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A project of the Combat Studies Institute, the Operational Leadership Experiences interview collection archives firsthand, multi-service accounts from military personnel who planned, participated in and supported operations in the Global War on Terrorism.

Interview with Mr. Dan Darling

Combat Studies Institute Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

© 2014 United States Government, as represented by the Secretary of the Army. All rights reserved. UNCLASSIFIED

Abstract

In this March 2014 interview, Mr. Dan Darling, employed by Marine Corps Intelligence Activity

(MCIA), discussed the insurgency in in 2007. He was deployed to Iraq in 2007-2009. Mr.

Darling discussed what is going on in the Baghdad belt and in the Diyala area. He talks about

what al-Qaeda in Iraq is doing and how the operations in Ba'qubah upset their leadership structure. He closes this interview by stating, "You still had a major fire on your hands while the

AQI guys are still in and around Baghdad, but the issue was, at this point, they were no longer

able to react to events, which was a critical factor. Qaswarah was trying to issue orders. The

Tunisian guy was trying to confirm who Qaswarah was in the chain of command, which is why

he tried to check with big al-Qaeda to confirm that this guy was who he said. This is the other thing, people are getting paranoid because the degree at which people are turning against them,

which again, prevents them from coordinating and leads to a number of other phenomenon." UNCLASSIFIED

Interview with Mr. Dan Darling 21 May 2014

JP: Okay. So, now we'll start again. Dan Darling for the second session with Jim Powell on the 21 March 2014 and we'll continue what we started talking about yesterday. I think I left us with questions about -- there was the on-goings in -- the development of -- the expansion of the awakening into the southern belts. Diyala, the special case of Diyala and how the awakening played out there. Then, the movements and the rationale behind the movements of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) as it responded to the awakening and the pressure on the surge. And I'm not sure -- before we hit those, that it might be worthwhile to -- we hinted at it yesterday a little bit. Like you said, we spent a little bit of time on Abu Azzam, but I'm not sure if a discussion of just -- keeping me aware that there are other equivalents of Abu Azzam from other groups that were operating in Baghdad and elsewhere. If there's any of significance, maybe comment on those, before we get on to . . .

DD: Well, we talked about Muhammad Mahmood Latif (MML) yesterday towards the very end. He was sort of the Abu Ahzam equivalent. Both of these guys were very powerful field commanders for their respective organizations, Islamic Army of Iraq and 1920 Revolution Brigade. Since we spent a lot of time yesterday on Islamic Army of Iraq, let me really quickly parson to 1920 Revolution Brigade. Despite its name was not a singular organization, it was a fusion created in late 2003, early 2004, of about 20 smaller groups. Based on the original 1920 Revolution against the British, was the idea. Extremely nationalist in orientation, so it sort of served as an umbrella platform for all of the nationalist-type groups.

JP: This fusion of 20 groups -- or about 20 groups -- are these groups that just surfaced like in 2003?

DD: Yes, 2003, post . . . very localized.

JP: Okay, so these are like -- basically, dozens of groups that just come into existence after the invasion or in the wake of the invasion, during the invasion and then fuse.

DD: More in the wake of the invasion. Both the Islamic Army of Iraq -- let me just take that -- for example, formed, out of all the fired military personnel who now had no jobs and no role in life, as well as the existing holdouts, because there were some units and by units I mean company, battalion-sized forces that never surrendered and continued to fight on. They were able to sort of coalesce into this amorphous fusion, which quickly degenerated, as we talked about yesterday, away from the sort of traditional military and into more of a mafia-type of organization as a result of this. Similar to what's happened in Mexico with Los Zetas, former Mexican special forces unit that basically turned to organized crime. 1920 Revolution Brigade was providing a common framework for about 20 or so separate and smaller, very localized groups that had risen over things like de-Ba'athification, the lack of Sunni representation on the

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 3 UNCLASSIFIED governing council, and in reaction to the anarchy. Sort of local guys just sort of threw themselves in this and it was within this sort of mish-mash of people you had everyone from -- as we talked about -- Sheikh Nasser [Kareem al-Fahdawi], who was a major player in . He in particular served as the tribal, one of the key tribal guys within the group. MML served as the field commander and then you had [Sheikh] Harith [Sulayman] al-Dhari and his son, Muthanna [Harith] al-Dhari, who both served as -- for lack of a better term -- ideological- political people. Though Muthanna would also serve as a field commander, himself. There were a bunch of others, be these were the most important ones who had genuine, national followings or at least "national" in Sunni sense, obviously, they didn't incorporate Shi'a. What happened was after Sheikh Nassir was killed, the sort of triumvirs between him, MML and Harith al-Dhari sort of broke down with MML going one way, much more towards the reconciliation angle, particularly after he was nearly killed by AQI. Harith al-Dhari took an increasingly harder line, as a result of his belief that the US was about to be defeated and he wanted to be a part of the victory. He was willing -- frankly, he lost a lot of credibility in Iraq, which he has never regained -- because he was willing to accept common cause with AQI, even at the end, Harith al-Dhari now. Even after they killed his son, Muthanna. Which just goes to show, in my mind, that there's no honor among terrorists.

JP: Did al-Dhari form his own organization?

DD: Well, al-Dhari was never a military -- his son was actually the military leader and when AQI learned that the 1920 had turned against them, they targeted his son, in that belief. Harith al- Dhari gathered a very small following under himself and formed what was called al-Iraq, the Hamas of Iraq. It never amounted to anything, in large part because he wasn't able to attract the most successful field commanders. I mean, he had some guys, a couple hundred, but it wasn't ever anything that was able to do more than fire some mortars, plant some improvised explosive devices (IEDs), you know what I mean? They were very successful in the propaganda, owing to Harith al-Dhari's own media organization, but utterly insignificant on the actual battlefield. Candidly, if that had been all the insurgency was we would have never devoted this much time and effort to a study such of this nature. Whereas, MML was able to scoop up all the high-end IED guys, people who manufactured vehicle borne IEDs (VBIEDs), former commando and para military personnel, people skilled in guerilla warfare. He turned them all over to the Sahwa in return for what eventually amounted to a full amnesty and pardon for him and all his lieutenants, as well as getting his second in command out of jail. That was all done through the Iraqis. That actually was not done through US involvement. The other guy who was spoken of at some length in GEN [Stanley] McChrystal's book is Abu Wayal, who we discussed before. He was an interesting individual because he was an Iraqi intelligence asset before the war inside Ansar al- Islam, up in northern Iraq outside Saddam's control. He was actually mentioned, though not by name, in [GEN Colin] Powell's United Nations (UN) speech. What happened was, after the war he rose through attrition of the organization and finally found himself, ironically, in a sort of leading position within the organization's sharia committee when he was finally picked up.

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Because he never really believed in a lot of this and was more of a pragmatist, he was able to sort of make a pitch to the coalition and actually, finally secure his release and return. He formed the and Reform Front (JRF), which, despite its name, was actually intended to negotiate, without backing down, with the Iraqi government. Now, as McChrystal explains, a lot of the strategy at this point -- and part of the reason that Abu Wayal was released -- was the understanding that more manpower flowing into these groups means it taps into AQI's pool of potential recruits. We talked some about AQI's recruits and what those looked like, in terms of disgruntled Iraqi population. Now again, MML and Abu Azzam were the most successful in both pre and post, which is why they were able to carve out niches for themselves within Iraqi society, and post-coalition Iraqi society, even, to a limited degree. Whereas, guys like Abu Wayal -- they just faded away into the background and probably went underground. The other guy who was a key individual, who I also pulled all the open-source information on, is Najim Abed Al-Jabouri - - who I know COL [Joel] Rayburn has spoken to personally. He was a high-ranking AQI defector in central Iraq, who was able to bring all of his men with him. He was able to provide again lots and lots of detailed information about the organization and its leadership. He later became an awakening leader. Unfortunately, he was killed right after the US left Iraq.

JP: Killed by?

DD: AQI. Killed by AQI. He was arrested by the government, they released him and then AQI killed him. That was not a good situation, because he was probably one of our best inside men. Because he had been with the group since its founding in 2003, so he knew all about it and he could give you everything you wanted to know about it.

JP: Who killed Sheikh Nasser?

DD: Sheikh Nasser was killed by AQI in January of 2006. He was the one we discussed yesterday who had formed the earlier negotiation efforts. AQI killed him and put his head on a post in Ramadi.

JP: Oh, that was the provincial council or something, oh, the people's council?

DD: Yes, the Anbar People's Committee. It's like majlis inqadh al-Anbār. Yeah. They killed him. Like I said, these are all the key players. Now, I should also mention that much of this was not immediately visible to coalition forces at the time. It wouldn't be until years later, in some cases, that we would learn how important some of these guys really were. In most cases you had local battalion and brigade commanders who were recruiting (SOI) but weren't familiar with the full scope of Sunni politics. Certainly some of them were, but others were not. They were just sort of taking advantage of a good thing as it was coming up.

JP: In their local.

DD: In their area of responsibility.

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JP: So, it's possible in their descriptions of what's happening, the brigade commanders are focused on -- they're not aware of a larger phenomenon. . .

DD: A higher order.

JP: . . . A field commander driven phenomenon. To their eyes it's these local . . .

DD: Yes -- well, there's degrees of truth to both. The local guys are critical for the field commanders to execute their will. The local guys are making their own decisions. That's the other thing, as we discussed, like with Islamic Army of Iraq (IAI), just in terms of the loose hierarchy, similar to a mafia setup than what we would assume for military. The 1920 Revolution Brigade is even more -- each of the 20-plus groups that were a part of it -- you do whatever you want, essentially. The only thing you're agreeing to do is coordinate operations. But MML, Muthanna al-Dhari and Shiekh Nasser, as field commanders, they sort of ran it warlord-style and it was their personal charisma that could convince people. They weren't even in the position to offer resources, really, to the field commanders. You were as good as whatever you could scrape together.

JP: That's a distinction from Abu Azzam?

DD: Yes, exactly. That's also because Abu Azzam had inherited more talent and bureaucracy and just people who knew how to run this kind of stuff from their experience in Saddam's para- military organizations. MML was former Iraqi military. I don't know about Muthanna al-Dhari. They had some guys working for them who were former military personnel, but again, just like I mentioned to you late yesterday, one of my key takeaways was like, "Running a clandestine organization is a lot of work." It's not as easy as people make it sound, "You can just resort to guerilla war." Have you ever tried to set it up? Where are you going to get your weapons? Where are you going to get your supplies from? How are you going to do all this without being detected? Oh, you want to get a big force? Well, the larger you get the more chances of you being infiltrated, etc., which is why 1920 Revolution Brigade took the back seat a lot of the time to Islamic Army of Iraq. The two cooperated closely, in many cases, because they were basically fighting for the same types of ideological cause. Now, 1920 Revolution Brigade will, like IAI, wrap itself in an Islamic cloak, particularly against the Shi'a and the Iranians, but it wasn't what we would consider -- how do I put this -- it was Islamic, not Islamist -- if that makes sense. In the sense that nobody was chopping off heads or hands or doing any of this sort of hard-core Salafist. It was sort of like this traditional Iraqi Islam, which again, in the Sunni areas, candidly, tends to be fairly anti-Shi'a. That's just how Iraqi society, religion, and culture has evolved. I hope that distinction at least makes some sense. They, again, generally speaking, were against suicide bombings, although elements of 1920 Revolution Brigade -- particularly guys who later formed Hamas al Iraq -- more than happy to facilitate AQI's suicide bombers or Ansar al- Sunnah's suicide bombers. They would carry out joint operations with them, etc. That's the sort of odd dynamic they have. "Even though these guys are crazy, we may as well direct them

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 6 UNCLASSIFIED towards people and if they all die, well, they want to go be martyrs anyway, so, let's help speed them on their way."

JP: Now, when MML decided to support the awakening, does the autonomy that he grants to subordinate commanders or local commanders, is that kind of a principle that they all need to follow behind? Surely it's not Sunni-central, is it?

DD: No, no. When the Sahwa was first formed by Sattar and all, AQI initially assumed MML was behind it, so they tried to kill him in Damascus [Syria]. Shot him in the chest five times. From his perspective, "They already think I'm doing it." For him it was his natural charisma and his personal outrage in the sort of sense that Syria was seen by -- universally agreed, no matter where you fell in ideologically -- "We don't settle our disputes." The fear is, basically, that if anyone causes enough trouble and the Syrians will kick us out. This is sort a gentleman's agreement that AQI just violated with that. That has some implications to it, that he was able to get -- because all these guys from 1920 Revolution Brigade, the leaders, either had traveled to Syria at one point or took advantage of it for rest and relaxation (R&R), for rest and refit, for planning. So that sort of idea that -- as well of the fact that they had these meetings all of the time, of high-level insurgent leaders, that we used to jokingly call A Legion of Doom, after the cartoon show, where all the super villains gather. But the understanding was always, gentlemen saw that, "You don't shoot somebody because they disagree with you." The fact that AQI had sort of broken the Seal of Omerta. He was able to charismatically rally, "An attack on one is an attack on all," kind of thing. "It's only a matter of time before they're coming for all of us. They killed Shiekh Nasser and we did nothing. Now they're trying to kill us." I actually dug up the -- I found them on the West Point Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) website -- the AQI internal documents that talk about some of these targeting campaigns, because it actually breaks out the entire leadership of 1920 Revolution Brigade in a hit list with a description of who they are. You can read MML, who they describe him as they prince in the field commanders of the movement, referring to 1920.

JP: Is there documentation that talks about MML making those appeals that you just mentioned?

DD: That's why he has to die. Again, he didn't come back from Syria. He stayed in Syria for the entire awakening, in a well fortified -- communicating only by phone or through couriers. He was still able to rally the people around, at least the field commanders who knew him. The thing with MML is, because he had fought the coalition for so long and his best friend and second-in- command had been captured in a completely stupid -- I think I told you about this. Where he attempted to -- when he saw a protest in Ar Ramadi and he jumped on a car and took off his mask, so he was immediately obtained by coalition forces. But, because of those -- it's sort of like, only Nixon can go to China. Nobody would ever, ever accuse MML of selling out to the coalition. Nobody can. That dynamic was able to -- he was able to really, really turn that and capitalize off of that. His title on paper was Head of the Ar Ramadi Shura Council of 1920 -- which was their top organization for Anbar within 1920. But in practice, he was the overall field

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 7 UNCLASSIFIED commander and a lot of the guys deferred to him for strategy concentration. Not in a hierarchical sense, but he was sort of seen as the M&L grease of the insurgency and the man with a plan. Because MML, he's a very smart, very intelligent guy, he's also one of those people who's able to quickly throw together plans and react very quickly to changing situations.

JP: And he did most of this from Syria.

DD: Well, after he got shot. For the longest time he was bed-ridden, so he was just like -- his description, when we met up with him, he said he had, like, 20 [inaudible] by the bed that people would call in to or he would talk to them on very-high frequency (VHF) radio. Basically, a guy would go and relay it out there or just call them on a landline, because you could do that from Syria. That's the thing, you could call somebody in Iraq and it's not illegal as long as you're okay with the Syrian Mukhābarāt listening to everything you say, which he didn't give a damn about at that point, because they knew who he was. He used to travel back and forth there. He would go there to attend -- like I said, Syria was the neutral ground in a way that Jordan just wasn't. You could go to Jordan to rest and relax, spend some time down in Aqaba or whatever, because of your anonymity. The Jordanian, the Mukhābarāt wasn't looking for you, especially if you were just a regular Sunni insurgent and not AQI. If you were AQI, Mukhābarāt was looking very closely for you. You could go to Aqaba to relax, but you couldn't plan anything there.

JP: You couldn't meet with people?

DD: No, like I said, you could rest and you could refit, collect your wits. Syria, in particular, they would chill out in Lattakia and Tartus on the coast, and literally sit down and draw out plans for the insurgency, while in Syria. So, he would go there and then he would return to Ar Ramadi. People forget, it's not that far, really. If you think about it in real terms, basically. He couldn't fly internationally, but at the same time, he could very easily -- and this goes back to why a lot of US officials got very angry with [Bashar] al-Assad's government for this sort of tacit tolerance of these people. I'm sorry, like, the Syrian secret police knew who all these people were. They were able to hold everything but a formal conference on a regular basis, basically, where they would all meet and discuss situations. If you tried to do this with the Syrian , the Mukhābarāt was on you immediately and were dragged off to arrest. That was what was so clear, there was some type of decision made to take hands off these guys. But, MML was chilling out there until -- well, first of all, again, for the first six, seven, eight months he was recovering. Again, I've never been gut shot, but I imagine it's not pleasant, you know what I mean? The other problem was by the time he recovered and he was so frustrated this. Because he thought he was going to be the big face of the awakening, as the guy with the street credibility. When Sattar, Abu Azzam, Sheik Ahmed [Buzaigh Abu Risha], all these other guys who sort of emerged. He sort of was sulking in Syria for the longest time. Once it got secure, he waited until he got his amnesty deal before he would actually return, because everybody knew who he was, that's the thing I would stress. This guy is a famous person, among Iraqi Sunnis, at least. People are going to know his face. Everybody who's anybody knows his face, so he couldn't just return.

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JP: Anything else on any other groups, besides the 1920s?

DD: No. We talked about the Ba'athist and their views of this yesterday, particularly Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri's deciding, wisely, from the perspective of his group, to go underground while the awakening was taking place. Muhammed Yunis al-Ahmad al-Moali (MYA) engaged in some tentative reconciliation efforts around this same time, mainly through the JRF. While it never panned out, it did help to hollow out his movement a lot, which is why al-Douri stayed strong, whereas he did not. Because, look, when your own troops find out that the boss is negotiating -- nobody wants to be the last guy killed. Because MYA had this whole ambition where he was going to use the negotiations as a form of leverage, while he was intensifying violence and use his ability to turn on and off violence as a leverage in negotiations. It just never went anywhere because once a lot of his fighters figured out he was negotiating, particularly after it was reported in the international press, that was one of the kiss of death for his winning of the Ba'ath party. A lot of those guys went to other groups. Some of them joined AQI, depending on how hard-core they were. This sort of hollowing out was something you saw a lot.

JP: Let's talk about the expansion of the awakening into the belts and how that was engineered.

DD: Like I said, there's the awakening the movement and the awakening the organization. The Sahwa itself doesn't get into the belts until very late 2007, early 2008. Most of that is Abu Azzam's guys. Now, you've got a lot of SOI down there. SOI is not equal Sahwa the organization. They are part of the Sahwa movement, for lack of a better term. They're not part of the Sahwa institutional organization based in Ramadi under the Abu Rishas.

JP: So, the SOIs that become supportive of -- there's a culmination with coalition forces in the summer of 2007 -- are just local Sunni Iraqis?

DD: Sunni Iraqis who were inspired by, but not necessarily -- or they're Abu Azzam's guys. That's why I spent so much time on them yesterday. That's why I talked about, like in [Michael] Gordon and [General Bernard E.] Trainer's book, Abu Azzam is seen as this sort of roving helper, basically. I finally found out his title from the Iraqi press where he declared himself the general advisor of the awakening, the awakening as a movement, rather than as the . . . So, it was a combination of local tribal leaders who were inspired by the example, but weren't top-plugged into it. Later they get plugged in.

JP: Like the example of Sattar?

DD: Yes, Sattar and this goes back to the sort of mythology of Sattar. Sattar looked the part and he was able to cultivate a following, just from media profile. If you've ever watched the old videos of him that he broadcast over Iraqi and Arab television, he's extremely charismatic. Like I said, because he looked like he stepped out of central casting from the cast of Lawrence of Arabia, it helped his credibility. They saw him as a great Sunni leader in the mold of Emir Faisal

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 9 UNCLASSIFIED

[I bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashimi] or Ibn Saud, like in the tradition, the guy who's risen up to restore them to some type of future.

JP: So, the medium of inspiration then was from television or from the people who went down there and preached it?

DD: Well, no, the ones who preached it usually plugged them into the organization, which at least at this point did not happen. Again, it would later, but not at that point. There was television and radio broadcast. Sattar, we used to call them his fireside chats. He would get on the radio and broadcast this stuff. It was the Voice of the Free Iraq or something like that. He was extremely charismatic and forceful in his delivery.

JP: And it was mainly a delivery that put down -- to turn against AQI?

DD: No, no. It was against AQI. It was how to reconcile, because he would meet with [Nouri al-] Maliki and people would see him on television having tea with Maliki. This showed them that he was the guy -- and this is the other reason why people would aligned themselves with the awakening the movement, even if they weren't plugged into the organization -- because this is a guy who can clearly get stuff done from Maliki. Before, Maliki was seen as this sort of demonic force that was sending all these militia in to kill us. Now, "We have an advocate. We have somebody who's going hold back the Shi'a and is seen as sort of the chief of the Sunnis, who doesn't appear to be crazy or execute people for kicks." You had people who would align themselves with him as a way to do it. Now, again, those are the inspiration -- Abu Azzam's guys were a much more tighter phenomenon because they followed his orders, because he was the boss. He told them to throw in.

JP: Yeah. These are tribal leaders in the belts?

DD: Yes, tribal leaders, until you get into the city. Then you have what I call leading citizens in the more urbanized areas of the city. What do they call them? The muktars, the equivalent of an alderman or a ward boss, the neighborhood chief, the guy who's sort of seen as the man in charge of these particular neighborhoods. It varied a lot, because some of the Baghdadies, the more urbanized and educated, thought this tribal stuff was kind of hokey. Others were worried about it because they were concerned with what happens to everybody. All the technocrats under the awakening? "Are we going to go back to being feudal?" That was the fear. Although, frankly, that fear was easily mollified when the alternative is Maliki's death squad or what was perceived as Maliki's death squads at the time. Most Iraqi Sunnis in Baghdad sincerely believed that Maliki, [Moqtada] al-Sadr, the al-Hakims were all in on it at the behest to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to just destroy the Sunni population of Iraq, in revenge for the Iran/.

JP: The phenomenon that you're describing, there appears to be a very limited, if any role at all, of coalition forces.

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DD: No, I want to be clear on that. Our ignorance on the sort of broader Sunni realities should not understate the enormous role we played in achieving the success. The program and the execution of the SOI, which was indispensable, would not have occurred if it were not for coalition forces. Similarly, all the engagements both with MacFarland and -- I don't know the guys who handled Abu Azzam, because that was outside the Marine AOR so I just didn't know which army units or what level he was managed -- same type of dynamic. Sattar and Ahmed and all the rest of the awakening leaders were managed by general officers (GOs). As you can tell from the political clashes amongst the Sunni elites, keeping them coherent and keeping it peaceful was a huge part, as well as, by the way, keeping these guys from turning their guns at Baghdad, that was the other thing. This was particularly true for Abu Azzam's guys who were against AQI, but were still extremely anit-Shi'a. Preventing that from happening was a huge task that coalition forces achieved. As well as, frankly, this is the other thing . . .

JP: Like I war? Basically, preventing attacks against the Iraq Security Forces (ISF)?

DD: Oh yes, preventing war lordism. That would not have happened if -- yeah, they might have turned against AQI but they would have -- the fact that Abu Azzam did not carve out a free Baghdad state and declare himself king of that, which he was quite capable of doing. Similarly, making sure MML didn't attempt some type of seizure or preventing -- Sattar and Ahmed were good on this, but there were other people, Ali Hatem [al-Suleiman], in particular -- who wanted to have Al Anbar free state, completely independent. That's the kind of thing we were able to mitigate, through dedicated engagement and negotiation and facilitating their access. Every time Sattar went to Baghdad it was because we flew him there. We made sure he flew to Maliki every time he wanted to meet with him. Same thing with Ahmed. Serving as that taxi service may sound demeaning, but it was extremely important in facilitating the direct communications that were required and were to overstep some of the more sectarian members of Maliki's inner circle, as well as to facilitate his contact with the al-Hakim family, again, his in-laws, so then they could advocate on his behalf in Shi'a circles.

JP: Did Sattar go to the south at all during this time?

DD: The al-Hakims came to visit him and that was weird because everyone thought that . . .

JP: Which one? Who?

DD: Ammar, the son. I remember -- what we called Georgia dome -- the Abu Risha compound, which grew dramatically as the power of the Abu Rishas grew. There was suddenly this 50- vehicle convoy with the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) flag over it, basically, and everybody was like, "Who is that?" "It's Ammar al-Hakim." A bunch of the Sunnis got mad, because it's like, "It's Uday Ammar," which is what they called him, after Uday Hussein. "It's Uday Ammar." They came out and they embraced his brothers, basically, and they went in and sat down and they drew up a federalism plan, because they literally had a big map of Iraq. They were discussing what the boundaries are. "If the Akas oil fields are developed and the Sunnis get

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 11 UNCLASSIFIED their own oil. What would be acceptable? Federalism is the big ISCI thing. They drew a lot -- they were chopping up Iraq for sectarian administration, not the country's independence, but for sectarian administration purposes. Who gets what? In the places they couldn't demand, how to divvy things up. This was sort of seen as the informal understanding between the Sahwa and the ISCI. Which, again, gave them a powerful advocate in Shi'a circles, frankly. But at the same time, the ability to cultivate Maliki in addition to the ISCI was critical, because that way they could play the two sides off against each other, just so they could cultivate the .

JP: Okay. So, in the southern belts, then you had the SOI standing up. Local tribal leaders inspired by what's going on in Al Anbar and they approach coalition forces.

DD: It happens differently, because in some cases -- and this goes back to the rule of coalition forces -- in some cases they were just powerless, because their neighborhoods and towns were under occupation. Like AQI occupation. You'll see this in some of the documents from the West Point website saved for you guys. You see these detailed AQI ministry of security, which AQI staff were former Iraqi Mukhābarāt officers. They kept a detailed list of enemies of the state -- the state being the -- for execution. So, until coalition forces cleared these areas, they were just powerless to do anything, because in many cases their families are being held hostage. That was a common once Al Anbar started turning against them, AQI in the Baghdad belts started taking prominent leaders families -- treated very comfortably -- but with the understanding that, "If you guys turn against us, we'll kill your family."

JP: So, the trigger of that method was what was happening in Al Anbar?

DD: Yes, because AQI's initial thing was, "How do we deal with the tribes?" The deal was usually -- and this was years ago -- usually you just pay them off, like Saddam used to, in a sort of very crude, sort of urban conception of these tribal guys being all about money. Whereas what happened instead was -- and if they got out of line they killed them. When they declared the Islamic state and started implementing this Khmer Rouge-esque purge, then they had all this tribal backlash against them, "So what's our solution?" "Well, the solution is we start taking the tribal leaders' and the guys like Abu Gahzwan -- who was one of their big Baghdad commanders for quite some time -- "we take them hostage, that's the only way." He was very clear, "Do not mistreat them. Then the guy will turn against us. We take the families hostage and we keep them in safe houses, then we move them just like we do our senior leaders. That's the best way forward." That's not all the time. There are other methods that are used, mafia-style intimidation or they'll put guards outside the sheik's house so he can't leave or they'll say we want to protect you from the death squads so we'll have a guy travel with you at all times, who functions in sort of a commissar-esque capacity if you step out of line. In some cases, they can't, but it's something to keep in mind. So, in some cases the guys approach coalition forces and in some cases they say, "Hey, we'd like to start something up but you've got to clear out these areas. We cannot do anything until you at least take the overt control off." This also goes back to sort of the question of how far gone the situation in Iraq was at this point, which I really cannot stress home

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 12 UNCLASSIFIED that in a lot of these places, AQI was the state. They had assumed all state functions. They were the police. If they didn't run the town, they ran out everybody who did.

JP: Give me a couple of examples.

DD: Sure. You'll see this in Ba'qubah, which is where [Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi was based out of, from the documents. They had a functioning sharia court, the one who was crucifying people in the soccer stadium. They had a functioning sharia court. They had a full-fledged security apparatus that was staffed by former Iraqi intelligence officers. The just basically put them back to work, doing the same type of things. They had taxation. They ran the electricity. They were planning to set up a government. That's where people say the Islamic State of Iraq announced their cabinet to include the Administrator of Electricity, Administrator of Fisheries and everything. People are like, "No, those are actually real ministries." How well they would function is a separate question. But, there was at least an attempt to sort of subsume the power would stay the same way as, I would say, has done in Lebanon or Hamas has done in Gaza. They have just replaced the state in every level that actually matters to the normal population.

JP: What about in the southern belts?

DD: Absolutely, across the southern belts. All down, near the Baghdad neighborhood right there. If you look at the Sunni concentrations, basically. Now, how this played out -- and Abu Ghazwan was sort of the brains behind this, along with a Tunisian guy, who I will get you, because we made his documents public right when he got wiped out. The Tunisian was sort of the stick. He and his North African cadre, they didn't give a damn who you were, they were willing to do things Iraqis wouldn't, in terms of the more macabre attacks. But, Abu Ghazwan made a big issue, he would tax neighborhoods, usually through denial of services, if the population refused to. Again, in the southern belts of Baghdad, you're dealing with a population - - as a general rule -- has a higher standard of living than does everyone else like in other parts of the country. That made it easier to do things like, "We'll cut the electricity lines if you don't pay. We'll provide people to fix them. We control the gas stations, so if you guys want to gas up, you'll have to show a letter saying you sworn allegiance with the Islamic State of Iraq, otherwise, no petroleum. Same thing for your ration cards. We've got a list of the ration card numbers for the UN humanitarian ration distribution. You have to show me that your ration card matches up with people who've pledged and we have them each assigned by person by person." That's the kind of dedicated bureaucracy you saw there. It was a very totalitarian control.

JP: So, like, Arab Jibor, Salman Pak, those areas?

DD: Yes. Now, the nature of the administration varied, because some AQI emirs were nicer than others. Abu Ghazwan was sort of . . .

JP: Was he foreign?

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 13 UNCLASSIFIED

DD: No, he was Iraqi, which I think was part of the reason why. Now just to further complicate it, there was another Abu Azzam al Iraqi who was in AQI also, but AQI rather then . . .

JP: Ghazwan or Azzam?

AB: Azzam, another one. Both, two of them who were both big leaders. There were a couple of others in the whole Arab belt. The Tunisian guy -- and again, I'll get you his name, because I'll get you his documents -- he was actually a direct contact of al-Qaeda senior leadership. In one of the documents he published he wrote "To the great father," which is a reference to (UBL). It was really great -- if you read his account -- he's sending this out, he's like, "To whoever's gets this. I don’t know who is listening to this. If anyone receiving this. I've tried to contact the great father. All of our lines of communication have been cut off, send help immediately. Because, this cadre of incredibly brutal North African foreign fighters," -- it's hilarious, because he details all their abuses against the population and then he's shocked when all these people turned against them. He explains that, "There used to be 200 of us. Now there's less than 90, over half our forces have been wiped out. The Americans are our biggest problem, but the local population has turned against us and no matter how many of them we kill, these people don't understand they've been beaten." [Laughter] "Shockingly," and this is sort of the prisoner's dilemma kind of thing. If people conclude you're going to kill them anyway, their method of how they behave, it's a fight or flight thing. In the case of this particular community he was with in Arab Jibor who he was ridiculously abusing. He talked about how, "I've done everything he could to break them. I gave their women over to my men for sport." Yeah, I can't imagine why the population -- and his example is the one David Kilcullen has written so much about. Basically the forced -- essentially taking out local girls as sex slaves essentially and shockingly people take umbrage to this kind of behavior.

JP: Where did Kilcullen write about that? Was it in a book?

DD: That was in Accidental Guerilla.

JP: Accidental Guerilla.

DD: Or one of his articles on it. I'm pretty sure he wrote about this phenomenon where they all turned against -- because, again, this really pisses the population off, shockingly people don't like it. He talked about, "I told my guys that every time one of us is killed, we kill ten of the population at random." These are the kind of things, unless you can maintain absolute control, the moment that the people realize -- because of the US pressure on them and then the awakening, that they had another option. The population rose up against them and that was critical to US success. He was one of the most -- they called him the butcher, al dehab, throughout the Arab Jibor region.

JP: This is Ghazwan?

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 14 UNCLASSIFIED

DD: No, this is the Tunisian guy. It was his North African cadre, it was a couple hundred strong, but it was all foreign fighters, with a handful of Iraqis.

JP: Where was he at? Where was his area?

DD: His area was running all the way -- Arab Jibor, Lutifiyah up and all the way down to the southern belts, because he was sort of a roving force. Again, they essentially functioned as a combination of a death squad and a sort of a terrorist commando component. They thought they were the coolest thing ever and they lorded it over the population and they took it very personally whenever one of them was killed. They had Iraqis in their ranks, but the Iraqis were mostly scouts and runners and guides rather than -- these guys who were hardened from fighting in Northern Africa and Afghanistan, who had benefited from AQ boot camp -- like real AQ boot camp -- and then come to Iraq.

JP: Okay, well, let's shift to Diyala. I guess what I'm interested in is how -- the special challenges that pertain to Diyala, when it comes to the expansion of the awakening and then how it came about and maybe coalition involvement in it.

DD: Absolutely. After Al Anbar, both through the coalition and the arise of the awakening, AQ's leadership and command and communication (C2) nodes, which had previously been located in Al Anbar and around the Lake Tharthar area, really migrated in bulk to Diyala and into the Ba'qubah/Buhriz area, which is a huge -- this is where you had the three Turks that I mentioned. The three guys who worked for Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM). Al-Masri himself was based out of there, as was Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, all the top brass. It was from Diyala and particularly southern Diyala, in and around the Hamrin Mountains, they were able to -- that was their redoubt, because of the terrain. It was from that redoubt that they over saw their campaign against Baghdad, which again, is what we call the Baghdad belts and what they call Anaconda, the idea you crush them. A lot of VBIEDs were manufactured there, because AQI, particularly in the areas where they had absolute control like we were talking about, they just had entire chop shops that were repurposed, like auto shops, that did nothing but make VBIEDs for them. One after another after another after another after another. I mention all of that just so you can get the scale of what they were trying to do there.

JP: This is Ba'qubah and Buhriz?

DD: Buhriz, but again, up and down, all the way down into . . .

JP: But even further north?

DD: No, no, further south. The whole area from Ba'qubah-Buhriz all the way down to Baghdad border, with the C2 node being located in the Hamrin Mountains. Again, it offered . . .

JP: When you say Hamarin Mountains, I’m thinking north of the Diyala river valley.

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DD: Yes, that was where the top leadership -- but like I said, the main -- you had a very small head but then this massive tail that ran south. It was in large part there because it was isolated and that was where you had tier-one leadership. But then all the main nuts and bolts of the operation -- so that was like, I guess, rear headquarters, if that makes sense.

JP: Right, in just a very, very safe, almost inaccessible area.

DD: Completely inaccessible. You talk to the guys from Joint Special Operations Forces (JSOFT) -- there was just no way to pinpoint anybody up there and not have advance warning. Just because if you look at the methods to get up there, they'll see you coming and they'll just relocate. And they figured out our raid policy. If you're comfortable in that situation, and Abu Ayyub al-Masri and his lieutenants had runners bringing them laptops, bringing them gas generators. You didn't need a big -- because their entire top leadership was no more than maybe 30-50 people. If you're cool sleeping in tents, you've got a gas generator going, got your laptop, got satellite internet and everything, you can pretty much coordinate anything you want, if you're willing to live like that without a noticeable signature. If you're in caves particularly it helps keep your thermals down, etc. So, unless you know exactly where they are, which is not -- saying they're in Hamrin -- you seem to be familiar with the terrain -- Hamrin's a big area. It's like saying you're in Colorado. It's useless from a targeting perspective. So, what happened was, as Baghdad was being -- sort of the first stages of the Baghdad -- it became very clear that a lot of the VBIEDs and terrorist component were coming out of Diyala, like one after another after another. What happened was, you had a combination of -- we did not know this at the time, because these were local commanders who had approached coalition forces and we didn't understand the sort of guiding intellect behind it. MML had convinced the 1920 Revolution Brigade in the Buhiz/Ba'qubah area to engage with coalition forces. Just as there was a separate group called Al Jahafil that we talked about previously, which was a bunch of Sunnis, tribal leaders, technocrats, Ba'athist, insurgents, who hated AQI, because of this incredibly draconian -- so, when coalition forces came in we actually had a lot of local -- I would say either insurgents, tribal forces, etc. -- who actually drew AQI forces out, because they thought there was a rebellion going on. Drew them out into the streets. That was why the battle for Ba'qubah and everything else turned into such a turkey shoot. Everybody was out exposed and despite what you may see in the movies, irregular against regular forces in a straight-arm fight, it doesn't end well. It turned into a straight rout. I'll get you the AQI internal report, because it’s a public document, talking about how they lost more than 1500 guys in Ba'qubah alone. Yeah, they have replacements, but you don't just bounce back, because as they explained, this wasn't just like -- this was a lot of their middle officer corps. Then, moreover, afterwards these guys were pointing at the coalition forces who the bad guys were, so that was a huge aspect of it.

JP: Was there anything special about AQI in that area, in terms of the proportion of Iraqi versus foreign fighters? Was it split?

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 16 UNCLASSIFIED

DD: It was split, but the important thing was less about whether they were Iraqi or foreign, it was more who they were in the organization. This is where your best and brightest were. You had a lot of guys with former regime, military intelligence experience who were killed off, which affected their intel expertise and their ability to develop -- a lot of their best shadow government people were taken down in that -- best in quotes. This really threw them back. The other thing was that it harmed their ability to stage some of the more spectacular attacks. From Diyala they pretty much planned to hit the parliament and everything else, hit the ministries and just massacre them. They wanted to inflict such catastrophic losses -- discussions about killing [GEN David] Petraeus or [GEN Raymond] Odierno or any of the other top-tier one US leaders. All that was thrown into chaos, as well as Anaconda, the AQI belt plan. People continued with the plan because it was the only thing they had, but the ability for the plan to react to a sudden changing event was just gone at that point. Now again, you still had tons of AQI guys either in southern Diyala or in Baghdad who had to be dealt with, but at that point it became a far more manageable task, because I wouldn't say you cut off the head, but you at least heavily hit it hard. It took them a long time to re-establish C2 with everybody, because that was the other thing, it was chaos. One guy we captured, I remember he said it was like Afghanistan all over again. Everybody goes crazy and starts running. It took them a very long time. A lot of the middle management then migrates up to the Mosul area, just fleeing further north because they don't want to flee into the Shi'a area. They didn't want to flee up into Kirkuk because they were afraid Jaysh Rijal al-Tariq al-Naqshabandi (JRTN) was going to sell them out. So, they fled to the Mosul area, under the leadership of a Swedish Moroccan. [Laughter] No, I'm being serious, who sort of emerged -- I'll get his name, Abu Qaswarah al Maghribi -- because he would never adopt the European moniker of his name -- mixed race guy. Qaswarah was a Swedish citizen, but half-Moroccan, but he would look Moroccan to you or me and culturally more of a Moroccan mindset. He emerged to rally the troops in the immediate absence. For the longest time -- I should caveat myself there -- for a significant amount of time between top-tier leadership knew that Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdad were fine, but it took the middle of that very hard time where they could get to a position where they could realistically begin issuing orders and planning a strategy again. So, Qaswarah emerged as the top, the de facto top guy, under the chain of command. He said, "We rallied at Mosul," which is where he was established.

JP: Was he in Mosul at the time?

DD: He had been in Mosul before he was moved to Diyala.

JP: Then he went back.

DD: And assumed a higher-level position in the organization. He was like, "I've got places we can stay. I know enough of the population there, so we'll stick that one out."

JP: This is summer of 2007?

DD: Yes, spring/summer of 2007.

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 17 UNCLASSIFIED

JP: The trigger is the reinforcement of coalition forces that were there, right, and the effort to clear Ba'qubah?

DD: Yes, Ba'qubah and clear Diyala writ large. You still had a major fire on your hands while the AQI guys are still in and around Baghdad, but the issue was, at this point, they were no longer able to react to events, which was a critical factor. Qaswarah was trying to issue orders. The Tunisian guy was trying to confirm who Qaswarah was in the chain of command, which is why he tried to check with big al-Qaeda to confirm that this guy was who he said. This is the other thing, people are getting paranoid because the degree at which people are turning against them, which again, prevents them from coordinating and leads to a number of other phenomenon. So, this I hope I've been able to tie together the coalition role in making, because none of this would have succeeded if we hadn't of been there and dropped a heavy hammer.

JP: Yes -- so, the effort -- even after -- so, post-Ba'qubah, you have field commanders in the southern belt, like the Tunisian, still seeking -- I mean, they're able to conduct their operation locally, but they're still seeking direction to make sure that their operations are . . .

DD: Operating in the concept of the broader plan? And, "What is the plan? Did the plan work? Are we winning?" It's the same kind of questions that like any commander is going to ask his higher headquarters, especially if you don't know if higher headquarters is still there. That's the other thing that was creeping them out, because -- and that's the kind of thing that I think for us -- especially given the fears about infiltration -- "Did everybody die? Am I it?" Because that's the kind of concern. "Or can I trust the guys in the next district over or are they going to betray me?" That's why Mullah Najim Abed al-Jabouri's defection was a big shock and his defection with all of his fighters. You have to understand, AQI guys do not defect. They fight or they're captured or they die. When he was able to defect with his -- it was about 400 guys -- who else could come next?

JP: When was that? Was that in the spring?

DD: That was in the summer. That was right after everything hit the fan in Diyala. His guys refused to go and they killed their [inaudible], their security guys and then they became SOI and got a general amnesty deal.

JP: They were in Baghdad, right?

DD: Baghdad area, but again, was spreading up into southern Diyala.

JP: All that's very interesting, because the coalition at the time, just from my limited blue perspective, we would try to characterize and understanding the threat and we thought we were being very nuanced in saying, "You have Sunni and Shi'a and you have extremists and people who aren't extremists. We can reconcile the people who aren't extremists and by the way,

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 18 UNCLASSIFIED everyone who is AQI, they are extremists and we can't reconcile with them." So, you have this nuance here that escaped us at the time.

DD: There were a number of other local AQI field commanders who attempted to do the same thing, but you have to remember most of them only joined AQI -- Najim was different. Local field commanders who defected were mostly guys who just joined on after the golden mosque, because they figured, "What the hell. We better just stick with the biggest and baddest gang." Whereas, Najim had been with the group from the beginning, from summer of 2003 on. He was somebody who everybody knew. When he showed up with his little SOI armband, that was like, what the? We made sure -- we or the Iraqi government -- that was broadcast on international Arab television. I got the open source, everything on him. In particular what you see is everybody is like, "Heretic" or whatever. It's like, "You traitors!" The fact that everybody is screaming so loudly tells you what a shockwave it was through the organization.

JP: In trying to articulate this to subordinate headquarters, it was very -- categorizing was easier for us. Okay, if AQI is extremists and we don't reconcile with them but you try to reconcile with these other guys, like the 1920s. So, news like this, I can imagine that would have been very hard for us to try and make sense of and convert that into . . .

DD: That's why he didn't disclose his AQI affiliation for quite some time. You've got to remember, it's still another year and a half before he feels comfortable telling us that he is AQI. Now, intel geeks could figure it out, but he did not advertise -- he simply described himself as a former member of the resistance and that was his schtick for quite some -- because he was worried we were going to put a bullet . . .

JP: Yeah, well, that kind of makes me feel better, that we weren't totally blind or we were unaware, but it's not like we were keeping secrets from ourselves.

DD: Do you have the time?

JP: Yes, it’s 1228.

DD: Okay, I should go. Sorry, sir, we can continue this, hopefully. I'm here all next week.

JP: Okay, so we'll try and do that.

END OF INTERVIEW

Transcribed by Joey Studnicka

Operational Leadership Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 19