After nearly a year, others joined the group: local men with moderate religious views and, like Abu Theeb, prior service with Hussein's government who had grown increasingly angry over the American occupation.
Abu Theeb recounted how once he was driving to Baghdad carrying a sack filled with anti-tank rocket detonators. American soldiers stopped him at a checkpoint, ordered him out and began searching his car.
"I prayed to God. I told him, 'God, if I am doing what I am doing for your sake, then spare me. If not, let them get me,' " he recounted. "The American soldier opened the trunk where I had the sack filled with rocket detonators. He moved it away and started to search. He finished and asked me to leave. I knew then I was blessed by God."
But if God had spared Abu Theeb, he didn't spare his family. One brother and a nephew were killed early on fighting the Americans, he said. A second brother was killed several weeks ago when the roadside bomb he was planting exploded.
Rejecting the Foreigners
Eight months ago, another group of Syrian men came calling on Abu Theeb. Identifying themselves as part of al Qaeda in Iraq, they asked for his cooperation to establish the organization in that area. The group's leader "told me that he had support and money and he wanted to open a new front here. I asked him, 'And what about the village? Do you want this to become a new Fallujah?' " Abu Theeb said, referring to the insurgent stronghold all but razed and emptied by U.S. forces last year.
"When al Qaeda came here, I was the first to fight it," Abu Theeb said. "They go to the clerics and say, 'Denounce this man, and if not, your blood will be spilled.' They kill and slaughter too easily."
Abu Theeb and other Salafi clerics and Iraqi insurgent leaders north and south of Baghdad talk of a growing rift between their camp and groups that are foreign-led and supported by al Qaeda.
Initially, al Qaeda in Iraq gained support in parts of the Sunni community for its meticulous planning, its ferocious fighting and its funding. "If it wasn't for al Qaeda fighting alongside the Sunnis in Iraq, the whole battle would have had a different outcome," said Abu Hafsa, a regional guerrilla commander based north of Baghdad.
"They have experience in fighting; they did very clever stuff," Abu Theeb agreed. "They attacked all the centers of the Iraqi state and by doing so prevented the Americans from creating a puppet state that they can hand everything to. The Iraqi resistance was preoccupied with fighting the Americans only and couldn't see that strategic goal."
"Lots of the mujaheddin groups are in need of money and weapons, so they join the umbrella of the al Qaeda for support. But they differ with them in ideology," said Abu-Qutada, a guerrilla leader based south of Baghdad.
But many fundamentalist Sunnis object to al Qaeda's rigid interpretation of Islamic law. Taliban-style Islamic justice already is being enforced in the western Iraqi cities and towns under Zarqawi's control.
"Al Qaeda believes that anyone who doesn't follow the Koran literally is a kafir and should be killed," explained Abu Theeb, using a term for apostate, or a believer who abandons the faith. "This is wrong. We can't take Islamic theory from the time of the prophet and implement the same rules in the 21st century."
Abu Theeb argues that al Qaeda in Iraq's religious views stand to alienate not only Iraqi nationalists but supporters in Syria and other Persian Gulf countries.
More importantly, al Qaeda's war on Shiite civilians-- it has bombed mosques, buses and other places where Shiites gather -- is drawing the wrath of Iraqi government security forces and Shiite militias.
Scores of Sunnis have been found bound and shot after being abducted from their homes -- some rounded up just because of their tribal name, their families claim. Many Sunnis blame the killings on paramilitary units of Iraq's Interior Ministry, which includes many veterans of Shiite militias. Fearing the raids, more than 300 Sunni families have come to Abu Theeb's area, leaving their homes in Baghdad.
Still, for Abu Theeb, turning in unwanted foreign guests in his area is not an option. "We know them all -- there are no more than 15 of them here. But what can we do with them, hand them to the Americans or the Shiite government?" the guerrilla leader asked. "That's not allowed in our religion."
