of pointing and angry eyes.
“Abul Abed was obviously furious. But he knew that Colonel Sabah wouldn’t do the patrol alone. Abul Abed knew where the enemy forces were hiding. It was his AFF intelligence on Amriya that had gathered the Iraqi army and even the Americans here tonight. If Abul Abed didn’t go out, then the Iraqi army would be blind. Colonel Sabah came back, he compromised, and said that it would be a joint command that night. During the patrol, if I remember correctly, the AFF and the Iraqi army men worked well together, but the rift between Abul Abed and Colonel Sabah grew greater as the night went on. I was on patrol so I don’t know exactly how it happened, but I remember hearing afterward that they continued to argue throughout the patrol. It makes sense, too. Abul Abed was about Colonel Sabah’s age, and Abul Abed was an officer under Saddam. These two men should have been peers in the same army, but one was excluded from the mainstream security forces, and the other was not.”
The relationship between the Iraqi army and Abul Abed’s Awakening group was always contentious, especially at the leadership level. Gallagher said that they always had to a walk a tightrope to maintain the support of the Iraqi army. There was one incident that nearly shut down the whole effort. Four bodies had been found in the southeast corner of Amriya. Gallagher was in Sabah’s office at the time, and Sabah was convinced that Abul Abed was behind it. This was on a day when a number of local contractors had been invited to Abul Abed’s HQ to start generating projects to repair the infrastructure and get some money flowing in the community.
When Sabah arrived at Abul Abed’s headquarters, he started shouting at the Fursan (as the AFF were called, taking their name from the Arabic word for “knights”) while ten of his security detachment formed a tight, protective circle around him. Sabah’s men had weapons drawn on the Fursan, and the Fursan had weapons drawn on them. Gallagher managed to get into the center of his tight circle with his interpreter. “Sabah was yelling that there was only one army in Amriya and that it was either Abul Abed or him. It turns out that some knucklehead in the Fursan had refused Sabah’s security detachment entry into the HQ building.”
Yosef was also present, filming with his video camera. “I guess the day before the IA wouldn’t let one of Abul Abed’s food trucks into Amriya and then called the AFF ‘sons of animals.’ When the Iraqi army showed up at the AFF HQ, Abu Bilal, one of Abed’s lieutenants, ordered his men to get their guns and grenades and get ready for a fight, and they all started running out to the gate with their AK-47s.”
Abu Bilal apparently was in a terrible mood. His brothers had just been kidnapped by Al Qaeda. But when Abul Abed emerged from his building, he was furious as he tried to stand down his men, especially with Abu Bilal. “I set my camera on the gate’s wall and videotaped the whole thing,” Yosef noted later. “Major Daniels came running out into the street from his meeting with Abul Abed, without any armor or helmet, just sunglasses. He and his men positioned themselves between the IA trucks and the AFF at the gate. It was a zoo. Finally, the IA left. Luckily, before I turned my camera off, I recorded Abu Bilal striding out after them, with his shirt untucked. His shirt is never untucked. In the video, it’s apparent he’s got multiple weapons under his shirt. I wonder if he ever caught up with the IA patrol and took some pop shots at them.”
“This incident,” Gallagher said, “set us way back, and I spent the next forty-eight hours dealing with the fallout. From this incident we hammered out a written agreement between us, the Iraqi army, and the Fursan. While it put more restrictions on the Fursan, they were generally positive and a step toward rule of law. It also placed more emphasis on the Iraqi army to conduct joint operations with the Fursan.”
Kuehl’s own relationship with the Awakening men in his area was tentative at first, but eventually they grew close. “For a long time I was not sure how far I could trust Abul Abed,” he said. “I knew he was a bit of a hothead. Some members of the group were just thugs. I believe some were brought in by Abul Abed and Sheikh Khalid to gain local political support for the movement. There were times where I had to discipline members of the group. At one point I arrested one of the leaders of one of the factions. I never trusted the guy because we suspected him of pushing people out of homes and stealing their furniture. I had even detained him and three of his brothers during an operation just before the Fursan came forward. One brother we kept, the others we released due to lack of evidence. I ended up detaining this guy after we connected him to an attack on Abul Abed and excessive use of force. I think we also got some other incriminating evidence on him.”
Over time Kuehl developed closer relationships with the Awakening men at his level and also at subordinate levels. Abed’s men were brought into the planning and targeting process along with the Iraqi army. “In a sense, each of us gave legitimacy to the other,” Kuehl said. “Not everyone trusted the Fursan, nor did everyone trust us or the IA. When we did operations together, complaints went down.” Initially Abed’s men, who could move easily within the population and were not burdened with heavy equipment, conducted missions with U.S. oversight. They identified five targets on their first mission. Kuehl provided an outer cordon with his D Company, consisting of tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. These vehicles were fitted with great optics so they could keep a close eye on what was going on, even at night.
Abul Abed and his men went in and captured their five targets without firing a shot. They questioned them and turned two over to Kuehl. “They wanted to release the other three, which is an interesting part of this,” Kuehl said. “In our negotiations Sheikh Khalid asked for the ability to give amnesty. He said many of the AQI fighters were the young boys of the community. He wanted to release them after they signed an oath to not fight for Al Qaeda and for their parents to also sign for them. I thought this was a great idea and agreed. I think this did a lot to undermine AQI’s base.”
The other part of destroying Al Qaeda involved local civil oversight, which was also risky. Kuehl saw Sheikh Khalid as the most legitimate local leader. The Neighborhood Advisory Council was seen to be ineffective and had links with AQI and corruption. On the other hand, Kuehl suggests, Sheikh Khalid seemed to be respected by many in the community. Sheikh Khalid was a strong critic of the Maliki government. He shared the perception with many in Amriya that the Maliki government was intentionally denying services to Sunni areas. He was fairly soft-spoken, but despite his quiet exterior he had strong opinions and definite influence in the community.
Sheikh Khalid’s mosque was located next door to Gallagher’s company’s combat outpost, which helped facilitate communication. He would provide recommendations to Gallagher on how the locations of concrete barriers should be less obtrusive to the local pedestrian traffic, particularly for Iraqi children who walked to the nearby school. “We therefore adjusted the barrier locations to meet his request. I believe following through on such reasonable requests helped sustain a positive working relationship, which in turn helped sustain our credibility and respect in the area,” Gallagher said.
Abul Abed seemed to respect Khalid. “I tried to get Khalid to sign the security contract we were establishing, but he kept delaying,” Kuehl said. “He never said no, but there was always some new demand. I think he was also getting pressure from other people behind the scenes. After months of haggling I finally made the decision to have Abul Abed sign the contract. In retrospect, I think Khalid wanted to keep out of direct involvement. Still, I thought it important that we get some voice of the people. We asked Khalid to organize the local leaders within the community. He formed a local council from the community to include tribal leaders, former military officers, and other professionals. He took great risk in doing this since it would have no official government legitimacy. However, he was politically connected, and I think he did a great job of adding legitimacy to the effort. One group that never really got on board was the Iraqi Islamic Party. They were jealous of the power that this movement was gaining, and I think they saw it as a threat.”
“Money was not the primary motivator for Abul Abed,” Kuehl later wrote, noting that Abed’s men were not paid for the first three months. When they did get paid in September 2007, Kuehl described the sum as a “pittance” compared with the risk they were taking, much less than what Al Qaeda were paying their men. “[Abed] was driven by a desire to protect his family and bring stability to the Sunni areas. While he was very much against [the Mahdi Army], I would not label him as sectarian. Several of his closest aides were Shiites. I would classify him as a nationalist if anything.”
Over time restrictions had to be put on the Fursan’s operations. All operations had to be conducted with the Iraqi army. The problem was that the army had difficulty keeping pace with the Fursan. But multiple security outposts were established throughout Amriya with the Fursan, protecting key infrastructure in the community. “Between their outposts, the Iraqi army outposts, and our two combat operation posts, you could not move two blocks in Amriya without running into someone involved in security,” Kuehl said. “Violence dropped significantly.”
With Abul Abed’s intelligence as well as information coming from other sources, Kuehl was able to map out the insurgent network. “The information provided by Abul Abed and his men allowed us to target much more accurately,” he said. “We had names and in some cases pictures. We posted wanted posters that proved very effective. Tips from locals increased significantly. We hit Al Qaeda pretty hard, detaining some, killing others. Those
