Global Jihad All Star Team

One of the debates that continues to resonate around Iraq is that most people think this is a new phenomenon or is a small fraction of the fighters in Iraq therefore are not leading the fight. Ergo, its an Iraqi civil war and we should get out. Kind of like how people were ignoring the small, but important Chinese and Russian presence in North Viet Nam in favor of the narrative that Viet Nam was a civil war not a grand American fight to stop the spread of the "Red Menace" and a threat to our freedom. Communism was on the march and it took us another twenty years to push it back and defeat it. During that time, millions of people were killed, imprisoned, suffered persecutions, famine, political and economic instability. Those were rough years.

In Iraq, the common theme now to accept is that the Islamist Jihadists like Al Qaida were not in Iraq before we went there and that Saddam's ties to terrorism did not really threaten the United States. Thus, according to this narrative, the Iraq invasion was unnecessary and the inclusion of al Qaida and other terrorists was not the onous or impetuous for the terrible fighting we saw in Fallujah in 2004 or the later "civil war" in 2006 after the Samarra bombing.

What is difficult for most people to understand is that Al Qaida was in Iraq before the invasion, it simply was not organized nor called "Al Qaida in Iraq". In 2003, the Kurds took down Ansar al-Islam (Army of Islam) in the north. This group had been harassing the Kurds for many years. It occupied a "no man's land" between the Kurdish north and Saddam's Iraq. Saddam had no love for this organization, but he was not adverse to using it to his advantage when it suited him; alternately pushing them back with the military and offering them truces that included monetary and material support (ie, weapons) and training. If they would re-focus their efforts on the Kurdish, he left them to their small enclave.

During the lead up to the invasion of Afghanistan and after, Al Qaida and Taliban operatives would travel across Iran to Ansar al Islam's enclave and recruit fighters to return to Afghanistan to fight US forces. It was these connections that led to Zarqawi arriving in Iraq in 2002 to be treated for an injury he received in battle in Afghanistan. It was Ansar al Islam's connections with the regime that allowed Zarqawi to be admitted to and treated at the Ba'ath's premier hospital in Baghdad that routinely treated high ranking or important members of Saddam's Ba'athist regime.

It was probably during his time of recovery in Baghdad that allowed Zarqawi to make critical contacts with Sunni Ba'athists who would create the future insurgency. These contacts included people with money inside Iraq and outside in countries like Syria who financed the insurgency and helped create the "rat lines" through these areas to funnel foreign fighters into the country. Through these contacts he built the network that would later become "Al Qaida in the Land of Two Rivers", still later "Al Qaida in Iraq" and finally, "The Islamic State of Iraq".

In 1998, Bin Laden had sought common cause with Iraq by making the sanctions against Iraq one of the focal points and causes of his global Islamic declaration of war against "crusaders and Jews". In the lead up to the actual invasion of Iraq in 2002 and, specifically, February 2003, Zawahiri and Bin Laden had made crucial statements about the potential attack against Iraq. In 2003, just prior to the invasion, Bin Laden called on foreign fighters to take up the call of "holy war" in Iraq. He stated that there was nothing wrong with assisting the Ba'athists in defending Iraq. The Ba'athist's time was over, according to Bin Laden, so making common cause with them would not injure or destroy the Islamic Jihadist movement.

Many fighters had already been streaming into Iraq. Some joined Saddam's Fedeyeen (faithful or loyalists). Others found small enclaves or groups to hunker down with and try to organize. Some of the first men to later form "Al Qaida in Iraq" were already there, they just hadn't been firmly established or organized into anything resembling "Al Qaida" as most people see it or think about AQI (Al Qaida in Iraq) today.

Tom Parks, CWO (retired) from Veterans for Freedom, was on the march to Baghdad in 2003. He spoke about the three types of armed resistance he met: Saddam's army, Saddam's fedeyeen and "insurgents". Saddam's army and fedeyeen wore some type of uniform. The fedeyeen were organized with black shirts and provided Iraqi ordinance and weapons. Insurgents had no uniforms and used civilians to hide behind. Later, the army and fedeyeen disposed of their uniforms all together. Some to live and run away. Others to become "insurgents".

Among these "insurgents" already existed "foreign fighters" that had come, not for Saddam, but for jihad against America. The Americans encountered Somalis, Libyans, Palestinians and many others along with the Iraqi forces without uniforms on the march to Baghdad. They were no match against American tanks and close air support or the capabilities of a well trained American soldier. Yet, they did not simply fade away or return to their home nations once the United States reached Baghdad.

The Iraqis had their cities and towns, but where did these foreign fighters go? Some simply sought refuge among the people searching for connections to the insurgency to link up with and continue the fight. Others returned to al Anbar and stayed with the rural Arab tribes who believed in offering hospitality, food and shelter, to travelers, but particularly Arab men on their way to holy war. Here, they also found common cause with Sunni who rejected the "occupation" and their fall from power. Still others went to the cities such as Fallujah, Baghdad and Mosul where they had traveled through on their way to the first battles and knew of connections there that could help them with shelter and money to be able to continue the fight.

During that time, Zarqawi and others had also been strengthening their connections, establishing "rat routes" to filter fighters into Iraq, getting funding, weapons and general support. They still had not called themselves Al Qaida. In fact, that was the American word for these groups. They called themselves by various other names that each cadre had created for itself such as the Knights of the Sunna, Suna al Islam and many more. These groups were fairly autonomous, decentralized and capable of planning and carrying out their own attacks. Yet, they were not organized with any more strategic directive than to drive the Americans out of Iraq.

The Ba'athist ex-military had units that were tactically more capable than the newly organized jihadists. These groups had fire teams with discipline and manuevering skills. The jihadists were much better at spectacular and gruesome bombings or full frontal, suicidal attacks on bases meant to overcome with their pure shock factor.

These groups had not yet become fully integrated with each other in the early days. For the most part, they distrusted each other immensely. In 2003 and early 2004, the early signs of the fissure that would lead to Al Qaida's destruction in Anbar appeared on the streets of Baghdad when rival organizations such as the Ba'athist 1920's Brigade and the Suna al Islam would exchange fire as each tried to establish their control of an area. Yet, as each group began to consolidate power in certain areas and under specific leaders, they were able to gain more control of the disparate cells and begin to look for ways to cooperate in their one over-arching goal: to drive Americans out of Iraq.

One of the cities where these groups coalesced was Fallujah, about forty miles west of Baghdad. It's proximity to Baghdad made it an excellent strategic, centralized location. It also had highly protected routes that went from Baghdad to Fallujah and from cities like Haditha, Hit, Al Rutbah, Al Wasit and Al Qaim into Syria from where men, weapons and money could be quickly transported, protected by agreements from the local tribes who began to make considerable money from the smuggling.

In early 2004, four contract security personnel were ambushed, killed and their bodies burned. They were then hung from a bridge leading out of Fallujah. The spectacle caused a backlash in the United States. It looked like Somalia, where US helicopter pilots were shot down and their bodies desecrated and drug through the streets. It was Somalia where Al Qaida had first worked with locals, training them to use anti-aircraft weapons like MAN-PADS and RPGs to bring down the helicopters.

It was the subsequent withdrawal of US forces from Somalia, along with the images of "the last helicopter out of Saigon", that prompted bin Laden to claim the US was a "paper tiger" that could be defeated if engaged in guerrilla warfare. And, that, along with a weak response to attacks against US forces in Saudi Arabia at Khobar Towers, US embassies in Nairobi and Kenya and eventually the attack on the USS Cole that had convinced bin Laden to attack the US directly. Leading to September 11, 2001.

That knowledge and those images had the US spoiling for a fight in Fallujah. Many more foreign fighters began to pour into Fallujah and surrounding areas, building fortifications and tunnels to defend against a counter-attack and possibly defeat the American army in a large scale urban battle that had been feared, but had not occurred during the 2003 incursion in Baghdad.

The first attempt to pacify the city came with the Iraqi army. A local unit was quickly put together and marched into the city, only to fall apart with barely a shot fired. The insurgents, both Iraqi and foreign, owned the city. The men either left or joined the rebel forces inside. Prime Minister Alawi was trying to negotiate a deal to surrender the city and avoid a potential blood bath. That soon came to an end and the angry Alawi gave permission to take the city by force.

In the meantime, the horror that was inside Fallujah had been spilling out daily. First a trickle of bodies here and there that eventually grew to dozens daily as the Islamic Jihadists began to form a large and controlling influence in Fallujah. Men, women and children's bodies were found everyday on the roads, in the canals and floating in the rivers tortured, burned, cut to pieces, shot, drowned, hung and decapitated.

A marine captain, stationed outside of Fallujah, reported the daily horrors and noted that the insurgents were so brazen as to drive right to the outskirts of the city, within sight of their post, to dump the bodies in broad daylight. Citizens of Fallujah would escape the city, sometimes going to the marines and asking them to rescue their people, their families, from the horrific slaughter and oppression within. The marines were not allowed to do anything, but basic patrolling outside the city while the political process continued between the national government and Fallujan leaders to surrender the city.

When Alawi gave the go ahead to go in by force, a relatively small marine unit was tasked to recon and approach the city. They were quickly surrounded and pushed back, fighting every step of the way to get back out of the city without a massacre. The marines had discovered that the insurgents, foreign and domestic, inside the city were well entrenched and prepared. They had fortified the city during that time in a way that Baghdad had never been. The architecture of Fallujah, as noted by Bellavia in "House to House" were like miniature fortified compounds that lent to the overall capability of resisting an incursion.

Taking Fallujah was going to require many more troops, much more equipment and large scale planning. Most of all, it was going to take time. Time also worked for the insurgents and rebels inside of Fallujah. It gave them more time to booby trap houses and streets, knock out power poles, fortify houses, dig tunnels, barricade roads and bring in even more men and weapons: the "global jihadist all star team" that Bellavia confronts in his book. In short, they planned for and worked towards delivering "hell" to the Americans when they came.

Over in Najaf, Sadr was kicking up his own surprise. In an apparent coordination with or attempt to leverage the Fallujah uprising, the Sadr Mahdi Army had come into Najaf and took over the famous Imam Ali Mosque. The Mahdi Army began to confront US forces wherever they met. The start of "House to House" has Bellavia in Muqdadiya outside of Najaf in 2004, battling the Mahdi militia. It is there that his friend Fritts is shot three times and Bellavia is confronted with a close up view of their mortality.

In August 2004, the Mahdi Army is all but destroyed in Najaf, surrounded in the Imam Ali Mosque. Ali Sistani, grand Ayatollah of Iraq, fearing the destruction of the mosque and the Sadr movement might lead to a general Shia uprising, negotiated a deal to bring Sadr out. Thousands of Shia joined Sistani on a march to Najaf where they led Sadr's militia out, surrounded and protected by their own "civilian" forces.

The Battle for Fallujah was well on the way to being operationally ready for implementation. Bellavia's unit is pulled for the attack. Defensive berms are built around the city to control the flow of people into and out of Fallujah. Hundreds of thousands of Fallujah citizens stream out of the city to designated checkpoints and on into refugee camps where they waited the outcome of the battle.

That's where Bellavia finds the biggest test of his ideas, his strengths and his love for his men. This is where the book begins.

House to House
Veterans for Freedom