NAGL'S KNIFE:

Insurgent and soldier: two views on Iraq fight: In separate interviews, an Iraqi insurgent and a US soldier both describe a classic guerrilla war. (Nicholas Blanford, 2/25/04, The Christian Science Monitor)

When a conventional army is forced to fight an antiguerrilla warfare campaign, it can be "messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife." So said T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, the British Army officer who led the Arab revolt against the Turks in World War I.

For Maj. John Nagl, never was a truer word spoken. He even adapted the quote as the subtitle for his doctoral thesis, "Counterinsurgency Lessons From Malaya and Vietnam," published two years ago.

The 37-year-old guerrilla warfare specialist serves with the 82nd Airborne Division in this former Iraqi Air Force base in the Sunni triangle. Since deploying to Iraq in September last year, Major Nagl has grappled with the challenges posed by the cells of insurgents operating in his area.

"It's a constant struggle of one-upmanship," he says. "We adapt, they adapt. It's a constant competition to gain the upper hand."

That view is shared by "Ahmad," a member of a local resistance cell. [...]

Ahmad says the motivation underpinning his cell of insurgents is a blend of devout religious belief coupled with a strong sense of patriotism.

"What compliments nationalism, compliments religion," he says. "Islam is after all a nation in itself. I see myself as a proud Iraqi and a good Muslim."

Ahmad's cell, which eventually numbered several dozen - although he says he does not know everyone - was led by a Sunni cleric in his 50s who fought for several years with Islamic militants against Russian forces in Chechnya.

According to Ahmad, many Iraqi Islamists traveled to Afghanistan in the 1980s and Chechnya in the 1990s without the knowledge of the Baathist regime.

"If the regime had known about them, they would have been killed," he says. "The regime would not even allow us to pray for the people of Afghanistan and Chechnya."

Some cells are composed of ex-Baathists and former Iraqi soldiers, but Ahmad insists that they have shed their past ideology.

"They fight now as Muslims and Iraqis not as Baathists," he says.

The bulk of attacks in the early stages of the insurgency were hit-and-run raids against US patrols or mortar and rocket bombardments of military bases. By the time Nagl deployed to Khaldiyeh, the insurgency was well established. The roadside bomb proved to be its deadliest weapon.

"We have been most concerned about roadside bombs. From the beginning its been their most effective way of inflicting casualties upon us," Nagl says.

His 800-strong battalion has lost 12 soldiers in Iraq, 11 since deploying in September. A further 68 soldiers have been wounded. Of those 11 fatalities, 10 were from roadside bombs.

To appreciate the lethality of these bombs, consider that of the 61 US soldiers to have died in Iraq since the beginning of the year, 33 were killed by roadside bombs and six of those were in and around Khaldiyeh.

"They have gone from wire-command detonators to a variety of remote detonator devices - pagers and toy car remote controllers," Nagl says. "We were getting very good at spotting the wires. But the remote control bombs only have a small antenna attached and it's much harder to see them."

While roadside bombs continue to pose a serious threat, the number of shooting attacks and long-range bombardments has declined. "They are not spectacularly good shots nor spectacularly well-trained," says Nagl, adding that the militants usually fare badly in close encounters with American soldiers.

That appeared to bear true Tuesday when the US military announced that suspected bombmaker Abu Mohammed Hamza was killed by US troops who came under fire while distributing leaflets near Khaldiyeh.

We've encountered Major Nagl previously on-line--we could use a few hundred more like him.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 26, 2004 2:13 PM