Albu Alwan

Like the Shammar, the Albu Alwan have a Shi’a minority branch, some of whom live in Hillah, Babil province, although the tribe is rooted in Anbar. As with many of the major Sunni tribes, Saddam Hussein was careful to cultivate close ties and bestow money and gifts on loyalists such as Sheikh Mohammad Jawad al-Naifus. Sheikh Naifus was apparently awarded a Mercedes and cash for helping crush the 1991 intifada against the Baath regime during which time approximately 100,000 Shi’as are thought to have been killed, in addition to countless thousands of Kurds. According to a 2003 UNHCR report,

“Human Rights Watch identified Al-Naifus, the pro-Saddam Hussein head of the Albu Alwan tribe, as one of the key officials responsible for the executions of thousands of Shi’a civilians around al-Hilla in 1991. Eyewitnesses from the execution sites, as well as from the military base where Shi’a execution victims were detained prior to their death, told Human Rights Watch that al-Naifus and members of his tribe were directly involved in the executions. Following the executions, the land on which the largest mass grave was located was taken from local farmers and given to a member of al-Naifus’ tribe, who was responsible for safeguarding the mass grave.”

This HRW report was also quoted in a 2005 FBI report on the Saddam trial. According to an International Crisis Group report, Saddam’s regime even managed to co-opt Shi’a members of the tribe into the secret police in the Hillah area. Certainly, a key representative from the PMU in Anbar, Ziyad Alwani is a Shi’i and reportedly was an officer in the former regime army, although his appointment apparently caused some discontent among Anbari Sunnis.

Following the invasion, some Sheikhs of the Albu Alwan tried to reach out to US forces (Naifan was arrested, then accidentally released, to the fury of many Shi’as.) In 2003 Sheikh Hamid Rashid Mahenna from the tribe won a $35,000 reconstruction contract, part of a concerted US State Department effort to win the peace. While this effort succumbed to the strategic rift between the US military and State Department in Anbar, other prominent members of the Albu Alwan were able to thrive in the post 2003 political order, such as Ma’moun Sami Rashid al-Alwani, who became the governor of Anbar in 2005, and survived numerous assassination attempts by various insurgent groups.

Nonetheless, the Albu Alwan were later identified as one of the last tribes to join the “Anbar Awakening,” although this may have also been related to a rivalry between some Sheikhs and Awakening leader Abu Risha. By Mark Moyer’s account, the Albu Alwan were strong in the center of Ramadi, but did not establish a rapport with the US Marines, who focused on defending the main roads and government compound with Sahwa forces from other tribes.

However, some leaders of the Albu Alwan did eventually join the Sahwa project. Raad Sabah Alwani was working with the Americans by 2008, by which time violence in Ramadi had fallen dramatically and the ISI had been routed from the city. This was largely because of the Awakening movement, which coordinated intelligence with the Coalition and Iraqi army for raids against ISI cells. In a similar way today, many Sunnis allied with the government provide an intelligence role akin to local guides, rather than front line fighting.

This alliance drew the attention of the ISI as they sought to regenerate after 2011, focusing a long campaign of assassination against former Sahwa members, or co-opting others, and exploiting sectarian tension following incidents such as the arrest of controversial anti-government politician Ahmed al Alwani. (Contrary to some reports, the clearing of protest sites in Ramadi by government forces was done with the consent of some Anbari politicians, although Maliki would have done much better to focus on Fallujah, and probably exacerbated the security crisis by labelling the Ramadi site an Al Qaeda encampment, allowing the Fallujah situation to deteriorate further.)

By the time Sunni tribes had begun rallying against ISIS in late 2014 and early 2015, the Albu Alwan were in an advanced state of intra tribal conflict. As Sheik Aref Mukhbar Sayed Alwany noted in May 2015:

“There are some parts of the Sunni tribes, or certain members, that actually fought with ISIS. Others provided the group with moral and logistical support.”

This split was noted in an International Crisis Group report, which described how some Albu Alwan members were fighting alongside government forces in January 2014, as Fallujah fell to ISIS.

The Albu Fahd

Perhaps inevitably, some of the Albu Fahd leadership were close to the Baath regime. In the years prior to the 2003 invasion and until his assassination on January 16th 2006, Sheikh Nasser Abdul Kareem al Mukhlif is cited as the paramount Sheikh of the tribe, with great influence in the Ramadi area. Sheikh al Mukhlif was a professor of Physics at the University of Anbar, and lost his job there under the de-Baathification program. He was later described in an American tribal study as an “open supporter” of the nationalist insurgent groups attacking the US, while Marine intelligence analyst Alfred Conable described him as “adamantly opposed to the Coalition in 2004.” Another Marine Colonel remarked, “you could probably argue that he was the leader of the 1920 Revolution Brigade.”

Following Sheikh Fahdawi’s assassination by ISI in 2006, his successor Hussein al-Dhaher al-Ali al-Saad was also assassinated by ISI, less than a month later. Leadership then passed to Shaikh Fawaaz Dahaam Haleel, described by a US military report on the tribes as being a former member of “Saddam’s inner circle” and an insurgent financier who amassed wealth from government contracts during the Baath period.

The fate of Sheikh Mukhlif was probably sealed when, in response to local grievances with increasing ISI power and intimidation in the Ramadi area, and probably fearing the permanent sidelining of Sunnis from politics, Mukhlif visited US soldiers to discuss security for the parliamentary elections.

According to Conable, by 2005 Mukhlif “grew tired of the violence and joined together with Mohammed Mahmoud Latif, an Islamic scholar and leader in the 1920 Revolutionary Brigade, to support the December 2005 elections. Additionally, they put together a small coalition of other tribal leaders and former senior officers of the old Iraqi Army, known as the Anbar People’s Committee, to oppose AQI.” The Anbar Peoples’ Committee recruited members from the Albu Nimr and Albu Mahal tribes, helping form the nucleus of the Sahwa (see below).

In what was to become a pattern in Sunni areas, ISI took note of cooperation with US forces, and wrote in an internal communique, “the brothers raided his house in the middle of the night wearing the national guards’ uniform and driving similar cars, they took him and killed him, thank God.” The terrorists note in the same communication that it was hoped the locals would blame US forces for the killing.

This had the opposite effect of terrorizing Albu Fahd members into keeping quiet, and a growing number joined the Sahwa, sparking what one US officer described as an “intracommunal war” within the Albu Fahd. By 2010, with violence far lower in Anbar, another Fahdawi Sheikh, Adil al Fahdawi was describing the Sahwa movement as “our revolution” and campaigning for the 2010 elections in Hamdiyah, north east of Ramadi. This campaigning and involvement in the Sahwa, put the pro-politics side of the tribe back in the sights of ISI, and by early 2015 the Albu Fahd were demanding more support from both the Iraqi government and the US.

While government support may have been slow in coming, some members of the Albu Fahd appear to have aligned themselves with Kata’ib Hezbollah, as in February 2015, following the murder of two men in Anbar (which was blamed on the PMU) Sheikh Hamoud al-Fahdawi claimed (on behalf of KH) that murder allegations were “baseless.”

This early cooperation was not enough to save Ramadi, with Hathal al Fahdawi from the Anbar provincial council noting, “The U.S. played a shameful role. The U.S. promised us Ramadi would not fall” before remarking that the government had not paid salaries for Sunni pro-govt. fighters “for more than four months.” Hathal noted that when some of his fighters saw the strength of ISIS, and realized other Fahdawis were helping them, morale crashed.

In May 2015, shortly after capturing Ramadi, ISIS released an update referring to “Albu-Fahd Sahwa” and noting, “The lions of Al Anbar continue their march to completely cleanse Wilayah Al Anbar [Anbar province] of the filth of the Safawiyyin and their puppets.They assaulted and took control of East Al Husaybah and Al Juwaybah, the stronghold of the Albu-Fahd Sahwah.”

Subsequently, anti ISIS Albu Fahd members launched a counter-attack only days after this statement, striking into their tribal homeland of Husyabah with a mixed alliance of Ministry of Interior forces, tribal fighters and Hashd al Shabi, something confirmed by Sheikh Rafia Abdelkarim al-Fahdawi at the time.

Albu Issa

The Albu Issa tribe are prominent in the Fallujah area. The relations between the Albu Issa leadership and the Baath regime are murky, with one Sheikh, Barakat al Issawi apparently denying an offer of weapons from Saddam Hussein in the run up to the 2003 invasion, claiming instead that his tribe had “missiles.” Barakat was arrested by US forces in October 2003 after being linked to attacks on US troops, including the downing of a CH-47 helicopter that killed 16 Americans.

Another Sheikh, Ghazi al Issawi, claimed to have been jailed by Saddam for 7 years, although he admitted to having met Saddam publicly. Either way, relations with the US forces deteriorated rapidly following two incidents, the first being the April 2003 shooting of 17 protesters by members of the US 82nd Airborne at a demonstration in Fallujah, which was followed by the September 2003 killing of ten local policemen in a friendly fire incident with US forces. This second incident prompted Sheikh Jassim al Issawi to demand that US forces leave Iraq. Security in Fallujah continued to deteriorate until the April 2004 “contractor killings” of 4 Blackwater security personnel in the city, and the ensuing US operations to clear insurgents, the first and second battles of Fallujah.

Some time in late 2003, the US detained a Sheikh, Aifan al Issawi for 9 months in Abu Ghraib, despite there being no charge against him. But upon his release, Aifan went on to become one of the Americans’ closest allies in Fallujah.

In 2004, the US began compensation payments to Iraqi families who had relatives killed by US forces, and Aifan al Issawi took on a liaison role for distributing these funds. Despite being sent to Abu Ghraib, Aifan had previously decided not to join the insurgency after being approached by a group who had Fedayeen Saddam and foreign fighters in their ranks.

Aifan’s subsequent connection with the US inevitably led to him being targeted by insurgents, and he held meetings to discuss organizing resistance to the terrorists in 2004, waging war against them in 2005 before fleeing to Jordan, where the paramount Sheikh (Khamis) of the Albu Issa was based. Aifan returned in 2006, to lead Emergency Response Units in the Fallujah–Zoba area of Anbar (near Abu Ghraib suburb) supported by leading Sheikh Khamis al Issawi and Ghazi al Issawi, actions that led to a failed suicide attack against Khamis in 2005.

These attacks pitted Khamis, Aifan and Ghazi against the Islamic State of Iraq, and for a time, members of the 1920s Revolutionary Brigade, including many men within the tribe. On May 24th 2007, Sheikh Allawi al Issawi was shot dead and at his funeral procession later that day, a suicide bomber killed 27 people.

Aifan continued his efforts with the ERU and went into politics as an MP in 2009, but was assassinated by ISIS in 2013. Despite his killing, Khamis appears to have decided at some point that the government were as much a threat as ISIS, stating that Iraqi forces would only “enter Fallujah over our dead bodies. We are ready and prepared to fight Maliki forces if they decide to begin their offensive on the city.”

But in another example of how complex tribal politics can be, other Sheikhs from the Albu Issa decided to side with the government, with Sheikh Faleh al Issawi supporting Abadi’s National Guard plan in 2014 and Fallujah mayor Faisal al Issawi announcing in February 2015 that the government was going to create a 3000 strong tribal force to join the assault to retake Fallujah. But while Faleh supported Abadi, he rejected working with the Hashd al Shabi.

Prior to this announcement, which took the form of training for a tribal force at Al Taqqadum airbase at Habbaniyah, Anbar, members of the Albu Issa had already been fighting alongside Hashd al Shabi units, including the Ali al Akbar Brigade in the Ameriyat al Fallujah area. But in a sign of how complex Iraq’s battlefields have become, Kataib Hezbollah clashed with locals from the Albu Issa tribe in Ameriyat al Fallujah in May 2015.

By June 2015, Sheikh Abdullah al Issawi was complaining about late salaries for his men training at the Habbaniyah base (although the report noted the salaries later came through.) Another Sheikh in Ameriyat al Fallujah, Shaker al Issawi complained that the government in Baghdad treated his fighters “like foreigners.”

Albu Assaf

Relations between the Albu Assaf and the Baath regime, by the account of some Assafi sheikhs, appear to have been strained, and two Assafi sheikhs claim that Saddam’s creation of “fake Sheikhs” denied the Assaf of influence in the latter part of the Baath era. The most notorious Assafi sheikh, Ali Hatem Ali al-Sulayman, often referred to simply as “Ali Hatem” claimed that Saddam had created “450 sheikhs” in Anbar, which constituted interference in what he saw as the long evolved tribal order.

Another sheikh, Ahmad al Assafi, followed this view noting that “Saddam created the 90s sheikhs.” This sentiment possibly explains why the Albu Assaf were early joiners of the Awakening project, keen to rebuild their perceived loss of tribal importance under Saddam. Certainly Sheikh Majed abd al Razzaq Ali al Suleiman was jailed and then exiled by Saddam in 1990, and spent most of that decade with Iraqi opposition groups in Jordan. By 2007, there were many Assafi tribesmen in Anbar’s police forces from Ramadi to Al Qaim, although negotiations by Assafi tribesmen in Baghdad prior to 2007 led to attacks on the tribal leadership by ISI in early 2006.

In the chaotic years in Anbar following the invasion, Ali Hatem seems to have managed to use his position as a Sahwa leader to obtain contracts and Sahwa salaries, gaining muscle within the tribe beyond his actual tribal status. This brought him into conflict with the Iraqi Islamic Party in Anbar in 2008, during which Ahmad Abu Risha (brother and successor to famed Awakening leader Sattar Abu Risha) sided with Tariq al Hashimi and the IIP.

This meant that for a time, Suleiman enjoyed an alliance with Maliki, along with long time government supporter Hamid al Hayes. By 2010, Ali Hatem was running in Maliki’s State of Law coalition, but the alliance was only to last a year, as Ali Hatem’s rhetoric became increasingly hostile to the government following the 2011 protests over the mass detentions of Sunnis and the death warrant for then Vice President Tariq al Hashemi. By 2013, Ali Hatem had joined the Ramadi protest movement and warned that Sunnis wanted “blood” following the Hawija shootings.

This led Ali Hatem to make what was possibly the biggest mistake of his political career, when he seemed to endorse ISIS in the summer of 2014, hoping that they would be a lesser evil until Maliki’s government was toppled by the terrorists. To this end, Ali Hatem noted his forces would “stand with ISIS” until Maliki stepped down. Inside Iraqi Politics’ Kirk Sowell has noted however, that Ali Hatem likely did not command any significant force after 2011, and had he access to such forces, they would have been forced to become ISIS fighters or die. Therefore, Ali Hatem’s remarks can be dismissed as deluded opportunism, as Sajjad Jiyad has pointed out. This brought him into conflict with sheikhs of other tribes, leading to a death sentence being passed against him by some tribal leaders.

Now Ali Hatem has little influence over sheikhs within the Albu Assaf, let alone the vast Dulaim confederation. As the 2014 ISIS offensive took hold, many within the tribe remained with the government, with disastrous consequences, while Ali Hatem had long since left the country. In November 2014, Sheikh Faris al Assafi al Dulaimi explained to Bloomberg how 30 members of his tribe had been massacred along with countless members of the Albu Nimr. Explaining that 1000 tribal fighters had been rallied to counter ISIS, Sheikh Faris noted of those who had been murdered, “the Islamic State believes the people of these tribes were born Muslims but abandoned their religion when they helped Shiites fighting against them.”

Subsequently, Majid Ali Suleiman was supportive of Abadi when he took office. But government help was apparently slow in coming for the Albu Assaf, either due to long term distrust or logistical issues, leading to one Assafi Sheikh to call on Russian support and praise Putin’s bombing of ISIS sites in Syria.