「我們基本上雇用恐怖分子」
沙龍 - 8月。 6日2008年 | 巴格達，伊拉克-笠頭淡黃的襯衣與伊拉克旗子在焱熱的太陽最近站立的胸口、Alah AlJanabi和Mahmoud AlSamorai縫了在擁擠入口對奔忙的Dora市場。 AlJanabi， 30，在他的臀部驕傲地顯示了一把發光的黑手槍; 當他輕拍了在進入市場的顧客下AlSamorai， 25，投擲了他的Kalashnikov攻擊步槍在他的肩膀。 九個月前，二個人在伊拉克加入了伊拉克-美國的兒子-被資助，功能作為部分鄰里安全手錶和部分輔助軍力103,000衛兵主要的遜尼派教徒組織和是有助的在填塞下來暴力。
什麼這些人在這工作之前做了-，當宗派民兵和伊拉克與戰鬥的安全部隊通過Dora鄰里投了爭鬥，殺害和人使受傷比分-是不明的。 當要求時，二看彼此并且聳肩了。 「沒有工作」，最後說的AlSamorai。 可能他和他的同事在他們的家掩藏了，當發怒的宗派主義者戰鬥外面時。 但它也是可能的他們沿著遜尼派教徒民兵戰鬥了，像伊拉克成員的許多兒子，根據巡邏區域的美國部隊。
「當SOIs站了起來，我們基本上雇用恐怖分子」， Lt說。 Justin Chabalko，使用軍事首字母縮略詞為伊拉克的兒子。 Chabalko的2-4第4個旅團的步兵營，第10山分部頻繁地巡邏Dora市場。
2007年伊拉克的兒子在伊拉克被形成了，當遜尼派教徒部族領導，疲倦了於暴力并且幻滅與伊斯蘭教的原教旨主義者例如AlQaida，被鼓勵的部族成員-包括一些前民兵成員-守衛遜尼派教徒和混合居住區免受接管由宗派幫會。 美國人譽為伊拉克的兒子的創作主要外交成功并且同意提供經費給組織，支付每名成員月薪$300，儘管抗議從被什葉派教徒控制的伊拉克政府，未曾喜歡使被遜尼派教徒控制的戰鬥的力量合法想法。
被幫助的力量蕩平遜尼派教徒叛亂在巴格達和在伊拉克的部族中心區域，例如不安寧的Anbar省。 但年前被看似一種精采解答到宗派暴力現在看似定時炸彈。 Many of the force’s members once fought alongside al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni insurgency organizations against American troops and the predominantly Shiite Iraqi security forces. And now, a joint U.S.-Iraqi government plan to disband the force could put up to 80,000 men out of work — and leave them armed and disgruntled.
As Iraq becomes safer, the Sons of Iraq are less essential to security. Under a draft plan by U.S. forces and the Iraqi government, 20 percent of the force will be gradually folded into Iraqi security forces, after careful screening and additional training. The rest, Americans say, will be offered basic vocational training, which would allow them to take up such jobs as janitors, secretaries, electricians and plumbers. As of June, approximately 17,000 Sons of Iraq members have joined Iraqi security forces.
But conversations with the Sons of Iraq members and their leaders suggest that the majority of them do not want to do anything that does not involve carrying weapons, traditionally an honorable status in Iraqi society.
“A lot of them would prefer doing that because it gives them power of carrying a weapon and providing security,” said Capt. Emiliano Tellado, a member of the 2-4 Infantry Battalion.
Potentially, 80,000 armed and trained fighters could soon find themselves unemployed, or employed in jobs they do not want — and angry at the American forces and Iraqi government because they didn’t get picked for service in the security forces.
Al-Janabi and al-Samorai applied for jobs in the Iraqi police nine months ago for the first time, and reapplied twice since. They have not heard back from the Iraqi government, and they could well be among the many thousands who don’t get to join Iraqi security forces. But both dismissed the idea that they would lay down their guns and take up other work tools.
“That is not my job,” al-Samorai responded, firmly.
“I want to defend my people,” said al-Janabi.
A key question is, to what extent have members of the Sons of Iraq such as these severed their past allegiances. Working as U.S.-paid neighborhood guards was supposed to rehabilitate those who once fought against American and Iraqi forces, said Capt. Brett Walker, the spokesman for the 2-4 Infantry Battalion. Over time, approximately 18,000 Shiite members joined the force as well, working mostly in Shiite and mixed neighborhoods and ostensibly bringing some sense of sectarian rapprochement.
But some of the organization’s Sunni members may still be cooperating with sectarian militias, acknowledged Tellado. Even if the Sons of Iraq continues to function in its current format, the organization is a wild card as far as its members’ loyalties are concerned.
Several months ago, the 2-4’s soldiers detained one Sons of Iraq leader who was once associated with al-Qaida in Iraq, Tellado said. “He had a bad background, and it finally caught up with him,” he explained. “There was a possibility that he was still active” in the extremist Sunni organization. The man is now in Camp Bucca, a giant American detention center in southern Iraq.
“Sometimes they don’t reform,” Tellado said.
Chabalko said that some Sons of Iraq in his area use their positions “as an opportunity to play both sides of the fence, usually the guys at checkpoints.” American soldiers say that Sunni members of the force extorted money from Shiite civilians and attacked people they believed were members of Shiite militias.
In Baghdad’s religiously mixed Risala neighborhood in May, U.S. Army medics treated a man who had been beaten and kicked in the face and torso by Sons of Iraq, who believed that the man was an informant for the Mahdi army, the militia loyal to the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The man survived because the local Sons of Iraq leader, Karim al-Gortani, happened by and ordered them to stop, said U.S. Army Capt. Sean Chase, whose soldiers treated the man. Chase suspects that Gortani, a former Iraqi army colonel under Saddam Hussein, at one point was either a member of al-Qaida in Iraq or Jaish al-Islami, another Sunni extremist group.
In Dora, where 450,000 people live, the Sons of Iraq have not carried out any overt acts of violence, U.S. soldiers say — at least not to the Americans’ knowledge. But that could be because Dora, a middle-class neighborhood that is home to many former officials of Saddam Hussein’s government, is almost homogenously Sunni.
Yet, even here the Sons of Iraq have a potential nemesis — the Iraqi National Police, a SWAT-like organization that patrols Dora. On many streets, members of the two armed groups man checkpoints together, but there is little amicability between them. “At first there was no open conflict, but there was open verbal conflict,” Tellado recalls.
In order to create a rapport between the Sunni guards and the Shiite officers, who also enjoy little trust from Dora’s Sunni population, the Americans have made the Sons of Iraq formally subordinate to the police force.
“On payday, I hand the money over to the [National Police] supervisor, and he hands the money to the SOI leader, and that guy hands the money to SOI members,” Tellado said. “It literally takes place in the same room.”
American military leaders understand the fragility of the peace between the Sons of Iraq and Shiite security forces, and the importance of keeping the Sunni force happy. “We’re gonna continue to pay the SOI guys until the government takes over or until they transition into other jobs,” said 4th Infantry Division Lt. Col. Steven Stover, the spokesman for American troops in Baghdad.
“These Sons of Iraq will eventually go away, and now the most important thing is to find jobs for all those individuals,” Lt. Col. Timothy Watson, the 2-4 commander, recently told a gathering of Sunni leaders in Dora. “It’s just as important providing jobs as it is security.”
Nonetheless, local leaders say the Sons of Iraq remains suspicious of the policemen. Hashem Ajili, one of the senior neighborhood leaders in northern Dora, said American presence is crucial to mediate any potential conflicts between the two groups.
“Currently the relations are getting better — with the support of coalition forces,” Ajili said. If the Americans leave, will the two groups be at each other’s throats? Ajili smiled, and responded diplomatically: “If the coalition forces go back to the States, I am afraid I don’t know what will happen between those two elements.”
Eddie Bello, an Iraqi-born cultural advisor to the American military in Iraq, was more specific. “It is like sitting on a volcano,” he said. “You never know when it will explode.”
Anna Badkhen has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Somalia, the West Bank and Gaza. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, David Filipov, and their two sons.
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