100,000 resistance fighters; occupiers' moral low

Abduljabbar al Kubaysi, resistance supporter and secretary-general of the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance (IPA), whom the U.S. occupation forces imprisoned at the airport near Baghdad from September 2004 to December 2005, gave an interview this July in Paris to Willi Langthaler of the Anti-Imperialist Camp. We publish a few excerpts from al-Kubaysi’s statements below regarding the U.S. role in fomenting sectarian fighting, on the current strength of the resistance and on Saddam Hussein’s role. For the entire interview, see antiimperialista.org.

In the beginning, the media used to check on the site of the blast and often eye witnesses contradicted the official version that a person blew himself up. Now they [the regime] cordon off the area and impede questions to the locals. They want to have the news spread that militants did the massacre, while it was governing forces or the U.S. who planted explosive loads. In most of the cases there is no person involved killing himself. In these cases [without suicides] you can be sure that the ruling coalition is involved.

For example, the regime changed the name of an important road in the Al Adhamiye district in Baghdad from a Sunni religious figure to a Shiite one during the night. It was the Shiite community of al-Adhamiye itself that changed it back to the original name. Then the troops came again with their Hummers. ...

But actually they did not succeed in creating the rift between Sunnis and Shiites. Yes, in official politics there is a rift. The Sunni Islamic Party, which is with the Americans, and the Shiite block, which is with Iran and the U.S., argue along such lines, but these groups did not succeed in convincing the ordinary people to go with them. Here and there, there might be some minor conflicts, but in substance the broad masses on both sides insist that they are Iraqis regardless of their religious beliefs.

Look to Najaf and see the positions of the Arab Shiite ayatollahs, who continue to advocate national unity and oppose the occupation. Or look to Diala province, which is composed of 50 percent Shiites and 50 percent Sunnis and at the same time is a strong base of the resistance. Two big Shiites tribes, al Buhishma and the followers of Ayatollah Abdul Karim al Moudheris, are with the resistance and everybody knows it. The Ayatollah’s son fell in combat. He was the leader of a big tribal contingent of the resistance.

In Baquba, the provincial capital, they cannot do the same cleansing as in Basra with the Sunnis or as in Amara with the Mandeans. In Baquba both Shiite and Sunnis support the resistance. Certainly there are attacks by the different resistance groups on the Iraqi government agencies, the U.S. army, Iranian forces and the Shiite parties and militias like the Madhi army which are inside the political process, but you will not hear of sectarian killings.

There is another example: Tal Afar in the northwest of Iraq near Mosul. Between 50 and 70 percent of its population is Shiite. Nevertheless it is one of the capitals of the resistance. ...

Resistance has 400,000 active people

The resistance is still gaining strength. Judging by numbers alone, they rose from some thousands to where they now exceed by far 100,000 fighters. Their combat capabilities increased as well. But they could also develop intelligence structures penetrating the Iraqi army and police but also sometimes the environment of the U.S. Army. So altogether the system of resistance includes some 400,000 people.

The U.S. Army and its allies are really demoralised. While the resistance fights to liberate its country, they only fight for money. Thus they are becoming more and more savage. They increased the numbers not only of direct U.S. troops, but also of mercenary forces, which are even more barbarian. Taken all together they consist maybe of some one million troops.

Look to the U.S. losses released by the Pentagon itself which are obviously sugar-coated. If you disregard the months of special military operation like against Falluja or Tal Afar, you can see a clear tendency. At the beginning you had some 50 U.S. soldiers killed per month, then later it was up to 80 and now some 100 get killed each month.

The resistance is now a real popular movement; it is a culture among the people. Everybody contributes his or her share. And the fact that no government helps us has also its good side. If they would pay, then you would always have corruption. The typical Arab façade would have been erected. Now, instead, there is no excuse. Every section is responsible for itself, to organise its people, to train them, to plan the attacks, to raise money, etc.

Also politically the resistance has taken some steps forward. At the beginning there were hundreds of groups, but people now understand the need for unity. Now we can say that there are eight main groups. What has so far not been achieved is a unified political command, which remains one of the main tasks ahead. ...

Let us remember that the West started with insulting the resistance, calling it foreigners and followers of the old regime. They wanted to imply that the resistance has no connection to the Iraqi people. Actually the resistance sprang up on a very grass-roots level to defend its identity against the enormous provocations of U.S. neo-colonialism. They were former soldiers, tribesmen, nationally and religiously inspired people who acted in their immediate environment. It was neither foreigners nor Baathists who were the driving force of the inception, although Baathists were participating as well.

The way the U.S. deposed Saddam was perceived as an aggression against all Iraqis including those who opposed him. To be honest, eventually Saddam personally played an important role in impelling his people into resistance. He did not try to save himself by hiding as was being reported. No, he went from city to city, from Tikrit to Samarra, Anbar and also Baghdad. He contacted sheikhs, officers and so on. He said that they should resist not for him as a president, but for the nation and for Islam. He asked them even to not use his picture any more as a rallying symbol. Only in the following months was the Baath able to reorganize as a party and join the resistance as such. From the point of view of the resistance it was a great luck that the occupiers could not arrest Saddam for a long time.