Outside the Beltway

Captives: Saddam Set Up Insurgency, Now Run from Syria

James Joyner · Friday, November 19, 2004 · 2 comments

Fallujah captives: Saddam set up insurgency cells in 2001 (World Tribune)

Insurgents captured in Fallujah have told Iraqi military interrogators that most of those fighting in Fallujah were former security officers for the regime of Saddam Hussein. The insurgents said Saddam organized special operations units, starting in 2001, to counter any foreign invasion in Iraq. Most of those units, the insurgents said, are still active in the Sunni Triangle. Officials said the Sunni insurgency was being directed from Syria. They said Saddam loyalists were receiving funding and orders from senior aides of the former Saddam regime based in Damascus, including ex-Vice President Izzet Ibrahim Al Douri.

Iraqi Interior Minister Faleh Hassan Al Naqib said his government and the U.S.-led coalition faced a revolt throughout the Sunni Triangle, Middle East Newsline reported. Al Naqib said the revolt was being directed by a unified command and control network led by Saddam loyalists. He said the insurgents sought to prevent or disrupt national elections scheduled for Jan. 27. “The battle for Fallujah has become the test for Saddam loyalists,” an Iraqi official said. “Fallujah was the center of the terrorism and the symbol of the terrorists.”

The uprising in the Sunni Triangle has included insurgents who had been based in Fallujah. Officials said Sunni insurgents, including Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi, and up to 2,000 fighters left Fallujah over the last two months to launch a revolt in other cities. At a news conference in Baghdad, on Nov. 16, Al Naqib said the great majority of insurgency casualties in Fallujah were Iraqi nationals. He said only 24 foreigners were found dead among the more than 1,250 reported killed in 10 days of fighting in Fallujah.

We’ll see if these claims stand up to scrutiny. It certainly undermines the popular uprising mythology if true.