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Iraqis, rather than foreign fighters, now form the vast majority of the insurgents who are waging a ferocious guerrilla war against United States forces in Sunni western Iraq, American commanders have revealed. Their conclusion, disclosed to the Sunday Telegraph in interviews over 10 days in battle-torn Anbar province, contradicts the White House message that outsiders are the principal enemy in Iraq.
Of 1,300 suspected insurgents arrested over the past five months in and around Ramadi, none has been a foreigner. Col John Gronski, senior officer in the town, Anbar's provincial capital, said that almost all insurgent fighting there was by Iraqis. Foreigners provided only money and logistical support. "The foreign fighters are staying north of the [Euphrates] river, training and advising, like the Soviets were doing in Vietnam," he said. Although there are tensions between Iraqi insurgents and foreigners from the group al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by the Jordanian zealot Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, there are also alliances of convenience. Col Gronski identified Mohammed Bassim Hazim, a former Ramadi taxi driver known as Abu Khattab, as the leader of the town's insurgency. Abu Khattab has become an "affiliate" of Zarqawi's group, many of whose members are Iraqis, and has been responsible for most of the 1,770 attacks against US and Iraqi forces in the past three months. Ramadi, unlike neighbouring Fallujah, where 10 marines were killed by a bomb on Friday, has never been taken over by rebels. But it remains disputed turf at best. Thirty-four troops have died there since the beginning of September. Insurgent casualties have been much heavier - more than 180 in the same period in the town's eastern half alone. American troop strengths have doubled in the past year with a US Army armoured battalion now supplementing a US Marine light infantry battalion. Lt Col Michael Herbert, a brigade intelligence officer, said Abu Khattab has become an almost mythical figure. "He is the face of the insurgency in Ramadi. He has been behind the majority of the attacks." He was arrested by US forces last year but released, apparently due to lack of evidence and because his significance was not then appreciated. His photograph shows him wearing a Guantanamo-style orange jumpsuit. The insurgents have the support of most locals. "They have the ability to move freely around the city," said Capt Twain Hickman, the commander of India Company of the 3/7 US Marines battalion. "That means they can attack at a time of their choosing."
Col Gronski said the local nature of the insurgency meant that even the few civic leaders prepared to work with the Americans view the fighters as legitimate. "They see them as resistance. They don't view these local guys placing IEDs [improvised explosive devices] and firing mortars at us as insurgents." Some Iraqis in Ramadi now adhere to Zarqawi's radical Islamist philosophy, but for most the insurgency is about removing the occupiers, Col Herbert said. "Their family and tribal honour has been impugned if we're on their ground. They're almost duty bound to fight." Unemployment, which is over 50 per cent, and widespread intimidation are also fuelling the insurgency. "It's economic," said Lt Col Robert Roggeman, who commands the 2/69 US Army battalion. "Two hundred bucks to shoot at an American, 50 bucks to lay down an IED." Iraqi officials who deal with the Americans are routinely killed. Ma'amoun Salmi Rasheed, the governor of Anbar, has survived a dozen assassination attempts. His predecessor and deputy were murdered. Little reconstruction is being done, said Col Roggeman. "Here, it's security first." The Pentagon plan for the country is to hand over "battle space" to Iraqi forces once they are capable of combating the insurgency so that American forces can withdraw. But this scheme has been beset by problems in Ramadi. A year ago the local police force was disbanded because many of its members were insurgents. In October, the provincial police chief was arrested on suspicion of diverting salaries to fund the insurgency. There are three Iraqi army battalions in the town, comprised mainly of Shia troops from outside Ramadi, where the population is Sunni. If American troops exit prematurely, this could be a factor in sparking a civil war. Splits among insurgents, however, could assist the US aim to isolate Zarqawi's group. Recent weeks have seen what the military terms "red on red" gun battles between insurgent groups. Bombs near houses and one that killed civilians on a bus prompted the clashes and could have eroded Abu Khattab's support. "He is feared rather than popular," said Col Herbert. "He might be overstepping the mark." But the commander of one of the Iraqi battalions, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said it would be "at least two or three years" before his men were ready to fight alone. "The terrorists control Ramadi and the mosques assist them," he said. "We are getting better but the Iraqi army is still weak and we need equipment. We always rely on the Americans to do the hardest jobs for us." Each week, US forces achieve successes. In the recent Operation Machete, Capt Hickman's men uncovered an Aladdin's cave of arms buried in caches close to the banks of the Euphrates. There had been intelligence that the munitions were being transported across the river on small boats. But since Iraq still has huge stockpiles of weapons from the Saddam era, insurgents are unlikely to run out of supplies. "These insurgents have a great deal of tactical and operational patience," said Col Gronski. "They will continue to look for the time and the place because time is on their side."
'They blew me up. But I flipped them one to say: OK, I lost this round but I'll be back' Bathed in red light that spills into the darkness from the back of his Cougar bomb-proof truck, Staff Sgt Dennis Williams kneels on a dusty, rubble-strewn road paying out a large reel of insulated wire. Two hundred yards away, on the other end of the wire, is a block of plastic explosives mounted on a Talon robot, a lightweight tracked vehicle used to disable bombs. It is trundling towards a suspect device on what American forces call Route Michigan, the main road through the desolate, hate-filled town of Ramadi. Staff Sgt Dennis Williams controls a robot used to disable bombs "This is a hot area," SSgt Williams says quietly. "I don't want to be here too long." It is a masterly understatement: we are crouching in one of the most dangerous spots in Iraq. Insurgents are watching our every move, ready to trigger a radio-controlled device if we stray too close to one. Behind us, an Abrams tank provides protection. Above us, a sniper team watches from Observation Post Hotel, a bombed-out, bullet-pocked shell that has been commandeered because of its 360-degree view of the town, the capital of Iraq's rebellious western Anbar province. Inside the Cougar, Sgt Chris Spurlock is using skills honed as boy in Dallas playing with remote-controlled cars. As he steers the robot with a joystick, he peers at a screen in a large steel briefcase on his knee that displays what the robot's infrared camera sees. "Who's your Daddy?" he asks as the robot's claw grips a sandbag in the road. It is a deathly quiet night and the stillness is eerie. The radio crackles into life: a silhouette has been seen popping up and down on a nearby roof. There's also another suspected bomb - an improvised explosive device or IED - less then half a mile away. "We want to lock this up," shouts SSgt Williams. "Just set the charge down and we'll spank the bitch in place." The order means that Sgt Williams wants to blow up the device where it is, but suddenly there is a burst of incoming gunfire. Bullets zing off the side of the Cougar, throwing sparks at the feet of Sgt Williams and Sgt Javier Solis, a Puerto Rican from New Jersey. "Holy shit," they shout, almost in unison, diving into the back of the vehicle. I had climbed in ahead of them and they land in a heap at my feet. "Individual running down Easy Street," reports the radio in reference to one of the unofficial road names that US troops use for identification purposes. Ramadi erupts. Up ahead, insurgents begin shooting from the Saddam mosque at marines, who respond with 10 times more bullets, sending streaks of light across the sky. SSgt Williams, 31, who grew up in Youngstown, an Ohio steel town controlled by the Mafia, is unfazed. All he wants to do is recover the robot and investigate the second suspected IED. He is satisfied that this one is a hoax but, in the confusion, the explosives have slipped off the robot. "Bang them," he commands Sgt Spurlock, and the Cougar is rocked by the controlled blast. Minutes later, Sgt Spurlock is guiding the robot towards the second device, in a crater created by a bomb earlier in the week. Soldiers reported seeing a man dropping something into the hole and running away. As he works, a Super-Cobra attack helicopter empties its Gatling gun at targets over the western edge of town. A large square package wrapped in masking tape flashes up on the screen: a definite IED. "That's a Senao [a cordless phone] base station, a car battery and a washing-machine timer," observes Sgt Spurlock, 26, casually. "Now all we need to do is find the explosives." He uses the robot's claws to pull away some debris, exposing two artillery shells taped together and a wire. The device is disabled by the £70,000 robot and the team braves the road again to take the components for analysis. American forces search for insurgent arms caches in Ramadi These bomb disposal men - or Explosives Ordnance Disposal (EOD) teams - are in the front line of the Iraq war. Ramadi, population 400,000, controls the road to Syria, a smuggling route for weapons and fresh insurgents. The number of IEDs in the town has doubled in the past year. There have been 264 recovered in the past three months and just as many that have detonated. The men tackling them have become targets themselves. Three have died here this month. The town currently sees an average of 20 attacks a day by insurgents. Leading the fight is Gunnery Sgt Michael Burghardt, known as "Iron Mike" or just "Gunny". He is on his third tour in Iraq. He had become a legend in the bomb disposal world after winning the Bronze Star for disabling 64 IEDs and destroying 1,548 pieces of ordnance during his second tour. Then, on September 19, he got blown up. He had arrived at a chaotic scene after a bomb had killed four US soldiers. He chose not to wear the bulky bomb protection suit. "You can't react to any sniper fire and you get tunnel-visioned," he explains. So, protected by just a helmet and standard-issue flak jacket, he began what bomb disposal officers term "the longest walk", stepping gingerly into a 5ft deep and 8ft wide crater. The earth shifted slightly and he saw a Senao base station with a wire leading from it. He cut the wire and used his 7in knife to probe the ground. "I found a piece of red detonating cord between my legs," he says. "That's when I knew I was screwed." Realising he had been sucked into a trap, Gy Sgt Burghardt, 35, yelled at everyone to stay back. At that moment, an insurgent, probably watching through binoculars, pressed a button on his mobile phone to detonate the secondary device below the sergeant's feet. "A chill went up the back of my neck and then the bomb exploded," he recalls. "As I was in the air I remember thinking, 'I don't believe they got me.' I was just ticked off they were able to do it. Then I was lying on the road, not able to feel anything from the waist down." His colleagues cut off his trousers to see how badly he was hurt. None could believe his legs were still there. "My dad's a Vietnam vet who's paralysed from the waist down," says Gy Sgt Burghardt. "I was lying there thinking I didn't want to be in a wheelchair next to my dad and for him to see me like that. They started to cut away my pants and I felt a real sharp pain and blood trickling down. Then I wiggled my toes and I thought, 'Good, I'm in business.' " As a stretcher was brought over, adrenaline and anger kicked in. "I decided to walk to the helicopter. I wasn't going to let my team-mates see me being carried away on a stretcher." He stood and gave the insurgents who had blown him up a one-fingered salute. "I flipped them one. It was like, 'OK, I lost that round but I'll be back next week'." Copies of a photograph depicting his defiance, taken by Jeff Bundy for the Omaha World-Herald, adorn the walls of homes across America and that of Col John Gronski, the 2nd Brigade Combat Team commander in Ramadi, who has hailed the image as an exemplar of the warrior spirit. Gy Sgt Burghardt's injuries - burns and wounds to his legs and buttocks - kept him off duty for nearly a month and could have earned him a ticket home. But, like his father - who was awarded a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for being wounded in action in Vietnam - he stayed in Ramadi to engage in the battle against insurgents who are forever coming up with more ingenious ways of killing Americans. "The devices are getting bigger and they're looking for valuable, prestige targets like Bradleys and tanks that they can make the news with and produce propaganda videos." When US-led forces invaded Iraq in 2003, the bombs used against them were crude, activated by command wire. The insurgents then progressed to walkie-talkies and mobile phones before settling on base stations, which US forces cannot jam. In southern Iraq, bombs are activated by infrared beams - a tactic used by the IRA in south Armagh and then Hezbollah in Lebanon before being exported to Iraq by the Iranians. The bombs have become huge; one toppled a 25-ton amphibious assault vehicle, killing 14 marines. Shaped charges, which direct the blast toward the target, greatly increasing its lethality, have appeared. Techniques and tactics are gleaned from the terrorist diaspora and the internet. Battery acid is used to burn holes in roads to hide wires. Bombs are buried and covered with asphalt. Gy Sgt Burghardt cannot help admiring his adversaries' skills. He marvels at one device that set up a manhole cover as a platter charge, sending a huge lump of metal towards a Humvee. "That was pretty ingenious." It is a grudging respect shared by SSgt Williams: "They're taking their time, using solder, tape, hot glue, RCA jacks to get an easier and guaranteed contact. They're starting to make them look pretty." Responding to the high-tech assault, the Pentagon has ordered 10,000 more portable electronic jammers for troops, supplementing the 4,200 already in Iraq. A jammer sends out an electronic signal that blocks a radio signal on a specific frequency. At the same time, extra armour is being fitted to Humvees. The most potent American weapon of all, however, is the brains of men like Gy Sgt Burghardt and SSgt Williams. "It's like a giant chess game," says Gy Sgt Burghardt. "You have to keep thinking ahead of what their next move will be and how to counter it." In Camp Corregidor, an agricultural college which the US Army has made its battalion headquarters, the EOD team unwind in a building dubbed "Full Metal Jacket" after Stanley Kubrick's film about the Vietnam war. The men share a gallows humour. "Until recently I got shot at more times in Youngstown than I did in 12 years in the Marine Corps," quips Sgt Williams. Shaun Guillory, the Cougar driver, has made some chilli in the microwave. "This is disgusting," says SSgt Williams, as Guillory feigns hurt feelings. The telephone rings. A man apprehended in Ramadi has traces of lead azide and picric acid on his hands. "Ooh, that's nasty stuff," says SSgt Williams. "They used picric acid in cannonballs way back when in the 1800s." Sgt Solis, 23, is in more reflective mood. He still has three pieces of shrapnel in his leg after being hit by a booby-trapped hand grenade attached to a fake base station device designed as a "come on". "I haven't started to go to church yet but I'm thinking about it," he says. Gy Sgt Burghardt confesses that he and his ilk have to be a little crazy to do their job. "As an EOD man, you have to be outside the normal, to think outside the box. I have to live in that realm because if I work to a set of standards and to a pattern I'll be dead tomorrow. "It's a vague science - some art, some guesswork and some luck. Explosives do weird things. Sometimes they kill you. Sometimes they just blow you out of a hole. But we're beating the insurgents. We're getting to them so much that they're targeting us. I take that as a compliment."
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