BAGHDAD: SUNNIS IN AMERIYA ATTACK AQI -- WHY

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 BAGHDAD 001866 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/03/2017 TAGS: PGOV PINS PINR ASEC KDEM PTER IZ SUBJECT: BAGHDAD: SUNNIS IN AMERIYA ATTACK AQI -- WHY THERE? WHY NOW? Classified By: ACTING POLITICAL COUNSELOR ROBERT GILCHRIST FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D). ¶1. (S) SUMMARY: An uprising in the Sunni-predominant Baghdad neighborhood of Ameriya continued June 4, after five days of fighting between Sunni residents and Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). This unexpected uprising offers insight into the process of securing Baghdad, including the nature of Sunni-on-Sunni violence; the impact of concrete barriers constructed around Sunni neighborhoods and Shia markets; the role of militias and insurgents in providing security and services to Baghdad's neighborhoods; and the challenge of linking Sunnis opposed to AQI to Iraqi governance institutions. The revolt parallels a similar development in Abu Ghreib and may portend additional Sunni-AQI conflicts elsewhere in Baghdad. END SUMMARY. -------------- SUNNIS TAKE BACK THEIR NEIGHBORHOOD -------------- ¶2. (S) The Ameriya uprising began May 30 when two prominent Sheikhs used loudspeakers at their mosques to exhort the people of Ameriya to rise up against Al Qaeda, according to EPRT reports. By the time the Second Brigade Combat Team (2BCT) of the First Infantry Division arrived in the area, small arms fire had erupted. The Sheikhs contacted the brigade to inform them that they had attacked AQI operatives and soon claimed to have killed two high-value targets -- a claim which later reports refuted. Ameriya residents reported already by May 31 that the local fighters, whom the Sheikhs refer to as the "Baghdad Patriots," had killed approximately 40 AQI members. Gradually, the Sheikhs began to seek material assistance from 2BCT, beginning with medical evacuations of injured fighters, and developing into sharing of actionable intelligence about AQI members, weapons caches, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). A neighborhood whose residents rarely, if ever, provided such information suddenly dispatched numerous high-value tips. 2BCT dispatched May 31 four platoons to fight AQI in Ameriya, and the Iraqi Army sent a battalion as well. The battle soon reached an intensity level that attracted widespread media attention. 2BCT suffered the loss of a soldier, and dozens of Baghdad Patriots were also killed. The EPRT reports that cooperation between 2BCT and Ameriya residents reached a new high. ¶3. (S) EPRT and 2BCT told PolOff that, prior to the uprising, Ameriya had turned into a primary base of operations for AQI in Baghdad. 2BCT recently encountered fierce resistance in the neighborhood -- in May, insurgents and/or AQI in Ameriya killed 10 soldiers and an interpreter. On May 19, in the deadliest single attack that the 2BCT has endured, an IED killed six soldiers and an interpreter. Ameriya, a predominantly Sunni neighborhood, contains approximately 32,000 residents, including an estimated 4,000 recent migrants from other areas of Baghdad. It is located in west Baghdad, in the southwest corner of Mansour District, adjacent to the "Airport Road" (known by the local brigade as "Route Irish"). ¶4. (S) The EPRT reports that Ameriya's Sunni residents had distanced themselves from the central Shia-led Government of Iraq and from major city institutions, including the Shia-dominated Amanat; the Provincial Council; and the Mansour District Council. Ameriya had also long proved reluctant to cooperate with American forces and officials. Partially as a result of this reluctance, the neighborhood lacks infrastructure support and essential services. It has not proved possible thus far to establish even one functioning bank in the neighborhood. Residents have reportedly relied upon the insurgency and AQI to provide financial support and basic services. These same extra-legal groups have also sought to defend the neighborhood against attack by roving death squads from the Jaysh Al-Mahdi (JAM). -------------- CONCRETE BARRIERS PUT AQI ON THE DEFENSIVE -------------- ¶5. (S) The concrete barriers that enclose sections of the Ameriya neighborhood may have contributed to the recent uprising against AQI, according to the EPRT. As part of its "safe neighborhoods" project, MND-B erected security structures in and around Ameriya during April, completing their work on April 30. MND-B designed the safe neighborhoods project in Baghdad to diminish a key vulnerability of, respectively, Sunni and Shia neighborhoods: Sunni areas are vulnerable to invasion and displacement by Shia militias, while Shia areas are exposed to vehicle born IEDs (VBIEDs) and suicide bombers. In response to these respective vulnerabilities, MND-B constructed T-wall barriers BAGHDAD 00001866 002 OF 002 to protect Shia areas where groups of people gather together in public (such as markets),and to protect Sunni neighborhoods susceptible to Shia militias that seek to expand their control. In deciding where to place these structures, MND-B identified "sectarian fault lines" -- areas that divide warring neighborhoods and often also serve as dumping locations for murder victims. Press reports have focused on the structures in a Sunni neighborhood in the Adhamiya District, and the barriers around a mixed-sect market in Dora. ¶6. (S) In the assessment of the EPRT, the barriers in Ameriya limited the capacity for AQI operatives to transport kidnap victims into the area by tightening entry and exit controls. Having lost the revenue generated through kidnapping and extorting ransom from Shia areas of the district, AQI began to look for victims in Ameriya itself. Victims reportedly included relatives of the two Sheikhs who have led the recent uprising. These recent abductions allegedly turned the tide against AQI in Ameriya. (NOTE: Local kidnaping victims also included two foreign service nationals employed at the Embassy. Also note that the barrier figures as a distinctive feature of this uprising, since Ameriya is one of only three Sunni-dominated areas partly enclosed by security structures. MND-B has begun placing barriers around 12 other Sunni and mixed communities in Baghdad. END NOTE.) -------------- OTHER POSSIBLE CAUSES OF THE UPRISING -------------- ¶7. (S) EPRT reports that another significant factor in the uprising included the mid-April arrest and continued detention of Sheikh Omar Hussein Al-Dulaymi, the hard-line imam of Ameriya's Muliki Mosque and a stronger enforcer of AQI's will in Ameriya. Following Al-Dulaymi's arrest, the community grew increasingly disenchanted with the lifestyle strictures AQI imposed as part of its harsh interpretation of Sharia law. At the same time, AQI failed to provide sufficient security or essential services to residents of Ameriya, while Coalition and Iraqi forces increased their protection of the isolated Sunni community from invasion by marauding Shia militants. In addition, approximately 4,000 new residents arrived recently in Ameriya from formerly mixed areas of Baghdad, possibly diluting the local control of AQI militants. (NOTE: In most cases, Shia militiamen ejected these new arrivals from their former homes, and the comparative safety of a barrier-protected Sunni neighborhood may have attracted them to Ameriya. END NOTE.) Also, Ameriya reportedly has the highest percentage of foreign AQI fighters in the city; local residents likely find it easier to attack fighters of foreign origin than to attack AQI members recruited locally. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶8. (S) The same catalyst spurred the uprisings against AQI in both Ameriya and Abu Ghreib: AQI operatives abducted the relatives of prominent local families, and thereby crossed an invisible line in both communities. Other lingering hostilities may have contributed to the revolts in both instances. In fact, the EPRT reports that Sunni "volunteers" from Abu Ghreib asked 2BCT May 31 to facilitate their transportation to Ameriya in order to assist in the fight against AQI; although 2BCT refused to transport them, some Abu Ghreib fighters may have traveled to Ameriya on their own. Whether these scenarios can or will be duplicated in other areas of Baghdad remains an open question, although Embassy contacts have noted that tense conditions in east Rashid, and several other areas, resemble conditions in Ameriya and Abu Ghreib before their respective attacks against AQI. Meanwhile, the EPRT Team Leader covering Ameriya reports that he will work immediately, upon cessation of hostilities, to connect the neighborhood to essential services. The EPRT and 2BCT plan to provide Ameriya residents the security and services that AQI denied them. Efforts will also be made to link the neighborhood to the broader institutions of government at the municipal, provincial and national level. CROCKER