Abu Deraa: Dead

03 December 2006

In early 1970s, Baghdadis feared a serial killer nicknamed, Abu Tubar, Father of Hatchet. The hatchet man was a Baathist-made criminal who managed to scare Baghdadis to distract them form the Baathist crimes. He succeeded to make them lock up their doors at nights and to march armed in the streets to be protected.

When I was young back in the 1980s, life was normal despite the ongoing war with Iran. However, there were some rumors about some other criminal gangs like the al-Kaf al-Aswad, the Black Palm gang, wandering in Baghdad and klling people after robbing them. I remember how these gangs were part of the daily life and fear of Baghdadis. They were the talk of the town.

It didn’t take Iraqis so long to go back to their normal lives after the former regime allegedly managed to capture these criminals and submit them to “justice”.

However, when I look back to history and compare what is happening in Iraq now, I see Iraqis witnessing a new era of crime and inhumanity. Instead of one Abu Tubar, we have several. There is an American Abu Tubar, a foreign Arab Abu Tubar, a Shiite-Mullah Abu Tubar, a Sunni-Anbari Abu Tubar, a Sadr City Abu Tubar, and many other Abu Tubars.

Before he was killed by the Americans, Iraqis resembled Zarqawi with Abu Tubar. However, a new one emerged after his death. This time, he wasn’t a Qaeda guy or a Sunni from Anbar or Sallahuldeen. He was a Shiite from Sadr City, formerly known as Saddam City or al-Thawra.

The new Abu Tubar had unique and different nom de guerre, Abu Deraa, Father of the Armor, a reference to his penchant for attacking U.S. armored vehicles. He is known of having a big amusement in torturing his victims who most of them are Sunni civilians. One of his signature techniques is running a drill into the skull of his live victim, according to a recent Time article. His appetite for mayhem is so vast that some Iraqis call him the "Shiite Zarqawi"

In the picture Above, Abu Deraa is holding a U.S. soldier's helmet during the Najaf battle between the U.S. forces and the Mahdi Army.

In an exclusive interview, the new Baghdadi slaughterer replied to questions sent by Time:

Abu Deraa agreed last week to provide written responses to TIME's questions, which were passed to him by intermediaries. He says he is "honored" by comparisons to al-Zarqawi and claimed, implausibly, to have no ill will toward ordinary Sunnis. He says his fight is against "occupiers, their supporters and takfiris"--a reference to Sunni insurgents linked to al-Qaeda. He denied that he had kidnapped al-Taie, the missing U.S. soldier, but added, "I would be very proud if it was me who kidnapped that soldier, and I am very proud of any kind of accusation against me, especially related to [acts against] the occupiers and those who serve the occupation." He said he was motivated by a "sense of holy duty toward my faith [to fight] against any hostile enemy of my faith."

The magazine also provided a comprehensive background of Abu Deraa:

Abu Deraa was born Ismail al-Zarjawi to a poor family in Sadr City. After a career in petty crime during the Saddam Hussein years, he became one of the first recruits of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army after the dictator's fall. "When the Americans entered the country and kicked Saddam out, we were very happy," Abu Deraa says. "But then we discovered their bad intentions against Iraq, so we started attacking the occupation forces." In the spring of 2004 he participated in the Shi'ite uprising against U.S. forces in Sadr City. That was also when he earned his nom de guerre Abu Deraa, or "Father of the Shield," a reference to his penchant for attacking U.S. armored vehicles.

He saw more action that summer in Najaf and that fall in Fallujah, when a small detachment of Shi'ites fought alongside Sunni insurgents against U.S. forces. Back then, he says, "it was a real resistance, and there was no sectarian affiliation." Abu Deraa spent the next year consolidating his position as a Mahdi Army leader, first among equals of three commanders in Sadr City. Iraqi officials say this was when he turned to kidnapping for cash, which he used to buy weapons and lure recruits.

Iraqi Sunnis accuse Abu Deraa of killing thousands of Sunnis, not just political figures and militant Salafis, but ordinary civilians as well. On August 22nd, The Age, an Australian newspaper reported that Abu Deraa lured Sunni men to their deaths. Through interviewing a close associate to Abu Deraa, the paper reported that he commandeered a fleet of ambulances and drove them into a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad calling on all young men to come and give blood, announcing on a loud speaker that "the Shiites are killing your Sunni brothers". The young men went to the ambulances and were trapped and killed.

A video recorded on a telephone camera and circulated in Shiite areas shows a man believed to be Abu Deraa conducting the kidnapping and assassination of Saddam Hussein's lawyer Khamis al-Obeidi. The video shows al-Obeidi emerging from a private residence, where he was undergoing interrogation, into a narrow alleyway. Al-Obeidi pleaded with his captors on the video, saying that he would lie beneath their feet and do whatever they wanted. Abu Deraa then tied al-Obeidi's hands behind his back and placed him in the back of a white Toyota pickup truck. Al-Obeidi was paraded through Sadr City, where the crowd threw stones at him and taunted him with Shiite slogans. He was hit on the back of the neck, an extreme insult in Arab culture. After being paraded through the slum, the vehicle stopped and Abu Deraa fired three shots into al-Obeidi's skull (The Age, August 22).



After going far in his crimes, Abu Deraa became hated even by some of his cleric leaders. Iraq for All, an Iraqi local news website reported that Muqtada al-Sadr himself dismissed 60 members, including Abu Deraa, from the Mahdi Army militia. However, the man was still considered a hero, especially by Shiite members in the parliament.

Falah Shansal, a member of parliament from the al-Sadr bloc, told Time last week that Abu Deraa was still "a fighter in the Mahdi Army."

Like most of the “wanted” insurgents, Abu Deraa was hard to be caught. He managed to escape several times until he was killed few days ago by a Sunni insurgent group. Azzaman newspaper reported that the Islamic Army, one of the insurgent armed groups, killed Abu Deraa. The group announced that in a statement. Azzaman said they received a copy of that statement which it quoted as :

“After two months of chasing the slaughterer of Baghdad, the blessed battalion was able to blow up the ambulance he was driving in [Sadr City], Amil and Shula neighborhoods and Balad.”

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