Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
San Diego Union-Tribune
May 31, 2008 By Kim Gamel, Associated Press
BALAD, Iraq – Schoolteacher Raad Mohammed Mahdi used to take on another role after classes: foot soldier in the Sunni insurgency north of Baghdad.
He grew weary of his double life last year and wanted to lay down his arms. The problem was he didn't know how to surrender formally without facing possible jail time.
Last week, Mahdi entered a U.S. military base and signed a form that amounts to a personal truce. More than 140 other men came the next day after learning that soldiers did not detain Mahdi, whose late brother was an insurgent leader.
It marked some of the first steps in a new U.S.-Iraqi program to offer a way out for those who renounce violence – part of widening attempts at national reconciliation as sectarian violence shows signs of easing.
The latest offer promises a clean slate for fighters if they claim their only targets were U.S. troops. It also pledges a “fair” legal process for those wanted for attacks on Iraqis troops or civilians.
Since the program was expanded this month to Sunni areas near Balad, more than 300 men have surrendered. Most have been released, though 76 were given a court date to face Iraqi charges.
The program provides an alternative to the so-called awakening movements – which bring Sunni armed groups into alliances against insurgents led by al-Qaeda in Iraq.
In all, more than 1,000 men have taken part in Operation Musalaha, Arabic for reconciliation, which was launched in January elsewhere in northern Iraq, the military said.
Around Balad, Sunnis were reluctant to join awakening bands because of tribal rivalries and a deep distrust of Iraqi troops, many of them Shiites.
But the program gained momentum in the Balad area in recent weeks after U.S. troops killed three key insurgent leaders, including Mahdi's brother. That removed the intimidation factor that had kept many in insurgent ranks, military officials said.
The military also persuaded prominent local Sunni sheiks to order their men to participate.
Raad Mohammed Mahdi was one of the first to take up the offer. On May 21, he signed a cease-fire agreement and pledged to follow Iraqi laws.
“We are tired of raids. We want to protect our area by ourselves,” the 31-year-old teacher said at the base in Balad, a mostly Shiite city near a major U.S. air base about 50 miles north of Baghdad.
Mahdi said he took up arms against U.S. forces after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. He later joined the Ansar al-Sunnah militant group and expanded his enemy list to include the Shiite-dominated Iraqi security forces and Shiite militias. “Anybody would defend his country if it was occupied,” he said.
More recently, his targets were the Sunni awakening groups.
Mahdi said that is behind him now. “The policy of the American forces has changed. Now the American forces are on the right track. We have trust in them,” he said.
Not all agree. Some men have refused to participate, saying they feared the Americans and the Iraqis would use the written pledge against them.
U.S. and Iraqi officials, however, are hopeful that the program will stem support for the insurgency by giving former fighters an exit.
“There are a lot of guys who kept fighting simply because they didn't have an out,” said Lt. Col. Bob McCarthy, commander of the 1st Squadron, 32nd Cavalry Regiment that operates in the Balad area. “At the end of the day, if they've quit fighting, we've got to figure out how to let them move forward.”
McCarthy, of Mechanicsburg, Ill., estimated that fewer than 20 percent of those who have surrendered were members al-Qaeda in Iraq. The others, he said, considered themselves the “honorable resistance” that was “focused on fighting coalition or Iraqi security forces but not wanton mayhem inflicted on civilians.”
May 31, 2008 By Kim Gamel, Associated Press
BALAD, Iraq – Schoolteacher Raad Mohammed Mahdi used to take on another role after classes: foot soldier in the Sunni insurgency north of Baghdad.
He grew weary of his double life last year and wanted to lay down his arms. The problem was he didn't know how to surrender formally without facing possible jail time.
Last week, Mahdi entered a U.S. military base and signed a form that amounts to a personal truce. More than 140 other men came the next day after learning that soldiers did not detain Mahdi, whose late brother was an insurgent leader.
It marked some of the first steps in a new U.S.-Iraqi program to offer a way out for those who renounce violence – part of widening attempts at national reconciliation as sectarian violence shows signs of easing.
The latest offer promises a clean slate for fighters if they claim their only targets were U.S. troops. It also pledges a “fair” legal process for those wanted for attacks on Iraqis troops or civilians.
Since the program was expanded this month to Sunni areas near Balad, more than 300 men have surrendered. Most have been released, though 76 were given a court date to face Iraqi charges.
The program provides an alternative to the so-called awakening movements – which bring Sunni armed groups into alliances against insurgents led by al-Qaeda in Iraq.
In all, more than 1,000 men have taken part in Operation Musalaha, Arabic for reconciliation, which was launched in January elsewhere in northern Iraq, the military said.
Around Balad, Sunnis were reluctant to join awakening bands because of tribal rivalries and a deep distrust of Iraqi troops, many of them Shiites.
But the program gained momentum in the Balad area in recent weeks after U.S. troops killed three key insurgent leaders, including Mahdi's brother. That removed the intimidation factor that had kept many in insurgent ranks, military officials said.
The military also persuaded prominent local Sunni sheiks to order their men to participate.
Raad Mohammed Mahdi was one of the first to take up the offer. On May 21, he signed a cease-fire agreement and pledged to follow Iraqi laws.
“We are tired of raids. We want to protect our area by ourselves,” the 31-year-old teacher said at the base in Balad, a mostly Shiite city near a major U.S. air base about 50 miles north of Baghdad.
Mahdi said he took up arms against U.S. forces after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. He later joined the Ansar al-Sunnah militant group and expanded his enemy list to include the Shiite-dominated Iraqi security forces and Shiite militias. “Anybody would defend his country if it was occupied,” he said.
More recently, his targets were the Sunni awakening groups.
Mahdi said that is behind him now. “The policy of the American forces has changed. Now the American forces are on the right track. We have trust in them,” he said.
Not all agree. Some men have refused to participate, saying they feared the Americans and the Iraqis would use the written pledge against them.
U.S. and Iraqi officials, however, are hopeful that the program will stem support for the insurgency by giving former fighters an exit.
“There are a lot of guys who kept fighting simply because they didn't have an out,” said Lt. Col. Bob McCarthy, commander of the 1st Squadron, 32nd Cavalry Regiment that operates in the Balad area. “At the end of the day, if they've quit fighting, we've got to figure out how to let them move forward.”
McCarthy, of Mechanicsburg, Ill., estimated that fewer than 20 percent of those who have surrendered were members al-Qaeda in Iraq. The others, he said, considered themselves the “honorable resistance” that was “focused on fighting coalition or Iraqi security forces but not wanton mayhem inflicted on civilians.”