My Life as an Insurgent, And Why I Quit

I never thought of fighting the Americans because I didn't regard the United States as a colonizing country. I thought it was a civilized state. Unfortunately, after the invasion, the opposite proved true.

 

President Bush didn't send doctors and engineers, or construction and democracy specialists, or experts from NASA and Google. Instead, he sent uneducated gangsters who didn't know anything about Arabic and Iraqi traditions. This was one of the main issues that triggered the resistance.

 

When I saw the first U.S. tanks in Fallujah in 2003 I opposed their presence, but at the same time I had always been against Saddam Hussein's regime. I just wished that change would not have come from the outside. A perfect change would have been through a coup or an assassination, not an occupation.

 

I joined al-Qaeda on April 28, 2003, after several U.S. soldiers killed more than 13 Iraqi civilians from the rooftop of an elementary school in Hay al-Nazzal, south of Fallujah. The Iraqis were staging a demonstration and demanded that the Americans leave the school.

 

The Americans killed the civilians and then refused to let us remove the dead bodies. It was then that I felt the rush to fight. (Editor’s note: The U.S. military maintained that its soldiers were returning fire.)

 

I met several young men who were thinking of attacking the school. At 1 am, eight of us went to the school carrying RPG7s and AK-47s, which we found at deserted Iraqi army bases. We were surprised to find another group preparing an attack.

 

We quickly agreed to launch a coordinated assault. It lasted several minutes and we fled quickly, fearing strikes from Apaches and Blackhawks.

 

The group we met was from al-Qaeda.

 

Driven By Vengeance

 

My goal in fighting the Americans was to force them to leave.

 

The event that made me angry and committed to killing was when my best friend was killed in an air strike on a house in central Fallujah. He was passing by that house.

 

My anger quickly subsided when I opened fire on a Marine and saw him collapse. I thought, "I've avenged my friend."

 

My brigade was responsible for engaging the Americans at a distance of less than 200 meters. We were 120 fighters in Fallujah. Only a few are still alive and even fewer would be objective and fair in telling the story.

 

I had more than 60 engagements with the Americans while I was with al-Qaeda. I did not go out on a mission unless it was to fight them. I feel very lucky to have survived all of these operations. Perhaps it was God's will that allowed me to survive and tell my story.

 

Al-Qaeda's combat technique is similar to guerrilla warfare. It is not systematic, which made it difficult for the Americans to fight back. If we were a regular army the Americans would have then be able to defeat us, but we were like the liquid that slips through your fingers.

 

Some operations required a lot of planning while others only needed a few hours. The most difficult thing was staging a tactical retreat. Most of our casualties occurred not during our attack but when retreating. The Americans react quickly. Within a few minutes after each operation, their choppers and soldiers would show up and we would come under fire.

 

As a result, we devised strategies such as wearing black clothing, hiding in trees and orchards and parking getaway cars at a distance.

 

We received intelligence by bribing police, army and Shia sources. The Americans considered [Shia] more trustworthy than Sunni.

 

We used to communicate using Thuraya (satellite) phones or through human contacts. We would meet as needed. Sometimes, we would have three meetings over several days, but a week could pass without a single gathering.