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Sunni Insurgent Leader Paints Iran as 'Real Enemy'
Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, left, talks with Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek in Baqubah, where U.S. troops are battling Sunni extremists. An insurgent leader said U.S. forces would do better to free detainees, lift barriers and provide services.
(By Robert H. Reid -- Associated Press)
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Abu Sarhan said that the leading Shiite parties in the government, including the Dawa party of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, along with the Supreme Council and prominent Shiite militias, are beholden to Iran. The Iranians appeared to be of such grave concern to him not just because of the bloody history of war between the two countries, but also because of Iran's perceived intolerance toward Sunnis in general. He said his long-term political goal was to recapture the prominence that Sunnis had enjoyed under Hussein's government.
"The problem is that the Americans have a relationship with the slaves: Dawa, Badr Organization, the Mahdi Army are slaves to Iran," he said.
Abu Sarhan described al-Qaeda in Iraq as an organized, predominantly Iraqi-run network with a strict hierarchy.
"There are multiple networks, and each network has its own command or leadership, but they're all under one command," he said. "Just like colleges and universities. Each university has several colleges, and each college has a dean, but the entire university has a president."
He did not condemn the actions of al-Qaeda in Iraq, but he said there were ideological differences among insurgent groups.
"Al-Qaeda is more strict than the others in their way of thinking, in terms of applying religious rituals and behavior, and also the way of working. Al-Qaeda, for example, kills every Shiite, while the other factions kill only the Iranian spies or those who are members of militias," he said.
U.S. military commanders have worked in recent weeks to exploit the divisions within the Sunni insurgency. The Americans have collaborated with members of such groups as the Islamic Army and the 1920 Revolution Brigades who have turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq because of its indiscriminate killing.
A movement that started in the western province of Anbar with alliances among Sunni tribal leaders to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq has begun to emerge among local Sunnis in the town of Abu Ghraib, west of the capital, in the city of Baqubah to the northeast and in Amiriyah, where Abu Sarhan's group operates.
In May, at least 14 U.S. soldiers working in Amiriyah were killed, a sharp increase over previous months. After those losses, U.S. commanders began working with Sunni residents, including some members of the Islamic Army, to help capture or kill those from al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Abu Sarhan, who lives in the nearby Khadra neighborhood, dismissed this cooperation with Americans, saying it represented temporary divisions rather than a widespread acceptance of U.S. forces.
"Right now I think that the Islamic Army has split into two factions. Some are cooperating with the Americans against the rest of the Sunnis, while some have remained as they are," he said.
The top U.S. military commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, recently described al-Qaeda in Iraq as "public enemy number one." And President Bush, during a speech July 4, cited the organization as the one group that attempts to "cause enough chaos and confusion so America would leave."
