Insurgent and soldier: two views on Iraq fight

When a conventional army is forced to fight an antiguerrilla warfare campaign, it can be "messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife." So said T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, the British Army officer who led the Arab revolt against the Turks in World War I.

For Maj. John Nagl, never was a truer word spoken. He even adapted the quote as the subtitle for his doctoral thesis, "Counterinsurgency Lessons From Malaya and Vietnam," published two years ago.

The 37-year-old guerrilla warfare specialist serves with the 82nd Airborne Division in this former Iraqi Air Force base in the Sunni triangle. Since deploying to Iraq in September last year, Major Nagl has grappled with the challenges posed by the cells of insurgents operating in his area.

"It's a constant struggle of one-upmanship," he says. "We adapt, they adapt. It's a constant competition to gain the upper hand."

That view is shared by "Ahmad," a member of a local resistance cell.

In separate interviews, the two of them paint a picture of a classic guerrilla war in which semi-autonomous groups of lightly armed fighters fired up with religious and nationalist zeal compete against the world's most advanced military machine in a constantly evolving struggle.

The inspiration for the insurgency in Fallujah, neighboring Khaldiyeh, and other towns in the Sunni triangle came from the mosques immediately following Saddam Hussein's ouster. The clerics in Fallujah made oblique references to jihad and resistance in their sermons, messages that were understood by those listening.

The catalyst that transformed those ambiguous references into an outright call for resistance came in May after several demonstrators were shot dead in Fallujah by American troops.

"The clerics called for resistance and jihad against the Americans," Ahmad, a native of Fallujah, says. "We responded because we love our religion and we love our clerics and respect the history of Islam."

Nine months later, and Nagl estimates the number of cells in his area of operations around Khaldiyeh, which does not include neighboring Fallujah, at "more than five, less than 15" with between six and 15 militants in each group.

"We're still trying to figure out the motivation of those we're fighting," he says. "There's still some element of loyalty to the former regime, or at least they feel that Sunnis should return to a level of power in Iraq out of proportion to their numbers."

Others are driven by religious sentiment, "sheer antipathy" toward the US and "latent nationalism," he says.

Ahmad says the motivation underpinning his cell of insurgents is a blend of devout religious belief coupled with a strong sense of patriotism.

"What compliments nationalism, compliments religion," he says. "Islam is after all a nation in itself. I see myself as a proud Iraqi and a good Muslim."

Ahmad's cell, which eventually numbered several dozen - although he says he does not know everyone - was led by a Sunni cleric in his 50s who fought for several years with Islamic militants against Russian forces in Chechnya.

According to Ahmad, many Iraqi Islamists traveled to Afghanistan in the 1980s and Chechnya in the 1990s without the knowledge of the Baathist regime.

"If the regime had known about them, they would have been killed," he says. "The regime would not even allow us to pray for the people of Afghanistan and Chechnya."

Some cells are composed of ex-Baathists and former Iraqi soldiers, but Ahmad insists that they have shed their past ideology.

"They fight now as Muslims and Iraqis not as Baathists," he says.

The bulk of attacks in the early stages of the insurgency were hit-and-run raids against US patrols or mortar and rocket bombardments of military bases. By the time Nagl deployed to Khaldiyeh, the insurgency was well established. The roadside bomb proved to be its deadliest weapon.

"We have been most concerned about roadside bombs. From the beginning its been their most effective way of inflicting casualties upon us," Nagl says.

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