Men line up to be searched while applying for civil service jobs in the village of Huda, near the town of Salman Pak about 15 miles south of Baghdad on Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2007. Elena Becatoros / AP
Children skip across a stream of raw sewage on a side road, trash piles up in a dusty lot and there are few desks — and even fewer chairs — in the village school's dark, cold classrooms.
Huda, a Shiite village of about 3, 000 southeast of Baghdad, sits on the edge of a region the U.S. military and locals say is dominated by insurgents and al-Qaida in Iraq. Here, many men are out of work, and the village is in desperate need of basic services.
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But the U.S. military believes it has a way to help residents and the village by providing jobs that also could dim the allure of militancy.
A pilot program begins Modeled on a program under which the U.S. pays armed groups who turned against al-Qaida in Iraq, the military has begun recruiting villagers for public service jobs — working to improve sanitation, do repairs and pick up trash.
Today is a new idea, said Capt. John Horning, the 36-year-old company commander of C Company, 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment stationed in the area. Instead of hiring people to secure their neighborhoods, we'll have them doing sanitation, cleaning up the area, reconstruction.
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The hope is that the jobs will give residents a legitimate way to make a living and prevent them from turning to militia or insurgent groups, many of which are suspected of paying men to carry out attacks.
Only barely second to security in my neighborhood is employment, and so I've got to find a way to make that bridge, said Lt. Col. Jack Marr, commander of the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment. Instead of having Iraqis out there with guns ... I hand them a shovel and get them digging up trash.
'Putting dollars into the economy' Each person hired will receive a salary of $300 a month, the same amount as members of the mainly Sunni armed groups known as Awakening Councils who now protect their neighborhoods with the help of American and Iraqi forces.
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The Awakening Councils — 70, 000-strong and growing fast — have contributed to a 60-percent drop in violence across Iraq since June, along with a six-month cease-fire called in August by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr for his Mahdi Army militia and an extra 30, 000 U.S. troops sent into Baghdad.
With less violence — residents say Huda hasn't been attacked with mortars for three months — people can concentrate on rebuilding their lives.
Here where security is better, we need the return to normalcy, Horning said. We're putting dollars into the economy, to get people working. People see that there's hope, that there's an alternative.
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If we have a strong area and government, then there will be no problem, insists Sheik Zeidan Hussein Ali al-Masoudi. The Americans are visitors. We must do something for ourselves. We want to live free. All Iraqis need is for the (foreign) forces to leave as soon as the work is done. ... All Iraqis want this.
Looking for work, money On the first day of recruiting in Huda last week, three dozen men — some barely out of their teens, others with graying hair — lined up outside the dilapidated schoolhouse, their application forms in bright yellow, blue and pink folders rolled in their fists. Some have been out of work for years.
Majid Kerim Ali, a 35-year-old former air force sergeant under Saddam Hussein, has found only odd jobs since the U.S.-led coalition disbanded Iraq's military after the 2003 invasion.
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I am looking for a job — I'm very poor, said Ali, who has 10 children. This will give us a chance for work, a chance for the people.
Horning said he was looking to recruit about 600 people in his region. Each area would have three groups: one for sanitation, one for building and construction, and a smaller one to provide security. In the past, Shiite militias have threatened Iraqis working on projects funded or run by the U.S. military, so workers will need protection, Horning said.
Rigid screening process Like Awakening Council volunteers, all applicants go through biometric screening — fingerprinting, iris scans, photographs — in an attempt to ensure none are known insurgents or criminals.
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Apart from boosting the economy, the new civil affairs teams could provide a solution to a pressing problem — what happens to the Awakening Councils after they have restored security.
The fighters have said they want to join the Iraqi army and police. But the Shiite-dominated government has only promised that 20, 000 will be absorbed, and has pledged not to allow them to turn into a separate security force. Redirecting the rest toward reconstruction might ease tensions.
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker said Sunday that Iraq is matching $155 million the U.S. has set aside to create jobs and provide vocational training for the fighters.
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In the nearby Shiite village of Wahida, where C Company's projects include a new clinic and refurbishing a school, Sheik Ali Hussein hands Horning a list of candidates for a new civil affairs group. It contains the names of four Sunnis.For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emailsSign up to our free breaking news emails
When the call came to fight the Islamic State, the lines of volunteers in Nasiriyah, Iraq, stretched for blocks. Friends pooled money to pay for the ride to militia recruitment offices. Young men were already scrambling on to buses bound for the front lines.
As the Iraqi army melted away, it fell often to the mostly Shiite Muslim militias to go back and rout the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State. For many in the city, it felt like a battle for Iraq’s soul.
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Former militiaman Thamer al-Safi says: “Back then, it was just about one thing, ” recalling the battles of 2014 in which two of his brothers died. “This was about our future. This was about Iraq.”
That mass mobilisation would have far-reaching consequences, embedding the victorious militias in the upper echelons of power in Iraq and setting them on a course to confront the United States. Backed in many cases by Iran, they have escalated their rocket attacks on US military positions in recent years, threatening to ignite a wider US war with Iran, even now as Washington and Tehran talk about restoring diplomatic contacts.
But while some officials have viewed the militias as little more than proxies in a campaign to extend Iran’s regional influence, these groups are often deeply embedded in the fabric of Iraqi society, having emerged out of its own turbulent history.
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Some have roots that date back decades. Their official network, known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces, or PMF, was born in 2014 with widespread support across Iraq’s Shiite south, after tens of thousands answered calls by Iraq’s prime minister and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq’s highest Shiite religious authority, to fight the Islamic State militants.
And now, as some Iraqis are souring on these Iran-backed militias, the grievances extend well beyond Tehran’s influence to include concerns about what these groups have become and the promises they have broken.
Today, the militias are economic powerhouses and enforcers of the political regime. They are marbled throughout the country’s ruling institutions and when mass protests erupted against the government in October 2019, Iran-backed armed groups quashed them with deadly force. Human rights groups have frequently accused them of abuses.
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Abdullah, 58, a former militia volunteer who like others interviewed spoke on the condition that his last name be withheld out of fear of retaliation, says: “It made me regret that I allowed my brother to fight. I pray every day to live long enough to look out for his children.” An Islamic State sniper killed his brother in 2014, he says.
In the corner of the family home, Abdullah’s nephew sits listening, tense knees pulled to his chest as he stares at the ground.
In mostly Shiite Nasiriyah, the faces of slain recruits such as Abdullah’s brother line the streets on faded billboards, ghosts of the past who speak to how much this run-down city sacrificed to defeat the Islamic State. The faces of such “martyrs” – a term suggesting they were killed in the line of religious duty – feature prominently in militia recruitment campaigns.
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The last time I went into their offices, I just threw all our paperwork on their desk and told them I wished I had never sent my son as a martyr
In compensation for their deaths, the families of martyrs have traditionally received land and monthly payments from the umbrella commission that manages all the PMF’s affairs. But for some, often poorer families, those benefits are now drying up, feeding resentment at militia groups they once relied upon for a social safety net.
Across Nasiriyah today, as well as in cities throughout the south, some families of the dead are left picking up the pieces, celebrated in public
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