A narrow, bumpy farm road provides the resistance fighters with safe access into the village.
In interviews, Abu Theeb said he was born in the village four decades ago, one of five brothers. His father was an illiterate farmer who always clutched his shortwave radio and loved to talk politics.
As a young man, Abu Theeb studied law, then joined the Institute of National Security, an elite academy reserved chiefly for Sunni Arabs slated for the secret services of President Saddam Hussein.
Abu Theeb had strong pride in his country, but it was broken in 1991 by the Persian Gulf War. "I hated the government," he said. "I realized that all what they were telling us about the nation and the leader was false. They had neither pride nor honor."
Abu Theeb took a four-year leave from the secret services and joined an Islamic religious school. He became enraptured, he said, with the teachings of Ibn Tamiya, a 13th-century scholar, and graduated as a cleric. When his leave was up, he went back to his job at General Security, one of Hussein's feared security agencies. Abu Theeb said he stayed until U.S. troops captured the capital in 2003.
The sight of American soldiers in the Iraqi city was an unspeakable outrage to him. "I roamed the streets with a dagger in my pocket," he said. "I was too ashamed to come back home and see my family while Baghdad was under occupation."
Abu Theeb met a group of Syrians who had come to Baghdad. Like him, they were looking for a fight with the Americans, so he took them to his home village and formed a jihad cell.
It started off with rocket and small-arms attacks on U.S. convoys, he said. Later, a fellow Salafi fighter taught him how to set a roadside bomb using simple techniques -- a TV remote control and some artillery shells.
A former Iraqi army general who visited the village laid down ground rules for the group: Roadside bombs were the most effective weapon, but they should always be planted at least 1 1/2 miles outside the village, so as to spare its people retaliation by the Americans.
Abu Theeb's group kept up the attacks. "Something like fire was inside us," he said. ". . . When the infidel conquers your home, it's like seeing your women raped in front of your eyes and like your religion being insulted every day."
Abu Theeb said he eventually sent the Syrians home, feeling that foreigners had no role in the resistance. He and other Salafi fighters formed the Anger Brigade, which has also kidnapped people it perceives as collaborating with the Americans and their Iraqi allies.
The group was dominated in its first months by fundamentalists such as Abu Theeb who saw armed jihad as a religious duty equal to praying and fasting. To hit a U.S. target, they believed, was a sign that God was with them. "By the help of God, this America with its might and glory would be hit by a bunch of barefoot but pure men, in dishdashas with rusty weapons," Abu Theeb said.
