US Troops Cannot Stop Saddam-Friendly Clans In Triangle Of Death

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US Troops Cannot Stop Saddam-Friendly Clans In Triangle Of Death
Edited By Rob Gibran
June 05, 2005

Attempts by 40,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops to close off Baghdad from armed groups is destined to fail, according to Iraqi sources, because of a series of roads loosely referred to as the "Mujahedeen Road." These access routes are often controlled by tribal clans that once formed part of Saddam’s protective shield.

The road that connects Baghdad with Iraq’s southern cities passes through what is known as the “Triangle of Death.” This road is frequently closed due to exploding booby-trapped cars, armed clashes, or to secure American supply convoys from Kuwait. But experienced car drivers quickly switch to an alternate dirt road that branches out in a web-like fashion through a multitude of intertwined and overlapping agricultural lands. Local kids sometimes direct traffic through these agricultural lands and warn against driving through the “Mujahedeen Road,” where many accidents occur and where strangers are not welcome.

A Brigadier in the Iraqi Interior Ministry who is among the officers in charge of Operation Lightning in the Triangle of Death (he declined to be mentioned by name) acknowledged that there are difficulties in controlling the many Mujahedeen Roads that are so widespread in the Baghdad area. He said that there are more than 70 such roads that come in from different directions and branch out to tens of smaller pathways. These roads act as arteries through which armed groups and booby-trapped cars enter the capital, despite the fact that Operation Lightning, which has been underway for over a week, has the explicit aim of preventing such armed factions from operating inside Baghdad.

According to the Brigadier, the main difficulty rests in the complexity of these passages, and the impracticality of spreading even a large security force over all of them. Therefore, the Iraqi and the American forces are limited to controlling the major thoroughfares, and to establishing checkpoints out in the open, where they are easy targets for armed factions.

The Iraqi Ministry of Defense confirmed reports that the armed factions are receiving logistical and intelligence support from the inhabitants of the Triangle of Death, indicating that threats and scare tactics have forced some of the inhabitants to do so. But clan leaders in the cities of Al-Latifiyah and Jarf Al-Sakhr (in the heart of the Triangle of Death) refuted these accusations, and assured “Al-Hayat” correspondents that the open geographical nature of the region makes it difficult to control, and that the armed factions move through the complex web of roads outside of towns and cities, and frequently at night.

Sheik Abou Aamer Al-Janaabi, a leader of one of the largest clans in the Triangle of Death (to which many field officers of the armed factions belong), says that Iraqi and U.S. forces have carried out incursions and random detentions since the start of Operation Lightning. These operations have forced the men and teenage boys in many of the targeted areas to flee their homes, leaving only the women and children behind. Al-Janaabi adds that, “The American forces have detained five of my sons in my Jarf Al-Sakhr home.” He also affirmed that the American interrogator threatened to hand him over to the Babel police unless he provides further information about the terrorists.

According to Abd-Elhadi Al-Fatlawi, an influential figure in the Babel area, the armed attacks that have targeted some of the Shiites who travel through areas controlled by Al-Janaabi’s clan have generated much sectarian hatred against the clan in the southern cities. This hatred has sometimes been translated into police detentions targeting people who belong to that clan, and into physical torture that included “the amputation of fingers” of some clan prisoners in Babel (this according to some Operation Lightning fugitives). Al-Janaabi explained that the inhabitants of clan areas have come to prefer the American-run prisons, such as Abu Ghraib and Boca, over prisons that are under Iraqi supervision in Al-Hallah, Karbala and Najaf. American interrogators have exploited this situation by threatening the inhabitants of these areas with the revenge of the Babel police, the majority of who are Shiite members of the “Badr” special police brigade.

The detaining of more than 650 suspects in the Triangle of Death since the start of Operation Lightning (and the more than 2000 people that have been detained over the past two years) have not reduced the number of attacks in that region. Efforts to close the passages into Baghdad and the Mujahedeen Roads have also failed.

In a statement issued by the “Islamic Party” (whose chief, Mohsen Abd-Elhamid, was detained by U.S. forces and then released), the difficulties are based on the “failure of the military option” in solving Iraq’s security problems. The statement suggested that the political choice is better suited for settling these security issues. This would necessarily require the opening of a dialogue with the armed factions.

Some Iraqi military analysts, such as retired Major General Abdel-Aziz Al-Azawi who worked in the field of military intelligence during Saddam Hussein’s rule, find that achieving control over security in Baghdad is a difficult task, and might not even b possible, despite the deployment of more than 40,000 troops under the recent Operation Lightning and other similar operations that preceded it.

Major General Al-Azawi disclosed that Saddam Hussein relied on the authority of tribal leaders under the protection of Baghdad and the surrounding regions. These areas saved him from the 1990 Shiite uprisings in the south and the Kurdish uprisings in the north, when the clans surrounding Baghdad formed a security barrier that contributed greatly to blocking the advance of the rebels toward Baghdad. He adds that dealing with these tribes in a repressive way will only lead to more violence.

This could be the reason why 50 members of the national assembly, from different political coalitions, declared the formation of a tribal coalition, whose main task would be to reactivate the tribal role in the political and security process.

One of the leaders of a known clan in the area of Al-Mada’en commented sarcastically that, “During Saddam’s time, there was somebody who would receive us as mediators to solve people’s problems or to work on the release of detainees, but now all we get from the Americans is ‘GO’!”