The force behind the daily bombs, sniper shooting and mortars in Ramadi is one man, whose specter looms large over the capital city of al-Anbar province in Iraq. US Marines believe Mohammad Daham, whose picture plasters the walls of their bases, is the inspiration of Ramadi's insurgency. "He is the big fish," says Captain Sean Kuehl, an assistant intelligence officer with second battalion — fifth Marines, assigned to Ramadi, west of Baghdad.
Daham's picture, with a wanted sign emblazoned on it, reveals a man in his late 20s or early 30s, with a pudgy face, an awkward smile, rolls of fat on the neck, a thin beard and a beak-like nose. That the insurgency in Anbar's capital evolves around one man breaks the pattern with other rebel strongholds in Iraq. Fallujah, Ramadi's sister city 50 kilometres to the east, is the headquarters for suspected Al Qaeda operative Abu Mussab Zarqawi, veterans of Saddam Hussein's security services and religious hardliners like the Islamic Army of Iraq. Samarra, to the north of Baghdad, seized back by the Americans from rebels at the beginning of October, hosted at least four rebel factions, some with nominal ties to Fallujah or Zarqawi, others spurred on by criminal activities or tribal motivations. But Daham, while sharing traits with many rank and file anti-American fighters, is unique, in his kingpin status in Ramadi, considered with neighbouring Fallujah, the heart and soul of the resistance in Iraq. |