienced during the early months of 2004. Insurgent networks in several other cities supported efforts in Fallujah. Fighters in Ramadi, Saqlawiyah, Amariyah, Qusaybah, and Karmah mounted major attacks on the Coalition to stretch thin their forces, with Fallujah as their apparent model. Further, in Husaybah, the entire police department supported ongoing insurgent strikes on the Coalition, either by providing material assistance or directly attacking Coalition forces. Cities even sent men and materiel to Fallujah:

Al-Qa’im-based Omar al-Mukhtar leader Juma Hamid Khalaf al-Mahalawi traveled to Ramadi with 40-60 fighters to support the Fallujah insurgents. Other leaders in al-Qa’im, Mosul, Kirkuk, Tarmiyah, Tikrit, Sharqat, and Hillah all sent fighters and supplies to Fallujah. During Operation VIGILANT RESOLVE, some allied insurgents were able to move with ease and remained able to enter Fallujah. They infiltrated through the Marine cordon using back roads and hidden trails not blocked by Coalition forces, smuggled weapons and contraband into the city as humanitarian supplies, and relied on bribes or collaborators within the Iraqi police forces. (22)

This support went across sectarian lines:

The Coalition attack on Fallujah stimulated Shi’a support for the Anbari Sunni. Even Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army provided support. By early April 2004, liaison had been established between the Fallujah insurgents and the Mahdi Army. This offered a loose framework for cooperation despite the obvious sectarian differences. In mid-April, Sadr sent weapons, supplies, and even some fighters to Fallujah under the cover of providing humanitarian aid. (22)

These and other political factors–notably, the Abu Ghraib prisoner scandal and Al Jazeera’s coverage of the battle–forced the CPA to order an end to the assault on April 9, 2004. However, fighting would conclude three weeks later with a ceasefire brokered by the AMS. The total body count remains unclear. The author cites that 600-700 insurgents were killed and an unknown number wounded. Interestingly, he cites no civilian counts. Iraq Body Count–a conservative tally–reports that up to 616 civilians were killed, among them over 300 women and children.³⁰ The Lancet’s 2004 mortality study–considered robust–reports that since the 2003 invasion, roughly 200,000 civilians had died in Fallujah and its hinterland, with many of these deaths due to the battle.³¹ The gap in these counts is enormous and is a subject for another time. If nothing else, it highlights the severity of the fighting.

Aftermath

The First Battle of Fallujah was perceived as an insurgent victory and insurgent prestige accordingly increased. Their internal correspondence and public propaganda reflected this confidence. They soon began to address their organizational weaknesses–particularly, infighting and unclear goals–by merging into larger groups or coalitions. The most prominent merger created the Fallujah Mujahideen Shura (FMS), which

improved the organization and coordination of insurgent groups not only in Fallujah but across Anbar. The Fallujah Mujahideen Shura had no clearly identified leader. Instead it relied on the consensus of various insurgent leaders. The absence of a single leader enabled the most extreme elements of the Fallujah Mujahideen Shura, such as JTJ, to further radicalize the rest of the Fallujah insurgency and turn the city into a magnet for foreign fighters. (24)

One striking fact about the FMS was its relative non-sectarianism. It had two Shia groups and continued to cooperate with the Mahdi Army, which it supported with shipments of armaments and fighters to Najaf. This would indicate that Zarqawi’s ultra-sectarianism was not yet present in JTJ’s Iraqi commanders, such as Umar Hadid, though he would not survive the year.

Another group to benefit from the battle was the AMS, whose prestige significantly increased due its role in the ceasefire. “This brought AMS closer to its goal of being the Sunni community’s main voice in Iraq. Its outspoken opposition to the Coalition appealed to many Anbaris, while the fact it stopped just short of calling for violence enabled AMS to have its cake and eat it too. AMS successfully exploited Anbari support for the insurgency while not being associated with any of its losses or atrocities.” (25)

Yet another (indirect) beneficiary was the Fallujah Brigade, an armed group set up to support Coalition activities and establish law and order in the city. The Brigade was quickly taken over by the insurgency, largely due to Janabi. He forced the city government to accept the membership of up to 350 FRE and SRE insurgents (out of 2100 troops), and to fire all Brigade officers who were not insurgents. Further, the Brigade commander was of Janabi’s choosing. The leadership was thus totally compromised, while the membership was strongly infiltrated. Unsurprisingly, insurgent activities greatly expanded. Sharia was enforced more widely than before the Battle. Religious police and judges were instated and empowered–in one case, Janabi himself presided over a trial. This created a highly amenable environment for JTJ:

SREs and foreign fighters loyal to Zarqawi based in the Jolan district increased their movements and activities in the city and soon began manning checkpoints on the outskirts of the town. The insurgency continued to view the battle as a major victory against the Coalition. With the ceasefire in effect and Fallujah Brigade compromised, insurgents possessed a major base of operations in Anbar from which they could conduct attacks elsewhere in Iraq. (27)

Elsewhere in Iraq, particularly the South, Muqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army emerged as a major threat to the Coalition. Sadr’s base were the urban Shia poor in the slums of Baghdad, Basra, Karbala, and other cities with strong Shia presence. He challenged Ayatollah Sistani and the major Shia groups such as the Badr Brigade, whom he saw as rivals for leading Iraq.³² However, he was not opposed to the Dawa, with whom he allied due to shared support for a strong Iraqi central government.

Interlude

In the early summer of 2004, there were two key developments in Baghdad. First, Ayad Alawi was appointed interim prime minister. Second, the CPA was dissolved and formal sovereignty passed to the interim government. Also, due to continued fighting with the Mahdi Army, Coalition forces re-deployed from Anbar to the South, giving Anbaris the impression that full withdrawal was imminent. Closely related was the impression that Sunni power would be soon restored. These ideas were short-lived. The interim government’s strong stance against the insurgency quickly sapped it of Sunni support, leading first to a “wait and see” attitude, then to widespread apathy. Another major drain on government support was the insurgency itself.

Throughout the summer, insurgent activities greatly expanded throughout Anbar. Insurgent networks “intensified attacks against civilians, police, and government officials to undercut Iraqi Interim Government support.” They also targeted Iraqi contractors to dissuade civilian and government official cooperation with the Coalition. This strategy was successful: “The lack of cooperation crippled many of the Iraqi security forces in Anbar throughout July and August 2004.” (32) Further, the RSC and the FMS gained considerable influence and control. In July, JTJ was able to force the resignation of the governor by abducting his sons, and in August, his replacement stated: “the province has collapsed and we feel like hostages.” (33) In Ramadi, insurgent activities also became more sophisticated:

The Ramadi Shura Council allowed insurgents to better organize. Moreover, it facilitated larger terrorist attacks. Insurgents now could operate in squad- to platoon-size units, with several instances of heavy street-fighting in the city. One particular incident, on July 14, stands out for its planning, logistical support and coordinated use of firepower. This indicated that the insurgency was attempting to move to a higher form of warfare. The attack involved as many as fifty insurgents. They carried out a complex attack on a Marine combat outpost with RPGs, machine-gun fire, and grenades. They used trucks to carry fighters to the battle. The attack ended with twelve insurgents dead or wounded and twenty-one in custody, plus the capture of a weapons cache.

The relationship between the Ramadi Shura Council and the Fallujah Mujahideen Shura was that of equals working in parallel rather than a chain of command. While the Ramadi Shura Council deferred to the Fallujah Mujahideen Shura on a number of major decisions affecting specific operations, the Ramadi Shura Council was far more unified under Latif and Daham and hence able to maintain a more coordinated alliance of insurgent organizations. (33)

The situation was similar in Fallujah, where real power was with the FMS. Within the Shura, Umar Hadid took over the military wing, leading JTJ and other AQ-aligned groups to have the most street presence: “foreign fighters loyal to Hadid and Zarqawi patrolled Fallujah. They directed traffic and set up checkpoints. Imposing shari’a in the city, they required women to wear the hijab and implemented hadd punishments.” (37) Likewise, Janabi continued to direct the FMS’s campaign of abductions and murders against collaborators. He also forbade insurgents from carrying out attacks without his approval, which both restrained insurgent hot-headedness and increased his power. Janabi and JTJ soon began to butt heads, particularly over anti-Coalition strategy–whether to adopt a more pragmatic approach (preferred by Janabi) or to wage full war (preferred by JTJ). However, both remained hostile towards Iraqi government forces:

A major turning point for the insurgency in Fallujah was the August 2004 attack on the 505th and 506th Iraqi National Guard [ING] compounds. JTJ and FMS fighters led by Hadid and Janabi carried out this attack. The compounds fell without a fight. Once secured, Janabi addressed the ING soldiers, informing them that a member of the ING had been cooperating with the Coalition and that the organization would now be disbanded in Fallujah. Seizing all ING weapons and equipment, Janabi told the soldiers to go home and warned that any who returned to Fallujah as ING would be killed. (38)³³

The ING soldiers heeded the threat–the battalions disbanded due to desertions shortly after the attack, with many even joining the insurgency. This was the third such disbandment since the formation of these two battalions, making it an especially humiliating instance of the 80% desertion rate in Fallujah security forces. It severed the final official tie between the Coalition-backed Iraqi government and Fallujah, making clear Anbar’s independence. However, it also severed ties between the FMS and the Albu Marai tribe. The attack was the final stage of a plan in which the insurgents–with the active help of both the Fallujah Brigade and Police–abducted, tortured, and executed the 505th and 506th commanders, who were members of the Albu Marai. The latter’s beheading, allegedly by Umar Hadid himself, was filmed and the video was distributed throughout Fallujah. A U.S. Army report states: “His body was dumped in front of his old Headquarters on 11 Aug 04. (Analyst Comment: Good IO perception management by AIFs [insurgents]).”³⁴ In response, the Albu Marai “agreed to support the Coalition in return for a promise they would be allowed to exercise tha’ar (vengeance) by killing Janabi and Hadid.” (38) Tribal grievances such as this would contribute to the tribes’ defection to the Coalition during the Sahwat.

Other cities experienced similar escalations in the insurgency. In Hit, Habbaniyah, and Rutbah, insurgent transit–arms running, foreign fighter trafficking, and general smuggling–significantly increased, in large part due to tribal assistance. In Haditha, insurgents waged a murder and intimidation campaign against collaborators, forcing local elites to turn a blind eye. They also mounted major attacks on the ING. In al-Qaim, the situation closely resembled that of Fallujah before the battle: “Using mosques as command and control centers and supply depots, insurgent leaders delivered strident anti-Coalition rhetoric. Heavily infiltrated by the insurgency, the city would be used as a major base and staging area until well into 2005.” (35) In that year, the insurgents would be expelled from al-Qaim due to a major tribal revolt–the first major instance of Sunni opposition to the insurgency. It would eventually be used by the Coalition to great effect. We will return to this event in the next part of this series.

During this period, JTJ also abducted numerous foreigners, whose murders they filmed and published online, which earned them world infamy. The first and most prominent of these murders was the beheading of Nick Berg, an American contractor who had come to Iraq in the hopes of winning reconstruction projects. Of all the hostages, the circumstances of Berg’s death were most bizarre. They suggest either gross incompetence or malicious intent on the part of Coalition forces.³⁵ On 24 March 2004, Berg was arrested in Mosul and detained until further notice. During his detention, the local U.S. consular official, Beth Payne, repeatedly informed Berg’s family that he was in Coalition hands, which the U.S. government later denied and instead claimed that he had been held by Mosul police. However, the local Mosul police chief insisted “that his department had never arrested Berg and maintained he had no knowledge of the case.” Incidentally, while detained, the FBI interrogated Berg three times.³⁶ His family filed for his release on 5 April and he was released on 6 April. Mere days later, JTJ abducted him. In May, U.S. forces discovered his decapitated body on a Baghdad overpass. The case partially diverted attention away from the Coalition’s failure in the First Battle of Fallujah and especially the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. It is difficult to determine the exact facts of Berg’s disappearance since all involved parties have every incentive to minimize their culpability in his death. However, Berg was only the first of many unlucky victims whose deaths were broadcast for the world to see.

Thirteen years later, in 2017, Daniele Raineri identified the five participants in the Nick Berg video. From left to right, they were: Abu Usama al-Tunisi, Manaf al-Rawi, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Abu Anas al-Shami, and Abu Muhammad al-Lubnani.³⁷ All five are ‘superstars’ among Islamic State sympathizers. The image of Berg with his killers is historic, for it portends Islamic State in several key respects. First is the influence on future Islamic State execution videos: black-clad executioners, hostage wearing an orange jumpsuit, graphic depiction of a beheading, and ready access from the internet. Second is the large presence of Levantines, which reflects JTJ’s origins as a Levantine organization and foreshadows Islamic State’s future conquests in Syria. Third is the presence of a Tunisian in the JTJ core, which marks the early and eventually massive Tunisian influence on Islamic State history. ‘In Iraq, there were so many Tunisian jihadis from just one town—Ben Gardane, on the desert coastline near the Libyan border—that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of Al Qaeda in Iraq, reportedly said, “If Ben Gardane had been next to Falluja, we would have liberated Iraq.”’³⁸ Tunisian foreign fighters later caused a major internal conflict due to their adherence to Hazimiyah, which Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi considered too extreme for Islamic State.³⁹

Second Battle of Fallujah

Prelude

After the First Battle of Fallujah, the emergence of the Mahdi Army as a serious insurgent threat forced the Coalition to shift focus to the Iraqi South. By late August, this threat had been sufficiently mitigated that the Coalition could re-focus on Fallujah, which had become a more powerful political authority than that of the official Iraqi government. The seizure of the ING compounds was the most brazen example of this, causing significant Coalition concern.

However, there were major divisions within Fallujah itself due to the renewed rivalry between Janabi and Hadid. The root cause was Janabi’s worry that Hadid was undermining the FMS’s (therefore Janabi’s) popularity through several transgressions: implementing ultra-extreme versions of sharia, collecting religious taxes to fund JTJ, seizing the possessions of those who did not cooperate with JTJ, and killing two popular Fallujah residents due to alleged collaboration with the Coalition. Hadid’s actions were steadily increasing the number of FMS opponents.

Prior to the battle, the Iraqi government and the FMS repeatedly met to negotiate a peaceful turnover of Fallujah, but these were deceptive: the FMS was buying time to prepare for renewed hostilities. The Coalition held off on conducting a major assault until after the 2004 U.S. presidential elections. In the meantime, it began a series of air strikes against key insurgent leaders, most important of which was Abu Anas al-Shami, “JTJ’s spiritual leader who had served as a close advisor to Zarqawi and provided the group with Islamic legal justification for its activities.” (43) Allegedly, the strike against Shami also killed Abu Muhammad al-Lubnani.⁴⁰ Both were core members of the group, and as stated above, had appeared in the beheading video of Nick Berg. Indeed, Shami recruited Adnani, and Lubnani was among the first to meet him after his entry into Iraq.⁴¹ They remain highly celebrated figures in Islamic State media. Meanwhile, the insurgents built up their defenses:

As early as the seizure of the ING compounds in August, insurgents began preparing defenses for a possible Coalition attack Defenders were made up of roughly 50% Fallujahns, 32% other Anbaris, and 18% foreign fighters. The Fallujah Brigade had now ceased to exist as an institution. With the removal of the Iraqi National Guard, Janabi, Hadid, and the rest of the Fallujah Mujahideen Shura had complete control over the city. Despite his strength in the city, Hadid began relocating foreign commanders to Ramadi to prevent senior foreign fighters from being targeted in the anticipated Coalition offensive.

The Fallujah Mujahideen Shura coordinated with allied or satellite insurgent groups in Ramadi, Khalidiyah, Habbaniyah, Saqlawiyah, al-Amariyah, Karma, Latifiyah, Abu Ghraib, and Baghdad. The purpose was to prepare for widespread attacks as soon as the fighting began [as had occurred during the First Battle – R. Ashlar]. (43)

Further, in November, JTJ publicly announced its merger with Al Qaida. Thus, Al Qaida in the Land of Two Rivers, widely known as Al Qaida in Iraq (AQI), was finally born.⁴² This increased Zarqawi’s already substantial prestige.

Battle

The Second Battle of Fallujah was significantly more brutal than the First due to a number of factors. First, there were much greater forces on both sides: roughly 4,500 insurgents entrenched in the city against the Coalition’s almost 18,000 troops, backed by substantial air support.⁴³ Second, both sides were fiercely determined to hold the city, illustrated on the insurgent side by cells fighting to the last man, which contributed to the high insurgent death toll. Third, following from the second, the Coalition’s tactics considerably escalated in severity. Military-age males were prevented from leaving the city, so roughly 30,000-50,000 civilians still remained in Fallujah immediately prior to the battle, during which they were treated as combatants. Local NGOs reported that 6,000-8,000 civilians had been killed during the battle. The Coalition also set up a blockade around the city, preventing entry of key supplies, thus using hunger and thirst as weapons of war (not unlike the Israeli siege of Gaza at the time of writing). Further, its air campaign infamously included wide use of white phosphorus and indiscriminate bombing. These tactics eventually paid off in clear Coalition victory, but they reflected the extent of the insurgent defense.

Insurgent tactics were similar to those in the First Battle, while their strategy was to inflict Coalition casualties and draw widespread media attention and popular support.

As in the first battle for Fallujah, the insurgent’s relied on a dispersed, non-linear fluid defense. They used networks of small cells to elude, harass, and attrit Coalition forces as they advanced into the city. Insurgents mixed direct fire with small arms and RPGS, hit-and-run, and indirect fire. Some cells attacked Coalition forces from within one building, relocated to another, and attacked again. Others used mortars in conjunction with the attacks described above. […]

The insurgent plan for defending Fallujah also called for the dispersal of 50% of the city’s total fighters to nearby towns and rural areas from Ramadi to Baghdad and south into northern Babil. The goal was to open a second front by attacking Coalition forces from the rear along the outer perimeter and energizing other insurgent groups into stepping up their attacks [as had spontaneously occurred during the First Battle – R. Ashlar]. While coordinated insurgent activity did increase throughout the Sunni Triangle, the outer cordon of Fallujah was never seriously threatened. […]

Insurgent communications consisted of radios, cell phones, runners, and visual and auditory signaling. Numerous commercial hand-held mobile radios were captured by the Coalition from insurgent arms caches and living quarters, suggesting that they were widely available but seldom used. Fallujah’s power was cut off on November 8, degrading landline communication so that cell phones became one of the few means of communication. To supplement the cell phones, black flags were used to signal between groups and mosque loudspeakers broadcast tactical information. Former RG and SRG generals, on the other hand, issued written orders complete with Saddam-era official letterheads to subordinates who snapped salutes.

As during Operation VIGILANT RESOLVE, insurgent cells were small, semi-autonomous and widespread throughout the city. They conducted a decentralized defense. The most common cell organization was a hub network made up of cells of 3-6 fighters, though some were as large as thirty. As the fighting wore on and insurgents were left isolated in the southeastern part of the city, cell size increased to groups of as many as fifty fighters by November 13. No single leader appears to have been in control of more than fifteen fighters, with the exception of Hadid who personally led as many as 200 into battle. (46-47)

Also, the insurgents again received support from the Mahdi Army, which sent up to 350 fighters and major funds to the city. However, three factors substantially weakened insurgent defenses. First was the departure of Janabi, Zarqawi, and other key FMS leaders, which decreased overall insurgent cohesion and unity. Second was major rivalries within the remaining leadership alongside no coordinated communications between groups. Indeed: “Cooperation between Hadid’s forces and those loyal to Janabi was tenuous at best. It is unclear to what degree the two factions set aside their differences in the face of a concentrated Coalition threat.” (47) Third was poor chain-of-command with many senior leaders directly communicating with individual cells. These factors contributed to insurgent defeat during the battle.

Aftermath

The insurgency suffered a significant blow with the fall of Fallujah. Insurgents lost their primary safe haven. Their networks were disrupted and scattered. They were deprived of major weapons caches and IED factories and roughly 4,000 fighters were killed or detained. […]

In Operation Al FAJR, the Coalition destroyed the center of insurgent power in Anbar but did not end the insurgency or eliminate AQI. Still, Operation AL FAJR was a major blow to the insurgents. They would again have to reorganize, recruit, and re-arm. The roughly 4,000 fighters killed or captured [breakdown: 2,175 killed, 2,052 captured – R. Ashlar] included experienced leaders like Hadid, who would take time to replace. These losses, and the ensuing reorganization of insurgent networks, were a major reason that the insurgents could not disrupt the January 2005 Iraqi elections. (47-48)

The insurgent defeat led to a large but temporary re-alignment of popular Sunni views. The AMS briefly reassessed its support for the insurgency since “its decision to back Janabi meant that it was tied to his defeat in Fallujah.” (49) Indeed, the clergy as a whole temporarily soured on the insurgency, issuing statements against Islamist violence in the country. A prominent cleric, Dr. Adnan Muhammad Salman al-Dulaimi, declared that “there was no legitimate jihad in Iraq and that violence against Coalition forces would not be tolerated.” (49) Many viewed the insurgency’s weakened momentum as a sign to reconcile with the Iraqi Interim Government, in which they hoped to safeguard Sunni interests.

Meanwhile, the insurgency dispersed and reorganized across Sunni Iraq. AQI relocated its base of operations to Ramadi, where it integrated with the RSC:

Ramadi Shura Council leader Latif assisted this move. Latif agreed to combine his forces with those previously loyal to Hadid. This allowed him to better dominate activities between Ramadi, Khalidiyah, and Fallujah. Many rank-and-file AQI and SRE fighters fled west to al-Qa’im and Hadithah. Others remained in Karmah or Saqlawiyah near Fallujah. Large numbers of foreign fighters headed east to rural Taji and Tarmiya north of Baghdad. Of the leaders who’d been active in Fallujah, Zarqawi is believed to have fled to Mosul, and Janabi used his tribal alliances to seek refuge in northern Babil. With the death of Hadid in Fallujah, Ramadi Shura Council leader Daham was promoted to serve as Zarqawi’s top lieutenant in Anbar. (50)

Most insurgents fled to western Iraq, where Coalition and Iraqi government forces were few and weak, but many also fled to northern and central Iraq, particularly Nineveh or Diyala, respectively. This dispersal accelerated the ongoing radicalization of non-AQI-affiliated insurgents. Even so, considerable recruitment, reorganization, and regrouping was necessary to regain lost momentum. The insurgency was thus too weak to interfere with the January 2005 elections, though by mid-2005, it would become an even greater threat than before the Second Battle of Fallujah. The Iraqi mujahidin were yet to come into their own. We will discuss this in the next part of this series.

Postscript

Since writing this piece, I have read “The Theory and Practice of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency,” a lecture by Bernard Fall, the brilliant French analyst of the Vietnam Wars. His insights into that conflict and into warfare in general remain excellent, so I regret that they could not be incorporated into this part of our study–this postscript aims to fill some of the gaps.

In his lecture, Fall shared a simple yet elegant equation to describe what he called “revolutionary warfare:” “RW = G + P, or, ‘revolutionary warfare equals guerrilla warfare plus political action.’ This formula for revolutionary warfare is the result of the application of guerrilla methods to the furtherance of an ideology or a political system.”⁴⁴ The formula’s relevance to the Iraqi insurgency, particularly JTJ/AQI, is immediately obvious. This was not a strictly combat organization. Its actions served the goal of creating an Islamic state in Iraq which could conquer the neighboring Arab states and create a caliphate. In every sense, JTJ/AQI was a revolutionary militant group. Later in his lecture, Fall added: “I would like to put it in even a simpler way: When a country is being subverted it is not being outfought; it is being out-administered. Subversion is literally administration with a minus sign in front [emphasis his].” The Islamist insurgencies of the past few decades fit neatly into Fall’s mold. 

Key moments and trends discussed in Part One take on a new light when examined through Fall’s insights. The insurgent murder and intimidation campaign against collaborators destroyed the grassroots presence of the Coalition-backed administration. These killings closely resembled the Vietnamese NLF’s struggle against pro-South village officials, which in one year killed roughly 4,000 people.⁴⁵ In 2004, the most prominent instance was the attack on the 505th and 506th ING commands, which totally ended Coalition presence in Fallujah and severely weakened it throughout Anbar. Prior to the attack, the Fallujah security had already been significantly compromised. Likewise, insurgent implementation of sharia, collection of religious taxes, control of policing, etc. all created a rival administration which subverted the Coalition government. The creation of sharia courts which had real authority was the starkest form of this. Further, Fall noted that “to the last breath a government will try to collect taxes.” By examining tax collection, he determined that in 1958, the communists had control over all but three South Vietnamese provinces. Were a similar study to be conducted, I strongly suspect that it would show similar findings about Sunni Arab regions at the height of the insurgency. Fall’s analysis will recur in future parts of our study.

Acronyms

AMS: Association of Muslim Scholars

AQ: Al Qaida

AQI: Al Qaida in Iraq

CPA: Coalition Provisional Authority

FRL: Former Regime Loyalist

FRE: Former Regime Element

FMS: Fallujah Mujahideen Shura

IAI: Islamic Army of Iraq

IIP: Iraqi Islamic Party

IIS: Iraqi Intelligence Service

ING: Iraqi National Guard

JTJ: Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l Jihad

JRTN: Jaysh ar-Rijal al-Tariq al-Naqshabandiya

RSC: Ramadi Shura Council

SRE: Sunni Religious Extremist

Appendix

Chapter 2: https://ahec.armywarcollege.edu/CENTCOM-IRAQ-papers/0870.%20chapter2.pdf 

Chapter 3: https://ahec.armywarcollege.edu/CENTCOM-IRAQ-papers/0989.%20chapter3.pdf 

Chapter 4: https://ahec.armywarcollege.edu/CENTCOM-IRAQ-papers/1000.%20Chapter%204.pdf 

Chapter 5: https://ahec.armywarcollege.edu/CENTCOM-IRAQ-papers/1002.%20chapter5.pdf 

Chapter 6: https://ahec.armywarcollege.edu/CENTCOM-IRAQ-papers/1007.%20Chapter%206.pdf 

Chapter 7: https://ahec.armywarcollege.edu/CENTCOM-IRAQ-papers/1004.%20Chapter%207.pdf 

Declassified CENTCOM Iraq Papers: https://ahec.armywarcollege.edu/CENTCOM-IRAQ-papers/ 

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1. See Appendix for links to chapters of the Study.
2. This line is taken from a secret memo that was leaked to the Washington Post. See: Peter Devlin, I-MEF G-2, “State of the Insurgency in al-Anbar,” 17 Aug., 2006. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/thegamble/documents/Devlin_Anbar.pdf For an enlightening analysis of the document, see: Thomas E. Ricks, “Situation Called Dire in West Iraq Anbar Is Lost Politically, Marine Analyst Says,””, Washington Post, 11 Sept., 2006.
3. Although the Salafi Jihadi threat has seemingly collapsed, Iraq has yet to experience a year without major civil strife. Further, the Dawa remains far more incompetent than the Baath even when accounting for the latter’s authoritarianism.
4. The author ominously notes: “These ancient smuggling routes, used by Anbaris for centuries, would find other uses once the 2003 war with the Coalition began.” (18)
5. It is worth mentioning that in its modern form, tribal identity in Iraq was largely constructed by the British colonial government during the early 20th century. Its key function was to disrupt nationalist efforts and to create a local support base for the British. Cf. Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983).
6. Jaysh ar-Rijal al-Tariq al-Naqshabandiya, which translates to Army of the Men of the Naqshabandi Order (a Sufi religious order).
7. Samuel Helfont, Michael Brill, “Saddam’s ISIS? The Terrorist Group’s Real Origin Story,” Foreign Affairs, 12 Jan., 2016. Also see: Samuel Helfont, ‘The Legacy of Saddam’s Iraq,’ The Caravan no. 1820, 4 Dec., 2018.
8. Craig Whiteside, “Pedigree of Terror: The Myth of the Ba’athist Influence in the Islamic State Movement,” Perspectives on Terrorism 11, no. 3 (2017). Also see: Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, ‘The Biography of Abu Ali al-Anbari: Full Translation and Analysis,’ aymennjawad.org. Accessed: Sept. 5, 2023. Link:https://www.aymennjawad.org/21877/the-biography-of-abu-ali-al-anbari-full
9. For Hadid’s official Islamic State biography, see: https://archive.ph/BsmO5 Note: Kyle Orton is an ultra-right wing neoconservative fraud who has been found to regularly plagiarize insights from others. His original work is easy to notice since it is of such poor quality. There is a good chance that the translation of this biography (and others on his site), if not done by Islamic State, was stolen from another analyst. Craig Whiteside, Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, Daniele Raineri, and @Mr0rangeTracker are far more reliable and insightful writers on this subject. I owe much of what I know to them.
10. For a valuable account of the initial weeks of the War, see: https://stolzuntermenschen.blogspot.com/2022/03/2003-iraq-war-gru-intelligence-archive.html
11. F. Gregory Gause, “Should We Stay or Should We Go? The United States and the Middle East,” Survival: Global Politics and Strategy 61, no. 5 (Oct.-Nov. 2019).
12. Quoted in: Arjun Neil Alim, “Blair government explored plans to ‘break’ Opec to lower oil prices, papers reveal,” Financial Times, 19 Dec., 2022.
13. There have been a number of excellent studies on the political-economy of oil and its role in the Arab world. See: Stephen Pelletiere, Iraq and the International Oil System, (Praeger: Westport, 2001); Giuliano Garavini, The Rise and Fall of OPEC in the Twentieth Century (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2019); Ali Kadri, The Cordon Sanitaire (Palgrave Macmillan: London, 2018). I also recommend Ali Kadri’s other works, which are too numerous to state here.
14. For a full account of the role of oil in the war, see: Greg Muttitt, Fuel on the Fire (New York: New Press, 2012). Muttitt summarizes his findings in the following piece: “The Bush Administration Turned the War on Terror Into a War for Oil’” Jacobin. Accessed: 7 Sept., 2023. Link: https://jacobin.com/2021/09/bush-blair-iraq-war-on-terror-war-for-oil-question-al-qaeda-saddam-hussein-wmds
15. Masri later became Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, war minister and co-leader of the Islamic State of Iraq.
16. Although unknown at the time of the Study, Sayf al-Adl was responsible for Zarqawi’s becoming an AQ associate. Adl is a highly interesting figure in his own right: “He is old-guard al-Qa`ida, and in 2004, he conceptualized a startlingly prescient—if not determinative—master plan, which called for the reestablishment of the caliphate in Syria between 2013 and 2016. […] The plan was not followed exactly, but it correctly foresaw numerous developments, including al-Qa’ida in Iraq’s networks outside Iraq, the time and place of the caliphate being re-declared, and that the British would reject integration [?!] into a more cohesive Europe.” See Brian Fishman, “Revising the History of al-Qa`ida’s Original Meeting with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” CTC Sentinel 9, no. 10 (October 2016). For an extended analysis of the ‘master plan,’ see: Brian Fishman, The Master Plan: ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Jihadi Strategy for Final Victory (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016)
17. Cf. Muttitt, op. cit.
18. Most mentions of Syria’s role in the war are redacted throughout the Study, even in obvious contexts.
19. Cf. Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman, Al-Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq: A First Look at the Sinjar Records (West Point: Combating Terrorism Center, 2007); Brian Fishman (ed.), Bombers, Bank Accounts, and Bleedout: Al-Qa’ida’s Road In and Out of Iraq (West Point: Combating Terrorism Center, 2008).
20. The most prominent of these groups was the Islamic Army of Iraq (IAI), which despite its strong Salafi credentials attempted to uphold a cross-sect Iraqi identity. For instance, it distinguished between ‘Safavid’ Iranian Shi’ism and native Iraqi Shi’ism. As the conflict grew more sectarian, the IAI largely fell in line behind AQ in Iraq, which by 2006, had taken control of the Sunni insurgency.
21. A long excerpt and analysis of this letter can be found in: Haroro J. Ingram, Craig Whiteside, and Charlie Winter, The ISIS Reader: Milestone Texts of the Islamic State Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 37-54.
22. I suspect the redacted information is the name of several Gulf Arab states, particularly Qatar.
23. A prime example of this phenomena is discussed on page 44, Chapter 3.
24. Kévin Jackson, “Abbottabad Insights: How al-Qa‘ida in Iraq Was Formed (Part 1)”, Jihadica, Accessed: 21 Oct., 2023. https://www.jihadica.com/abbottabad-insights-how-al-qaida-in-iraq-was-formed-part-1/ Idem, ‘Abbottabad Insights: How al-Qa‘ida in Iraq Was Formed (Part 2)’, Jihadica, Accessed: 21 Oct., 2023. https://www.jihadica.com/abbottabad-insights-how-al-qaida-in-iraq-was-formed-part-2/
25. According to @Mr0rangeTracker (perhaps the best analyst of jihadism), Umar Hadid was so close to Zarqawi that he remains the only Iraqi to have ever appeared unmasked on film with the AQI founder. He was one of the twelve founding members of JTJ, and to this day, he is a highly celebrated Islamic State leader. In 2017, Islamic State media released footage, which unveiled Hadid for the first time–thirteen years after his death: https://archive.is/ZT6b9; https://archive.is/CQPCm; https://archive.is/JVGui
26. Adnani was an ‘early adopter,’ having joined Zarqawi in 2000 and soon becoming a highly trusted commander. During the course of our study, we will encounter many now-infamous figures in the history of the Islamic State. In Part 2, we will meet Hamid Dawud al-Zawi, who became Abu Umar al-Baghdadi, the first Islamic State leader. We will also meet a man called Abu Dua in al-Qaim, who likely became Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Abu Umar’s much more known successor.
27. ‘HADD (PL. HUDUD) literally, “limits,” are the punishments specified in the Qur’an for five different sins: adultery (execution or beating), apostasy (execution), stealing (cutting off of the left hand), murder (beheading) and intoxication (beating). Jihadists as well as radical Islamists believe that the hudud must be applied in order to practice Islam correctly.’ (16)
28. ‘COMMITTEES TO PROMOTE VIRTUE AND PREVENT VICE Radical Islamist groups believe they must implement shari’a on any territory they control. To ensure all citizens will follow shari’a, most Islamists create an institution to enforce Islamic law through beatings, public humiliation or even executions. This organization, traditionally named the “hisba,” is usually called by modern Islamists “The Committee to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice,” from a Qur’anic verse that calls Muslims true believers only when they promote virtue and prevent vice (“al-amr bi’l-ma’ruf wa’lnahy ‘an al-munkar.”).’ (16)
29. Craig Whiteside informed me that Islamic State media has released writings by Shami, which revealed that Zarqawi was absent from both Battles of Fallujah. Alongside Shami was Adnani, who (per Daniele Raineri) was among the last fighters to flee Fallujah. Adnani was joined by Abu Jafar al-Maqdisi, a Palestinian foreign fighter from Lebanon, and Abu Ayyub al-Masri (Abu Hamza al-Muhajir), a core JTJ member and later Islamic State of Iraq war minister. According to Whiteside, Abu Umar al-Baghdadi was likely fighting in Haditha during the Fallujah battles, based on his arrest record from the Marines. Abu Bakr spent most of 2004 detained in Camp Bucca, though it is unlikely he would have been a fighter even if he had been free. https://archive.is/MsyVw; https://archive.is/rnyuJ; https://archive.is/rOLmI; https://archive.is/9c6qX
30. Lily Hamourtziadou, ‘Besieged: Living and Dying in Fallujah”, Iraq Body Count. Accessed: 24 Oct., 2023, https://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/beyond/besieged_fallujah/
31. Les Roberts, Riyadh Lafta, Richard Garfield, Jamal Khudhairi, Gilbert Burnham, “Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey,” Lancet 364, no. 9448 (Nov. 2004). For the 2006 follow-up study, see: Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy, Les Roberts, “Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey,” Lancet 368, no. 9545 (Oct, 2006).
32. Intra-Shia insurgent disputes are discussed in detail in Qayis al-Khazali’s Tactical Interrogation Reports, perhaps the most striking feature of which is Khazali’s intense contempt for his own comrades like Abu Deraa or even Sadr. See: Qayis al-Khazali Papers by the American Enterprise Institute. Together, the Papers form a rough ‘Shia’ equivalent to the Anbar insurgency study. I may analyze them at another time. Link: https://www.aei.org/the-qayis-al-khazali-papers/
33. It is worth contrasting this incident to Islamic State’s later treatment of Iraqi soldiers, which largely consisted of mass murder
34. The full details of this event are discussed in: “(U) Iraq: Fallujah Insurgency and the 505th and 506th Iraqi National Guard Battalions” (written: 20 Sept., 2004; published: 15 Dec., 2009), Public Intelligence. Accessed: 10 Dec., 2023. Link: https://publicintelligence.net/u-iraq-fallujah-insurgency-and-the-505th-and-506th-iraqi-national-guard-battalions/
35. “Bizarre New Link in Berg Killing,” CBS News, 14 May, 2004
36. For the FBI’s account of the events preceding Berg’s death, see: https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/pressrel/press-releases/nicholas-berg-2013-u.s.citizen-slain-in-iraq
37. Daniele also identified Abu Ayyub al-Masri in several other videos from 2004. Indeed, he even identified Masri’s voice in the 2006 Yusufiyah videos of abducted U.S. soldiers, Thomas Tucker and Kristian Menchaca. https://archive.is/Z4lsS; https://archive.is/wpVbL; https://archive.is/snKWC
38. George Packer, “Tunisia and the Fall After the Arab Spring,”, The New Yorker, 21 March, 2016
39. Aaron Zelin, ‘Ultra Extremism among Tunisian Jihadis within the Islamic State,’ Jihadica, 18 Feb., 2020. Accessed: 9 Jan, 2024. https://www.jihadica.com/ultra-extremism-among-tunisian-jihadis-within-the-islamic-state/
40. This is stated in a biography of Lubnani released by Islamic State. Link: https://archive.ph/iffKC
41. Lubnani and Shami also recruited Abu Umar al-Baghdadi, then-known as Abu Mahmud, as stated in his Islamic State biography. Link: https://archive.is/4bryh
42. Full Arabic name: Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad ar-Rafidayn.
43. Joel D. Rayburn, Frank K. Sobchak, The U.S. Army in the Iraq War (Carlisle: U.S. Army War College Press, 2019), I: 389.
44. Unless otherwise stated, all quotations in this section are from: Bernard Fall, “The Theory and Practice of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency,” Naval War College Review 18, no. 3 (1965). I found this article while re-reading: Craig Whiteside, “The Islamic State and the Return of Revolutionary Warfare,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 27, no. 5 (2016).
45. Craig Whiteside (ibid.) directly compares Islamic State’s anti-Sahwat assassination campaign to the NLF’s strategy in the South