Cleric lends voice to coalition

AD DULUYIAH, Iraq

A charismatic cleric who once led al Qaeda in Iraq’s media wing has joined with U.S. and Iraqi forces to stamp out the organization to which he once pledged loyalty. His name is Mullah Najim Mahmoud Khalil al Jabouri. When not giving anti- al Qaeda sermons and leading prayers at Ad Duluyiah’s Khlafa mosque, he’s coordinating the activities of Sons of Iraq security groups, participating in efforts to reconcile insurgents with the government, and meeting with senior Iraqi government officials in Baghdad and with U.S. representatives.

“Yes, it is a big change,” he said through an interpreter at Forward Operating Base Paliwoda, a U.S. forward operating base near the city of Balad. “I was their media person. They used me to call the people to fight [the coalition forces]. I gave speeches in mosques, in videotapes, on the Internet and on CDs.

“Now I work with the coalition forces and my government.”

Mullah Najim’s path to al Qaeda and back is full of twists and turns. After U.S. forces toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003, he initially cooperated with U.S. forces in inspecting damaged mosques around the Jabouri Peninsula area of Salahaddin province that would need repair. But cooperation ended as the Sunni resistance to U.S. forces began in earnest and U.S. soldiers responded with hard-edged combat tactics, rather than the hearts-and-minds counterterrorism methods used today.

“At that time, coalition forces were making a lot of mistakes,” he said. “When coalition forces kept breaking into our houses, the people started to hate them, and I was criticized for working with them.

“I am from a famous family, and I was working with the coalition forces; a lot of people followed me. Some gangs were angry [about that] and started to give false information about me.”

Sermons criticizing U.S. use of what he said were corrupt Iraqi contractors in the area earned him more enemies and soured his relationship with the troops he had come to view as “occupiers.”

He then embraced the nationalist insurgency under the banner of Jaish Islami, also called Jaish Islamiya, an organization formed by former Ba’ath Party officials and soldiers of Saddam’s disbanded military. It wasn’t difficult for him to make contact with them in Ad Duluyiah and the Jabouri Peninsula, about 60 miles north of Baghdad.

“This is the heart of darkness. The Sunni insurgency had its beginnings here,” said Capt. Anthony Keller, a company commander with the 32nd Cavalry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, based at Paliwoda. “The al-Jabouri tribe seemed to have a special status under Saddam Hussein and didn’t adjust very well to losing their position.”

Mullah Najim moved to Baghdad and established Jaish Islami’s propaganda effort until he was caught in an anti-terrorist sweep and sent to Abu Ghraib prison.

“Almost all the guys in [my] camp were foreign guys,” he said. “At that time, I spent five or six months listening to their ideology. They came from Afghanistan, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and other places. They gave a new ideology and talked about a big program to build an Islamic state in Iraq with all the different groups working together.

“At that time, al Qaeda soldiers were ready to fight, really ready to fight, better than our organization. And when they talked to me, I decided at last to follow this group.”

The target of his speeches and sermons for al Qaeda as its media emir (prince or commander), he said, was coalition forces. He said he never appeared in a video showing an execution and never called for sectarian killings.

“I never feel sorry for the one year and one month I worked with al Qaeda. … . At that time, I felt I was working for my country,” he said.

He moved from house to house and spoke at more than 13 mosques, many in the East Rashid-Doura district of southeast Baghdad, where al Qaeda had taken over the Hay Hadar neighborhood. In late 2006, he was captured by U.S. and Iraqi troops and sent to Camp Cropper, a U.S. detention facility for insurgency detainees of high interest.

“The first time I was a detainee, I believed in continuing the fight,” he said. “The second time it was different. At Cropper they treated me kindly, and I made friendship with a soldier. This guy treated the detainees differently than at Abu Ghraib. All the time [the Americans] talked to me, and after six months they decided that I had changed.

“When I got released, I [decided] to tell al Qaeda, ’If you don’t put your weapons away and fight on the political side, I will fight you.’ ”

His homecoming, after a disturbing meeting with a senior al Qaeda leader in Syria, turned sentiment to action.

The al Qaeda leader was a man nicknamed “the Algerian,” and he was being protected by Syrian secret police, Mullah Najim said. The man had no political program and just spoke about killing coalition forces as well as Sunnis who cooperated with the Americans and the Iraqi government. He also came away convinced al Qaeda wanted more sectarian bloodshed to exploit for the benefit of “other countries,” which to Sunni Arabs in Iraq means their Persian neighbor.

“When I returned to my home, I found al Qaeda everywhere,” he added. “The flag that was flying was the al Qaeda flag, not the Iraqi flag. No one could work for the government or they and their families would be killed.”

Mullah Najim, with a sympathetic sheik, began speaking with soldiers at FOB Paliwoda to the south of Ad Duluyiah, and began a reconciliation process.

He also did something else. He mounted the speaker’s platform in his family’s Khlafa mosque in Ad Duluyiah, held aloft his pistol and told the congregation why he had decided to fight al Qaeda, and asked for their help.

More than 100 al Qaeda gunmen have been killed or captured by or through Sons of Iraq action since then, he said.

Al Qaeda has tried to assassinate him at least seven times by his count. As a result of one attack, his back and arms are covered with scars from ball bearings propelled by an improvised explosive device.

Today, the former al Qaeda emir, who is in his early 30s, is pressing participation in provincial elections slated to take place no later than the end of January and then in later national elections. Sunnis mostly boycotted earlier elections after the fall of Saddam, and as a result feel marginalized politically.

Mullah Najim is careful not to push one Sunni political party over another and doesn’t disclose his own preferences, sources said, which gives him wider access and influence with them.

“He’s someone we watch, but there is no reason to refuse to work with him,” a U.S. intelligence officer said. “He was a very high-level [al Qaeda in Iraq member], but I don’t believe he was ideologically driven. I think it was more using his skills and the attention it brought.”

The officer, who requested anonymity, said he thinks ego and personal agenda - a desire for increasing political influence - drive Mullah Najim. But he also credits him for his courage and his contribution to improving security in the area.

“Improved security benefits everyone,” the officer said.