Insurgents rule with an iron fist

By Ahmed Mahdi Haditha and Rory Carroll
BaghdadAugust 23, 2005

Guerillas impose their will over 90,000 people in what resembles a miniature Taliban-like state.

THE executions are carried out at dawn on Haqlania bridge, the entrance to Haditha. A small crowd usually turns up to watch even though the killings are filmed and made available on DVD in the market the same afternoon.
One of last week's victims was a young man in a black tracksuit. Like the others he was left on his belly by the blue iron railings at the bridge's southern end. His severed head rested on his back, facing Baghdad. Children cheered when they heard that the next day's spectacle would be a double bill: two decapitations. A man named Watban and his brother had been found guilty of spying.

With so many alleged American agents dying here, Haqlania bridge was renamed Agents' bridge. Then a local wag dubbed it Agents' fridge, evoking a mortuary, and that name has stuck.

A three-day visit by The Guardian last week established what neither the Iraqi Government nor the US military has admitted: Haditha, a farming town of 90,000 people by the Euphrates River, is an insurgent citadel.

That Islamist guerillas were active in the area was no secret but only now has the extent of their control been revealed. They are the town's sole authority, running the security, administration and communications.

A three-hour drive north from Baghdad, in the shadow of an American base, it is a miniature Taliban-like state.

Insurgents decide who lives and dies, which salaries get paid, what people wear, what they watch and listen to.

For politicians and diplomats in Baghdad's fortified green zone the draft constitution is a means to stabilise Iraq and woo Sunni Arabs away from the rebellion. For Haditha, 225 kilometres north-west of the capital, whether a draft is agreed is irrelevant.

Residents already have a set of laws and rules promulgated by insurgents. There is no fighting here because there is no one to challenge the Islamists. The police station and municipal offices were destroyed last year and US marines make only fleeting visits every few months.

Two groups share power. Ansar al-Sunna is a largely home-grown organisation, although its leader in Haditha is said to be foreign.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq, known locally by its old name Tawhid al-Jihad, is led by the Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

A year ago Haditha was just another sleepy town in western Anbar province, deep in the Sunni triangle, suspicious of the Shiite-led government in Baghdad but no insurgent hotbed. Then, say residents, mostly Shiite police arrived with heavy-handed behaviour. Attacks against the police escalated until they fled, creating a vacuum filled by insurgents.

Alcohol and music deemed unIslamic were banned, women were told to wear headscarves and relations between the sexes were closely monitored. The mobile phone network was shut down but insurgents retained their walkie-talkies and satellite phones. DVDs of beheadings on the bridge are distributed free in the market. Children prefer them to cartoons.

"They should not watch such things," said one grandfather, but parents seemed not to object.

The US military declined to respond to questions detailing the extent of insurgent control in the town.

Tribal elders said they feared but respected insurgents for keeping order and not turning the town into a battleground. GUARDIAN

Ahmed Mahdi is a pseudonym to protect the identity of the reporter who gained access to Haditha.

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