IRAQ: U.S.-backed Sunni miltiamen on the run

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The Los Angeles Times reports today on the Iraqi government’s desire to disband the U.S.-funded Sunni paramilitaries, made up of former insurgents, who helped halt the country’s open sectarian war. The U.S. military has watched as the government has dissolved the Sons of Iraq movement in the Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib and severely restricted it in the city of Baquba.

The Iraqi army has arrested fighters, credited with bringing calm to the country, while others are on the run or now living in exile, like Abu Abed, who was the first man in Baghdad to wage a successful revolt against Al Qaeda in Iraq.

The Iraqi government is lobbying to end the Sons of Iraq as soon as possible.

The U.S. military says its goal is for the paramilitaries to be dissolved by June. The Iraqi government wants it done sooner. The Americans have just handed all personnel information on the 99,000 Sons of Iraq fighters to Maliki and are talking about transferring the contracts to the Iraqi government for Baghdad and Baquba within the next two months, said Lt. Col. Jeffrey Kulmayer, who is responsible for the program.

Below are portraits of some of the men who have served in the Sons of Iraq, one of whom is now a fugitive and another who talks about his past in the insurgency.

ABU GHRAIB

The Sunni paramilitary fighter slipped into the building in Baghdad unannounced. Gray-haired, glasses, and a checkered shirt, he looked like an accountant, not a wanted man. He identifies himself as Abu Mohanned, and says there is a warrant for his arrest along with other fighters who had fought Al Qaeda in Iraq in western Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib suburb.

He marvels at how quickly their movement was dismantled. The units formed last summer as many insurgents or local leaders formalized their split with Al Qaeda in Iraq. Having defeated Al Qaeda and brought stability, they were told this summer that security responsibility in their areas was being handed to the Iraqi security forces. The Americans warned them that they could not protect the fighters if the army moved to arrest them, Abu Mohanned said.

Then they heard their were warrants against them and he fled the area. Abu Mohanned said he has been on the run for more than a month now. He sees his family rarely and grows flustered talking about what happened. “We stopped the bloodletting between Shiites and Sunnis. We stopped the spilling of American blood,” he told The Times. He held up his plastic card, issued by the Americans, with the words Concerned Local Citizen, with his picture and an Iraqi flag’s red, white and black stripes.

GHAZALIYA

Col. Raad is a ground commander of the Sons of Iraq in this western Baghdad neighborhood that was once a battleground between the Mahdi Army and Al Qaeda. By his own admission, he once set off bombs against the Americans. He trained fighters from places as far away as Mahmudiya, a town just south of Baghdad.

The dissolution of the Iraqi army by the Americans in 2003 prompted him to pick up arms. “We had to do something. It was our right,” Raad said. In December 2004, he was arrested when Iraqi security forces stopped his taxi and found out he was an old officer. Sent to Abu Ghraib, he came into contact with Al Qaeda members, who tried to recruit him, but he struck up a friendship with U.S. officers during his seven-month imprisonment.

After the bombing of Samarra’s golden mosque in 2006, Raad said he defended his neighborhood. “I fought the Mahdi Army. I didn’t fight any civilians,” he says. When others fled, Raad stayed on his rooftop with his Kalashnikov, looking for militiamen. Now he shares a headquarters with the American and Iraqi forces in a few houses that have been converted into a joint base.

He believes his fighters will be able to transition into politics for the next election. He has joined a party, the Independence and Renaissance movement, that he says includes former Islamic Army and 1920 Revolution Brigade members. He makes clear his activities have at least tacit backing from whatever is left of the Sunni insurgency.

“At the beginning of the year, the Islamic Army and other groups agreed to a cease fire. They also endorsed continuing talks with the Americans directly and indirectly,” he said. “We can’t fight forever.”

— Ned Parker in Baghdad

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