Face of Iraq 2004

"Iraq will not find peace or stability until the U.S. occupation ends. ... There was no basis for a war in Iraq. It was wrong to go in, and it's wrong to stay in. ... It is time to get the U.N. in and the U.S. out of Iraq." --Dennis Kuchinich

Farnaz Fassihi: From Baghdad

Farnaz Fassihi is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, currently assigned as their middle-east correspondent, based in Iraq. A few days ago, she sent some friends an email describing the real state of affairs in the country -- no spin, no editorial control, no publisher's censorship, just one unhappy person letting her friends know what she's faced with. The email was forwarded on to a number of colleagues, and from there it escaped into the blogosphere.

It is pasted below.

From: Farnaz Fassihi
Subject: From Baghdad

Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house arrest. Forget about the reasons that lured me to this job: a chance to see the world, explore the exotic, meet new people in far away lands, discover their ways and tell stories that could make a difference.

Little by little, day-by-day, being based in Iraq has defied all those reasons. I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to, and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike up a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling. And can't and can't. There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second.

It's hard to pinpoint when the 'turning point' exactly began. Was it April when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it when Moqtada and Jish Mahdi declared war on the U.S. military? Was it when Sadr City, home to ten percent of Iraq's population, became a nightly battlefield for the Americans? Or was it when the insurgency began spreading from isolated pockets in the Sunni triangle to include most of Iraq?

Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come.

Iraqis like to call this mess 'the situation.' When asked 'how are thing?' they reply: 'the situation is very bad."

What they mean by situation is this: the Iraqi government doesn't control most Iraqi cities, there are several car bombs going off each day around the country killing and injuring scores of innocent people, the
country's roads are becoming impassable and littered by hundreds of landmines and explosive devices aimed to kill American soldiers, there are assassinations, kidnappings and beheadings. The situation, basically, means a raging barbaric guerilla war. In four days, 110 people died and over 300 got injured in Baghdad alone. The numbers are so shocking that the ministry of health - which was attempting an exercise of public transparency by releasing the numbers - has now stopped disclosing them.

Insurgents now attack Americans 87 times a day.

A friend drove thru the Shiite slum of Sadr City yesterday. He said young men were openly placing improvised explosive devices into the ground. They melt a shallow hole into the asphalt, dig the explosive, cover it with dirt and put an old tire or plastic can over it to signal to the locals this is booby-trapped. He said on the main roads of Sadr City, there were a dozen landmines per every ten yards. His car snaked and swirled to avoid driving over them. Behind the walls sits an angry Iraqi ready to detonate them as soon as an American convoy gets near. This is in Shiite land, the population that was supposed to love America for liberating Iraq.

For journalists the significant turning point came with the wave of abduction and kidnappings. Only two weeks ago we felt safe around Baghdad because foreigners were being abducted on the roads and highways between towns. Then came a frantic phone call from a journalist female friend at 11 p.m. telling me two Italian women had been abducted from their homes in broad daylight. Then the two Americans, who got beheaded this week and the Brit, were abducted from their homes in a residential neighborhood. They were supplying the entire block with round the clock electricity from their generator to win friends. The abductors grabbed one of them at 6 a.m. when he came out to switch on the generator; his beheaded body was thrown back near the neighborhoods.

The insurgency, we are told, is rampant with no signs of calming down. If any thing, it is growing stronger, more organized and more sophisticated every day. The various elements within it - baathists, criminals, nationalists and Al Qaeda - are cooperating and coordinating.

I went to an emergency meeting for foreign correspondents with the military and embassy to discuss the kidnappings. We were somberly told our fate would largely depend on where we were in the kidnapping chain once it was determined we were missing. Here is how it goes: criminal gangs grab you and sell you up to Baathists in Fallujah, who will in turn sell you to Al Qaeda. In turn, cash and weapons flow the other way from Al Qaeda to the Baathisst to the criminals. My friend Georges, the French journalist snatched on the road to Najaf, has been missing for a month with no word on release or whether he is still alive.

America's last hope for a quick exit? The Iraqi police and National Guard units we are spending billions of dollars to train. The cops are being murdered by the dozens every day - over 700 to date - and the insurgents are infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that the U.S. military has allocated $6 million dollars to buy out 30,000 cops they just trained to get rid of them quietly.

As for reconstruction: firstly it's so unsafe for foreigners to operate that almost all projects have come to a halt. After two years, of the $18 billion Congress appropriated for Iraq reconstruction only about $1 billion or so has been spent and a chuck has now been reallocated for improving security, a sign of just how bad things are going here.

Oil dreams? Insurgents disrupt oil flow routinely as a result of sabotage and oil prices have hit record high of $49 a barrel. Who did this war exactly benefit? Was it worth it? Are we safer because Saddam is holed up and Al Qaeda is running around in Iraq?

Iraqis say that thanks to America they got freedom in exchange for insecurity. Guess what? They say they'd take security over freedom any day, even if it means having a dictator ruler.

I heard an educated Iraqi say today that if Saddam Hussein were allowed to run for elections he would get the majority of the vote. This is truly sad.

Then I went to see an Iraqi scholar this week to talk to him about elections here. He has been trying to educate the public on the importance of voting. He said, "President Bush wanted to turn Iraq into a democracy that would be an example for the Middle East. Forget about democracy, forget about being a model for the region, we have to salvage Iraq before all is lost."

One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes and it can't be put back into a bottle.

The Iraqi government is talking about having elections in three months while half of the country remains a 'no go zone' - out of the hands of the government and the Americans and out of reach of journalists. In the other half, the disenchanted population is too terrified to show up at polling stations. The Sunnis have already said they'd boycott lections, leaving the stage open for polarized government of Kurds and Shiites that will not be deemed as legitimate and will most certainly lead to civil war.

I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate in the Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to some degree elect a leadership. His response summed it all: "Go and vote and risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents and murdered for cooperating with the Americans? For what? To practice democracy? Are you joking?"

--Farnaz

Live Journal

Note: According to Tim Rutten's column in the Los Angeles
Times, who has obtained on-the-record quotes from the WSJ
editor on this, the Wall Street Journal is now recalling Ms. Fassihi
for a "long-planned vacation" that will extend until past November
2nd. Which means that she's barred from writing about Iraq until
after the US election.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

Crossing the Line

How one Syrian came to wage jihad against U.S. soldiers in Iraq

Darren Foster

Sunday, March 21, 2004

The sun was setting when they arrived near the border crossing at Abu Kamal. There were seven of them from the same small town. Another group of 15 had left earlier that day, just after morning prayers.

Abed had made his decision to join them quickly. "I didn't have to take out a pen and start calculating," he said. It was just over a week into the U.S. bombing of Iraq and Abed had seen enough, but the image of a 13-year-old Iraqi boy named Ali who had both his arms blown off in an American air strike had clinched it for him. "There was something inside that made me explode."

For years, Abed had been fed a steady diet of images of children killed and maimed in conflicts that resonated close to his heart but were just a bit too far off to make him want to mount a defense. In the body of Islam, Abed explained, if one person gets cut we all feel the pain. The helplessness and rage didn't just fester; they were reinforced in discussions at the mosque, by broadcasts on satellite TV and captured in songs and photos exchanged over the Internet.

Until the day the battle came knocking at his door. Abed's home in eastern Syria is less than 50 miles from the Iraqi border - too close, he felt, for him to do nothing.

Abed steeled himself in the soft fuchsia light that bathes the rocky expanse when the sun first sinks below the horizon. Then, with just the stars and moon guiding him, he made his way toward the fence. Suddenly, he heard gunshots. The border police had spotted the group and were firing into the air. But that wasn't going to stop Abed; he was prepared to be a martyr.

He and his group dashed across the small strip of no-man's-land that separates Syria and Iraq. When they reached the other side, trucks were waiting to take them to Baghdad. Abed had no idea they would be there. "It wasn't organized," he told me.

Abed looks older than his 26 years. He's about 6 feet tall and stocky. Though most of his friends tend to dress in the more traditional tuniclike galabias, Abed wears Western-style clothes circa 1989 - faded blue jeans, T- shirts with geometric patterns. And unlike the long beards his friends sport, Abed's is closely cropped.

He's jocular and quick to flash his horse-toothed smile. But when he begins to speak of his decision to fight against the Americans in Iraq, Abed turns grave, rubbing his large, calloused hands together.

I first learned of Abed through a Syrian friend, Zaher, whom I met while visiting Damascus. I had arrived in Syria just as Washington began stepping up pressure on the country for, among other things, allowing foreign fighters to cross its borders to attack U.S. troops. As an American in Damascus, it was difficult to avoid the subject of the war. Everyone I spoke with told me they opposed what they saw as an American invasion. And a few young Damascenes told me how they wished they had joined the ranks of the mujahedeen that had gone to fight. But it was Zaher who provided me with the first credible lead to Syrians who had actually crossed the border into Iraq to fight against the Americans. Many of the young men from the village in eastern Syria where he had grown up had gone, Zaher said. To illustrate the sentiments of the people in this region toward these local mujahedeen, Zaher told me a little about Abed.

Before the war in Iraq, Zaher said, Abed was well known around the village as being a bit of a clown. But by crossing the border to fight, Abed had shown that he was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice and among the mujahedeen, he proved himself to be a brave leader. Word got around and when Abed returned, he commanded a whole new respect. In fact, the mujahedeen from Zaher's village, though defeated, were hometown heroes.

After hearing Zaher's stories, I and a couple of colleagues, Mike and Mariana, who had been studying Arabic in Damascus for the summer, asked him if he could introduce us to some of the fighters. Posing as tourists to keep under the radar of Syria's secret police, we rented a car and along with Zaher, we headed east.

Almost five months after President Bush declared an end to the war, I arrived in a dusty town on the banks of the Euphrates, a lazy river ride away from Iraq. At night, the pulsing orange glow of oil fields lights up the horizon, and during the day farmers till the verdant flood plains of Mesopotamia. The land then gives way to vast stretches of parched desert.

The border that divides eastern Syria from western Iraq is like a mirror reflecting not only a similar landscape but also a shared culture and tradition whose ancient roots make folly of lines drawn on maps. Clan ties, which are the first order of allegiance before any other politics in the region, overlap the border.

In the windows of shops and restaurants in the towns throughout the area, colorful posters still hang celebrating the Syrian martyrs who died fighting on their neighbor's soil. The small yearbooklike portraits of young men - some as young as 16, framed in floating hearts and superimposed over a map of Iraq - might be tacky if they weren't so profound.

On our first morning, we drove out to a market in a scratch of desert on the outskirts of a small town in the region. Zaher had said that this was where we could find Mohammed, one of the leaders of the local mujahedeen.

While Zaher went looking for Mohammed, I wandered toward the market entrance where a man with a salt and pepper beard and red-checkered kaffiyeh greeted me. He began talking excitedly in Arabic, and not understanding, I just smiled broadly like a friendly tourist, nodding my head where I thought it was appropriate. I soon realized that he was repeating the same question: "Are you American?"

Although the baggage associated with being an American abroad has become heavier over the years, I don't normally shy away from this question. In Damascus, other than acting as an occasional sounding board for gripes about George Bush, I was, without exception, warmly received. But before we left, Zaher had voiced his concern. He wasn't so much worried for my safety as he was about getting people to open up.

I decided to use the opportunity as a litmus test. By this point, a number of other men had gathered around and were staring me up and down. Sensing the man's growing frustration, I finally answered, "Yes."

With that, the old man's eyes narrowed. "American," he exclaimed and holding me in an intense glare, he ran his forefinger across his neck; sign language for I slit your throat. He dropped his finger sharply to punctuate the end of the slice and took a step back in a way that didn't so much speak of relenting, as it did that he might pounce on me at any moment. Just then another man placed his hand on my shoulder and said in English, "Maybe if you American, they kill you."

Before I could erase the frozen smile from my face, Zaher appeared out of nowhere and settled it. From then on I was Irish.

Mohammed had already left the market, so we decided to call for him at his house.

Based on outward appearances, it's safe to assume that if Mohammed entered an airport in the United States, he would be put through the security wringer. In fact, my first reaction upon meeting him was that with the exception of a nose like Abe Vigoda, he could very well be the spawn of Osama bin Laden. I wasn't the only one who made this connection. As we were making introductions in the large living room of his family's home, his uncle reached over and grabbed Mohammed's long, burly beard and said, "Osama bin Laden" to the great amusement of all around. Then, like a kid who discovers that he had just said something funny, his uncle continued, "Terrorist, terrorist" motioning his hands over Mohammed's white kaffiyeh and galabia like a game show hostess presenting a prize washing machine.

Like everyone in this area, Mohammed was born a Muslim. He began studying the Koran when he was 5 or 6. By the time he was 14, he had become devout in his beliefs and began teaching the Koran to children. Now 30, he still teaches at a Koranic school, where he is held in great esteem. In conversation, he frequently refers to the Koran, chanting verses to back up his points.

In Mohammed's bedroom, it's all Islam all the time. A gold grandfather-like clock in the corner of the room plays the call to prayer every hour. Calligraphy prints of Koranic verses decorate his walls and shelves. And a photo of a forest where contorted tree trunks spell out "Allah" in Arabic - a divinely inspired phenomenon, he explained - hangs above his bed. It was sort of like entering my friend's little brother's room, but with all photos of J. Lo, down to the screensaver on his computer, replaced by Islamic paraphernalia.

I was surprised to see that the information age had reached Mohammed's bedroom. But even with the world at his fingertips, Mohammed's interests did not seem to extend past Islamic themes. After pouring us some more tea, which he did with the graceful efficiency of someone who has repeated a task a thousand times over, Mohammed began playing some Malaysian Nasheed music videos that he had downloaded off the Internet. They were all variations of the same format: a man singing Islamic songs backed by a chorus of children in colorful robes and time-elapsed pictures of clouds moving over a rainforest.

But not everything Mohammed downloads is so serene. A couple of nights later when a group of us, including some young children from the neighborhood, were again sitting around his bedroom, Mohammed showed us some of his other files. Superimposed over an American flag or fighter jets, a montage of gruesome photos passed. The pictures carried the insignia of various Arabic television networks - video stills from reports that had run on TV - and the sound track was a cacophony of exploding bombs and screams.

On U.S. television, the photos would have never made it past the censors. I couldn't remember when I had seen such graphic content, and here I was watching what Mohammed describes as the atrocities committed by the United States against the Arab world, with an audience of children. More disturbing than the actual photos is that they represent the story of America that many Syrians seem to accept. Whatever the sins of people like Saddam Hussein, it is America who is the aggressor. It is America who drops the bombs and it is America who maims the children. This is the story being handed down to the next generation.

While we sat around a plastic tablecloth that had been laid on the floor with plates of stuffed tomatoes and eggplants, yogurt and salads, Zaher explained to Mohammed the nature of our trip: We had been studying Arabic in Damascus, we were interested in learning more about Islam and understanding for ourselves why there was this great divide between the East and the West.

We had worked out our approach while we were still in Damascus. For the sake of getting the people to talk to us, Zaher advised, it was better if we didn't say that we were journalists. "We must put this a different way," he explained. "They think how I think, even more. I know how CNN and the BBC are. They twist things just a little bit to make the Arabs look bad. If they know you are a journalist from the West, they will not talk to you... It is better you think of this as a vacation." People here frequently referred to Western journalists as propagandists and believe all media to be an apparatus of the U. S. government, which is little more than a puppet of Israel. There was no convincing Zaher, never mind the fighters we were trying to get to speak with us, that the picture would not inevitably be distorted to their detriment.

So a "vacation" it was. But even under the guise of tourists, we weren't completely safe. Mike had already been picked up by the Mukhabarat, Syria's secret police, for nothing more than walking while being a foreigner. He managed to persuade them that he was just a tourist and after a few formalities, they bought him a kebab for any trouble they caused him. If he had been in possession of film equipment and tapes with Syrian mujahedeen explaining that waging jihad in Iraq was sanctioned by the government of Syria, as we soon would be, it's likely that he would have been having bread and water instead. Never mind what would happen to those who agreed to speak with us.

Since 1963, Syria has operated under a state of emergency, effectively being run as a police state with a complex web of secret police and informants. The law gives security agencies sweeping authority and anyone whose loyalty to the state is in question may be arrested or detained under the most arbitrary of pretexts. It's taken for granted that phones are bugged and e- mails monitored. Most Syrians are cautious about speaking publicly about politics or any other issue that could be considered subversive.

Refusing to work as an informant for the Mukhabarat had already landed Zaher in prison for six months, where aside from frequent beatings, he received electric shocks. By acting as our fixer, translator and cultural liaison, he was taking an incredible risk. Since Zaher knew better the terrain we were about to enter and undoubtedly had the most to lose, we agreed for his protection and all others involved that we wouldn't use real names or mention the specific town we were to visit. "If you get in trouble in Syria, you have the support of the U.S. Embassy," he told me. "We have nothing. We have no support. The state, for us, is the enemy."

That evening, Mohammed arranged for us to meet with some of his friends at the Koranic school where he taught. When we arrived, there was a mountain of sandals beside the door, an early warning that we might have gotten more than we bargained for. Inside, there were about 30 adults and 10 children, most I assumed had just come straight from the mosque as they were dressed in their traditional white robes. Cushions were arranged around the perimeter of the room, and we were directed to our seats in the circle of expectant faces.

To start off, the eldest man, Ammad, said that the children wanted to recite poems written by a friend of his from the oil field where he worked. "This is a small chapter of a poem describing or praising the martyrs who have fallen in the Iraq war," Ammad explained.

An 8-year-old boy scooted himself in front of Mohammed and began from memory. Every so often, Mohammed would lean forward and whisper into the boy's ear to remind him to pump his fist in the air. But he wasn't convincing enough for some people in the room, so the men sitting beside me began demonstrating how he should launch his fist higher. All the while, the other boys behind him mouthed along with the words:

Shahid (martyr) is you; you are the greatest.
And the most generous of us all is you
Everyone dies and his name is buried
Except for the name of Shahid
Which gets greater never less...
You kept the heads of the Arabs high
And would not let them bow
You are Shahid, you are the hero, you are the greatest...

Ammad then called on his son, Rami, who made his way to the center of the circle. The 9-year-old was going to recite two poems, he explained, one denouncing the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and another about the injustices of U.N. resolutions.

Before he had even been introduced as he sat among the other boys, Rami had made an impression on me. As he mouthed the words of the Koran and the first poem, he bore a pained expression highlighted by a birthmark on his cheek that, at first, I had mistaken for a tearstain. When it was Rami's turn, Mohammed didn't need to remind him of anything. His voice cracked under the weight of his words and his sullen look became animated, contorting with a mixture of what I gathered was pain, anger and rage. Rami sold his pumping fists; it didn't look forced or choreographed.

When Ammad was describing the subjects of the poems, I hastened to think that these children couldn't possibly comprehend the full meaning of their words. But that was before Rami. After the exchange was over, I went up to Ammad and told him how powerful Rami's poetry reading had been. With a modest sort of fatherly pride Ammad replied, "He really feels these things."

It wasn't until I had the poems translated that I understood what "these things" were. I sat with the translator while he watched the video. He stopped the tape, turned to me, and before translating, said: "This is really disturbing. These kids should be out playing marbles or singing nursery rhymes, not memorizing these poems."

Here are a few lines from Rami's poems about the Israeli occupation:

In the dark committee of the Council of United Nations
The spilling of my blood was legitimated in the cradles and in the mosques.. .
They show the worst of behavior
They cut with swords of death and genocide
And our nations have been shattered
They have been led like lambs to their slaughter
They do not ask about Jenin and her uprising
They do not ask about the conditions of the tent-people
Is there anyone who rents god's land to be lived on?

Leave Oslo, Camp David and the rest
Rights do not return except at the cost of blood
You ignorant people have been betrayed by conspirators
Your silence is the silence of the deaf and dumb
You who extended a helping hand to ill-born Jews
You who rushed into negotiations blindly
These are the crimes that you are now harvesting
That is why you are like catamites and slaves today
You do not expel their ambassadors from your capitals!
And you sign accords of shame and sickness!
Your have had your willpower destroyed
Like a cat without claws
You live together in the holes with mice
It is sad to see a people whose leaders are like puppets
Moved around in the darkness by Sharon

To say that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a preoccupation in these parts is an understatement - it's an integral part of the "getting to know you" conversation. When Mike was picked up by the Mukhabarat, after getting all his information, the first question they asked him was what he thought about the Israeli occupation. So when Ammad opened the floor to questions, our cultural exchange turned into a one-way dialogue about the issue, with direct questions and thinly veiled theoretical situations put before us. We quickly learned to keep our answers short, vague and non-confrontational. "I couldn't imagine if it happened in my country," became our diplomatic sound bite.

At one point, one of the young men pulled me aside and asked, as an Irishman, how I felt about the occupation in my country. Pushing the deception a little further, I explained that I was from Dublin, which isn't in Northern Ireland. Fearing that I would have to explain myself, I quickly put a question to the young man: How did he feel about his new neighbors? "The occupation will have to end," he said. "We have always been here and we will always be here, the Americans will be forced to leave."

After the meeting at the Koranic school, Mohammed told us his mother had prepared dinner for us. In the courtyard of his home, a large tablecloth had been laid on the floor and cushions were placed around it. We took our seats and Mohammed came out from the kitchen with an enormous bowl of mansaf, a traditional Bedouin dish of rice and chicken. Following Mohammed's lead, we went to work in the traditional way, crowding up around the bowl and grabbing fingers-full of rice. Every so often, Mohammed would grab a particularly appetizing piece of chicken and hand it to one of us.

When our stomachs were sufficiently stuffed, Mohammed went to make some tea. Walking back with the kettle, he tripped and the pot went flying across the courtyard to where we were sitting. Everyone jumped while

Mohammed broke into hysterics. The pot was empty.

I wondered if he had learned that one from watching the Harlem Globetrotters on his satellite TV, which had been flickering next to us the whole time. Over tea, we made some small conversation but Mohammed's attention was tuned to the tableau of car crashes and freak accidents on "Shocking Videos." He reclined back on his elbows, transfixed like a child watching Saturday morning cartoons. At one point, a picture of the World Trade Center came up. I knew what was coming next. I looked over at Mohammed while the towers were collapsing. He turned to me grinning and then gave me a thumbs-up. A moment later, Osama bin Laden was up on the screen. Mohammed dutifully gave a four-fingered salute.

We were spending a lot of time with Mohammed, but when it came to the subject of fighting in Iraq he was proving to be wilier than we had anticipated. He entertained our questions with only vague responses. At dinner that night I asked why he decided to go to Iraq. He answered: "If you think you can do something for humanity, you do it." And he turned back toward the television.

We decided to try our luck with some other fighters.

The perfect opportunity presented itself one morning at the market while we were again visiting Mohammed.

Zaher's friend Abed was having tea in Mohammed's shop when we arrived. We had already met Abed a couple of nights before at the Koranic school. He arrived that night in his work clothes, after we had already made the introductions. At one point while the group was singing, I looked over and noticed he was crying. So it came as a surprise when Zaher later introduced him as his friend that was always clowning around. But true to Zaher's depiction, Abed soon began cracking jokes and laughing heartily.

As soon as we arrived, Zaher's 3-year-old nephew, who had came along with us, ran up to Abed and began using him like a jungle gym. The rest of us sat under the shade of the tarpaulin that is Mohammed's shop. Like the flies around our teacups, a crowd of men buzzed around the shop, curious about Mohammed's guests.

At one point, an older man came into the shop and asked where we were from. Learning that we were from the West, he asked what we thought about George Bush and Tony Blair. Before the question was fully translated, he gave us his own thoughts. "Bush," he said making sign language for I slit his throat. He did the same for Blair and, having made his point, he walked away.

Zaher's nephew, who up until this point I thought was mute, was apparently paying attention and shouted something in Arabic. All I caught was something "Bush," something "Blair." I asked Zaher what his nephew had just said. "Oh, he says something like, 'Down with Bush, down with Blair,' " Zaher said matter- of-factly. "That's just something they teach the kids in school."

Mohammed was growing frustrated with the interloping and decided to close down the shop. We had planned to drive out to some nearby ruins and Abed asked if he could join us. Given the remoteness of the place, we decided that this would be the time to ask Abed for an interview.

"Mujahedeen" is a weighted word in the West. For me - and I don't think I'm alone - it conjures up images of battle-hardened warriors bent on waging jihad. As we tromped around the site with Abed goofily serenading Mariana with "I Want to Spend My Lifetime Loving You" from the movie "The Mask of Zorro," he just wasn't living up to this image. Compared to the mujahedeen of my mind, this young man with the Chiclets-grin and geeky sense of humor was sorely disappointing. But in many ways, I suppose it is more disturbing to think that on the other side of the divide stands, not a crazed fanatic, but your good friend from high school who was always the class clown.

"We haven't gone to our enemies, they came to us," Abed began. "I don't want to happen in Iraq what has happened to Palestine or South Lebanon. I love to do something for Islam. Be proud of it in front of God, in front of people, in front of my relatives, even if I am a martyr. On the contrary, I don't lose much; I gain a lot if I am a martyr. Our aim is peace, war for peace. We don't fight, but we defend for the sake of peace... And if we are martyrs, there is a great prize: heaven, which we've been promised."

In Iraq, he was welcomed with open arms. "They offered us more than they could afford," he said. "Islamic jihad is a great, great, great thing. It's the highest position in Islam that a real Muslim is searching for. I was surprised and content at the same time. I met Muslims from all over Arab countries... Nearly, no for sure, from all Arab countries and there were many, many, many, many, many. My feeling was that I was content to meet all those brothers that I hoped I would meet someday and the time I wished to meet them came. I felt that the world is still healthy and still the Muslim man is looking for peace. He didn't come to kill or for his own interest. There was something that pushed him."

When he arrived in Baghdad, there were more people willing to fight than there were arms. Abed was in charge of a group of 125 fighters, for which he said he received just 20 weapons. Having first choice, Abed chose a Kalashnikov and distributed the rest among the most experienced men. Abed had served the compulsory 2 1/2 years in the Syrian army, but many of the men had little or no military experience. They had a difficult time finding anyone who could operate an RPG - rocket propelled grenade - their largest weapon, he said.

Those without weapons would sit in the mosque, pray and wait for news. And those with weapons found themselves severely outmatched by the Americans. After Baghdad they went to Al Qadissiya and then to Karbala. But the Americans were moving quickly and they had to retreat. Mostly they engaged them in street fighting, using guerrilla tactics. Unarmed and dressed in civilian clothes, they would do their reconnaissance, walking up to the U.S. troops and assessing their armaments, before deciding how to attack. "We saw Americans face to face," he said. "I don't know if I killed anyone; I shot many times."

Before they knew it, they heard the Americans had reached Baghdad. In the south there was nothing left to do, so they headed back north. "When we entered Baghdad it was a big disaster," Abed said. "Unfortunately the enemy arrived in the heart of Baghdad."

We told Abed about the images we had seen on TV of Iraqis celebrating when the Americans came. We asked him about the Americans being welcomed by the Iraqis.

"It's a funny question," he said. "There was no welcoming. I am a human and somebody kills my son or my brother and I welcome him? It's impossible. I saw with my own eyes that houses were bombed, families were hit, orchards were burned under the pretext that there were people hiding in them. It was random shooting. Is it logical that somebody enters my house, kills my sons and I welcome him?"

Abed had snuck into Iraq, but when he returned to Syria, about a month later, he walked through the official border crossing. Without any papers, and having entered Iraq illegally in the first place, the authorities at the Syrian border questioned him. They couldn't lie, Abed said. There were too many of them returning, so they told them everything.

Abed described the authorities as sympathetic. "It depends on two things," he said. "The legal and the moral issue. As moral, for sure they all felt that we were mujahedeen for the sake of Islam against war. But legally, the law states that they should investigate us and they should follow with the basic methods that any country follows. But they cannot imprison us because we were not a small group. If they want to imprison, they have to imprison thousands."

Abed wasn't aware of anyone who had been detained. From his small town alone, he said there were 300 men who went to fight. When they returned to their village, they were given a hero's welcome with huge wedding-style celebrations.

We told Abed what Zaher had told us about the way he was perceived before and after going to fight. Abed smiled a bit and said: "I don't like this because I don't want to show off or be snobby. What makes me happy from this experience is that the world is still good. There are still nice people, there are still people who wish to defend people, to help people... Definitely, it changed many things. People look upon mujahedeen as someone who inspires others... A human who sacrifices himself for the sake of rights, this for sure is not an ordinary person."

When asked how he felt now that the war was over, Abed replied that it was not.

"Bush is looking for reasons, any reasons to enter Syria or any other Islamic state. We all know this is a war against Islam. It started with Afghanistan, [is] now in Iraq and it will continue. This is something that everyone knows."

If he didn't think the war was over, we asked, why did he return?

"The decision of my return is not final," Abed said. "This does not mean I am back for good... My return [to Iraq] is a matter that must happen, I and many other mujahedeen."

After interviewing Abed, Mike asked if I felt I had a deeper personal connection to the story since the people we were spending time with had tried and perhaps succeeded in killing some of my fellow countrymen. At several points during the course of those days, I found myself trying to picture Mohammed or Abed staring down a Kalashnikov, taking potshots at American soldiers. I was having a difficult time reconciling the incredible friendliness and hospitality they extended toward us with the preconceived idea I had of what a mujahedeen was. Certainly I found it disturbing that Mohammed had given me the thumbs-up while we watched the World Trade Center collapse. But I almost expected that. Everyone who I spoke to about the event told me without a hint of irony that it was an American/Israeli conspiracy and couldn't possibly have been Osama bin Laden.

The gesture and the salute that followed fit perfectly into the character I already had sketched in my mind. What didn't fit was that the mujahedeen I met with weren't battle-hardened warriors, they were merchants selling secondhand items from tattered tents, or they sold chickens. They did maintenance and repair work. They were family men who were gentle with children, kind to strangers and joking with friends. In the pecking order of mujahedeen, they were little more than opportunists who saw their shot and took it. The problem is that their shot isn't any less lethal and if this small town in eastern Syria is any indication, there are many more just like them.

Darren Foster is a freelance journalist based in London.

San Francisco Chronicle

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