The 9/11 Wars (118 page)

  33
.
At twenty-five per day, the 2008 rate for violent civilian deaths was to be equivalent to that existing throughout the first twenty months of post-invasion Iraq, from May 2003 to December 2004, when 15,355 died over 610 days. ‘Post-Surge Violence: Its Extent and Nature. What the Detailed Data Tell Us about Iraq’s Civilian Death Toll during 2008 and the Long-term Effect of the “Surge” ’,
iraqbodycount.org
, December 28, 2008.

  34
.
Bobby Ghosh, ‘The fleeting success of the Surge’,
Time
, December 13, 2007. Quoted Freedman,
A Choice of Enemies
, p. 447.

  35
.
Ricks,
Fiasco
, Appendix II.

  36
.
Author interview, Istanbul, March, 2008.

  37
.
Pelham,
A New Muslim Order
, p. 195. Semi-depopulated middle-class neighbourhoods like Adil, where resistance was likely to be less significant than in the tougher working-class neighbourhoods like al-Doura, were targeted first. International Crisis Group,
Iraq’s Civil War, the Sadrists and the Surge
, February 7, 2008, p. 2.

  38
.
Ibid., p. 6. For much of 2006, the American high command in Iraq had been largely unaware of the carnage around them. According to Kilcullen, the ongoing civil war only began to be reflected in the American military’s daily ‘battlefield update’ briefings for the commanding general in Iraq from mid July 2006, four and a half months after the blast at Samarra. Kilcullen,
The Accidental Guerrilla
, pp. 121–2. The police were often heavily implicated in the killing but even in the best of cases were so powerless that local people referred to them as
daffana
, or undertakers, because all they were good for was collecting bodies.

  39
.
Sunni gangs made sure that mixed neighbourhoods such as Ghazaliya and Amiriya were thoroughly purged of Shia.

  40
.
See Elisa Cochrane, ‘The Fragmentation of the Sadrist Movement’, Institute for the Study of War, January 2009, p. 21. International Crisis Group,
Iraq’s Civil War, the Sadrists and the Surge
, p. 5.

  41
.
James Hanning, ‘Deal with Shia prisoner left Basra at mercy of gangs, colonel admits’,
Independent on Sunday
, August 3, 2008.

  42
.
See Cochrane, ‘The Fragmentation’, p. 7.

  43
.
Sabrina Tavernise, ‘A Shiite militia in Baghdad sees its power wane’,
New York Times
, July 27, 2008.

  44
.
Urban,
Task Force Black
, pp. 224–5.

  45
.
International Crisis Group,
Iraq’s Civil War, the Sadrists and the Surge
, p. 7.

  46
.
Interview, Baghdad, September 2010.

  47
.
Al-Sadr’s representatives had withdrawn from government a few months previously and thus were no longer a key element of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s support.

  48
.
See West,
The Strongest Tribe
, pp. 250, 274–5, 301, 318–319, and Ricks,
The Gamble
, p. 22. An ill-judged attempt to take control of the shrine at Karbala, which saw fighting against Iraqi government forces and around fifty worshippers killed and was widely reported on local news, also contributed to further loss of legitimacy. That the government forces were in fact loyal to the rival al-Badr militia did not make a huge difference to the public perception of the events.

  49
.
Odierno quoted by Babak Dehghanpisheh and Larry Kaplow, ‘Baghdad’s new owners’,
Newsweek
, September 10, 2007. Odierno, ‘The Surge in Iraq’.

  50
.
David Kilcullen, ‘Field Notes on Iraq’s Tribal Revolt Against Al-Qa’ida’,
CTC Sentinel
, vol. 1, no. 11, October 2008. The 1920 Revolution Brigades split first from their more closely al-Qaeda-affiliated counterparts and then themselves, with one element going on to form Hamas-Iraq, which, though it continued to conduct attacks on coalition and government forces, also made statements opposing sectarian conflict and in favour of a political process.

  51
.
Senior religious figures relayed the change in policy. ‘Saudi cleric issues warning over Saudi militants’, Reuters, October 1, 2007.

  52
.
Urban,
Task Force Black
, p. 127.

  53
.
Ibid., p. 243.

  54
.
See Kilcullen,
The Accidental Guerrilla
, pp. 136, 167–70. One problem was that the troops stuck to the four- or five-man groups that crewed a vehicle.

  55
.
Presentation to Riyadh meeting and author interview, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, March 2008.

  56
.
Ibid.

  57
.
Alissa J. Rubin, ‘A calmer Iraq: fragile, and possibly fleeting’,
New York Times
, December 5, 2007.

  58
.
Martin Fletcher, ‘Al-Qaeda leaders admit: “We are in crisis. There is panic and fear” ’,
The Times
, February 11, 2008.

  59
.
CNN.com
transcript of broadcast of Congressional Hearings, April 8, 2008.

  60
.
Interview, Baghdad, November 2010.

  61
.
See Combating Terrorism Center, West Point,
Foreign Fighters in Iraq
, 2007, p. 5. Abu Umar al-Baghdadi,
For the Scum Disappears Like Froth Cast Out
, posted to
www.muslim.net
on December 4, 2007. At its head was an unknown militant with the resoundingly Iraqi
kunya
or alias of Abu Umar al-Baghdadi, who American intelligence officials claimed did not actually exist. Dean Yates, ‘Senior Qaeda figure in Iraq a myth: U.S. military’, Reuters, July 18, 2007. Springer et al.,
Islamic Radicalism and Global Jihad
, pp. 119–21.

  62
.
The loss of al-Iraqi was a serious one. He had probably played a key role in a number of other plots in Europe too, including the 7/7 London attacks, acting as the intermediary between the senior al-Qaeda leadership and the Pakistani militant groups who had been the Westerners’ first point of contact.

  63
.
Joby Warrick and Robin Wright, ‘U.S. teams weaken insurgency in Iraq’,
Washington Post
, September 6, 2008.

  64
.
According to American officials. Jim Michaels, ‘Foreign fighters leaving Iraq, military says’,
USA Today
, March 21, 2008.

  65
.
Records of the Mujahideen Shura Council – the rebranded al-Qaeda in Iraq – seized by American troops in a major operation on a large training and transit camp in Sinjar in the north-west of Iraq showed both how claims that the organization was predominantly ‘Iraqi’ were false and how numbers of recruits from overseas remained relatively low with only a few dozen volunteers arriving each month by the end of 2007.

  66
.
Author interview, Riyadh, March 2009. See also Thomas Hegghammer,
Paths to Global Jihad
, report, FFI, 2006, p. 27.

  67
.
Author interview with Otayan al-Turki, Riyadh, March 2009.

  68
.
Author interview with Dr Abdulrahman al-Hadlaq, Riyadh, March 2009. Jason Burke, ‘Saudis offer pioneering therapy for ex-jihadists’,
Observer
, March 9, 2008. In 2010, figures were released which showed that in fact around one in ten of those undergoing the Saudi rehabilitation programme did eventually become involved once more in extremist activities. The vast bulk of these were former prisoners of Guantanamo Bay.

  69
.
Author interview, Riyadh, March 2009.

  70
.
Author interview, Riyadh, March 2009.

  71
.
International Crisis Group,
‘Deradicalization’ and Indonesian Prisons
, November 19, 2007.

  72
.
Amanda Ripley, ‘Reverse radicalism’,
Time
, March 13, 2008.

  73
.
Author interview, senior UK counter-terrorism official, London, August 2008.

  74
.
They cited sociologist Quintan Wictorowicz as the best guide to the nature of modern Islamic militancy. Author interviews, London, July 2007.

  75
.
Author interviews, MI5, London, July 2009.

  76
.
Cobain, ‘The truth about torture’.

  77
.
Charles Farr, head of OSCT, quoted in Home Affairs Committee,
Project CONTEST: The Government’s Counter-terrorism Strategy: Ninth Report of Session 2008–09, House of Commons,
July 7, 2009, p. 29. Author interview with Farr, London, September 2007. PREVENT was part of the UK Counter-Terrorism Strategy known as CONTEST and in place since 2003.

  78
.
One poll in 2006 had found that less than half of British Muslims respected Iqbal Sacranie, the MCB’s general secretary (while 69 per cent respected the Queen) and only 12 per cent thought that the MCB represented their political views. NOP/Channel Four poll, 2006, cited Malik,
From Fatwa to Jihad
, p. 129.

  79
.
Richard Kerbaj, ‘Government moves to isolate Muslim Council of Britain with cash for mosques’,
The Times
, March 30, 2009. See also the useful and controversial pamphlet on the MCB, for which the author wrote an introduction, by British journalist Martin Bright:
When Progressives Treat with Reactionaries
, Policy Exchange, July 2006.

  80
.
James Brandon, ‘The UK’s Experience in Counter-radicalization’,
CTC Sentinel
, April 2008, vol. 1, no. 5.

  81
.
Individuals like Shiraz Maher and Ed Husain, the two former Hezb-ut-Tahrir members quoted in Chapter 8, were joined by others whose jihadi credentials may have been exaggerated. Husain’s book,
The Islamist
, became a best-seller. For criticism, see
Final Report of the Communities and Local Government Select Committee Inquiry into Preventing Violent Extremism
, HMSO, March 30, 2010.

  82
.
Author interview, August 2007.

  83
.
www.tajdeed.net.tc
on July 8, 2006: ‘Al-Sahab for Media Production’. David Pallister, ‘Three jailed for engaging in “cyber jihad” for al-Qaida’,
Guardian
, July 6, 2007.

  84
.
Dalia Mogahed,
Beyond Multiculturalism vs. Assimilation
, Gallup, 2007, p. 4. The conclusion was based on 500 interviews in London between 29 November 2006 and 18 January 2007.