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 recorded and distributed on DVD in the market the same afternoon. With so many purported US agents dying there, the bridge was renamed Agents' Bridge. Then a local wag dubbed it Agents' Fridge, evoking a mortuary. The name has stuck. A visit by a Guardian reporter established what neither the Iraqi Government nor the US military has admitted: Haditha, a farming town of 90,000 people on 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 sole authority, running the town's security, administration and communications. Only 200 kilometres north-west of Baghdad, under the nose of an American base, it is a miniature Taliban-like state.
Within minutes of driving into town the reporter was stopped by a group of men and informed about rule number one: announce yourself. The mujahideen, as they are known locally, must know who comes and goes. The reporter, who for security reasons has not used his real name, did not say he worked for a British newspaper. 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, though 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. There was a rumour that Zarqawi, Washington's most wanted militant after Osama bin Laden, visited early last week.
A year ago Haditha was just another sleepy town in Anbar province, deep in the Sunni triangle and suspicious of the Shiite-led Government in Baghdad. It was no insurgent hotbed. Then, say residents, a heavy-handed Shiite police force arrived. "That's how it began," said one man. Attacks against the police escalated until they fled, creating a vacuum now filled by insurgents. Alcohol and music deemed un-Islamic were banned, women 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. In Haditha, hospital staff and teachers are allowed to collect government salaries in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, but other civil servants have had to quit. Last year the US trumpeted its rehabilitation of a nearby power plant: "The incredible progress at Haditha is just one example of the huge strides made by the US Army corps of engineers." Now insurgents earn praise from residents for allegedly pressuring managers to supply electricity almost 24 hours a day, a luxury denied the rest of Iraq.
The court caters solely for divorces and marriages. Alleged criminals are punished in the market. Our reporter witnessed a headmaster accused of adultery whipped 190 times with cables. Children laughed as he sobbed and his robe turned crimson. DVDs of beheadings on the bridge are distributed free in the souk. Children prefer them to cartoons. "They should not watch such things," said one grandfather, but the parents appeared not to object. Twice in recent months marines backed by aircraft swept into Haditha to flush out the rebels. In a pattern repeated across Anbar, there were skirmishes, a few suspects killed or detained, and success was declared. Residents said the insurgents withdrew for a few days and returned when the Americans left. They have learned from last November's battle in Falluja, when hundreds died fighting the marines and still lost the city. Now their strategy appears to be to wait out the Americans, calculating they will leave within a few years, and then escalate what some consider the real war against a Government led by the Shiite majority. Any political engagement is deemed collaboration punishable by death. The task now is to bleed the Americans and destabilise the Government. Some call that nihilism. Haditha calls it the future. |
