"The jihad is now against the Shias, not the Americans"

The London Guardian's Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, described as "the only correspondent reporting regularly from behind the country's sectarian battle lines," reports on the Sunni insurgency in Iraq.

"I used to attack the Americans when that was the jihad. Now there is no jihad. Go around and see in Adhamiya [the notorious Sunni insurgent area] - all the commanders are sitting sipping coffee; it's only the young kids that are fighting now, and they are not fighting Americans any more, they are just killing Shia. There are kids carrying two guns each and they roam the streets looking for their prey. They will kill for anything, for a gun, for a car and all can be dressed up as jihad," Rami, described as a "thick-necked former Republican Guard commando who now procures arms for his fellow Sunni insurgents"is reported as saying.

"Its not a good time to be a Sunni in Baghdad," another Sunni insurgent, Abu Omar, is said to have told the reporter. "We Sunni are to blame. In my area some ignorant al-Qaida guys have been kidnapping poor Shia farmers, killing them and throwing their bodies in the river. I told them: 'This is not jihad. You can't kill all the Shia! This is wrong! The Shia militias are like rabid dogs - why provoke them?'

"I am trying to talk to the Americans," he added. "I want to give them assurances that no one will attack them in our area if they stop the Shia militias from coming."

Later the Guardian reporter witnessed a conversation in which Abu Omar tried to convince his fellow insurgents to make peace with the Americans.

"Look, the Americans are trying to talk to us Sunnis and we need to show them that we can do politics. We need to use the Americans to fight the Shia," Abu Omar was reported as saying.

"Where is the jihad and the mujahideen?" he went on to say. "Baghdad has become a Shia town. Our brothers are being slaughtered every day! Where are these al-Qaida heroes? One neighbourhood after another will be lost if we don't work on a strategy."

Another Sunni insurgent described as a "taxi driver commander," reportedly added to the discussion: "If the Americans leave we will be slaughtered."

Abu Aisha, a man described as a "mid-level Sunni commander" told the Guardian, "There is a new jihad now. The jihad now is against the Shia, not the Americans.

"We have been deceived by the jihadi Arabs," he added, in reference to al Qaeda and other foreigner fighters. "They had an international agenda and we implemented it. But now all the leadership of the jihad in Iraq are Iraqis."

As to how the insurgents are actually organized, "Ameriya, Jihad, Ghazaliyah, all these areas are becoming part of the new Islamic state of Iraq, each with an emir in charge," Abu Aisha told the reporter. "Each group is in charge of a specific street. We have defence lines, trenches and booby traps. When the Americans arrive we let them go through, but if they show up with Iraqi troops, then it's a fight."

According to the Guardian's sources, funding for the insurgency comes from three sources, levies paid by each family in the neighborhood (usually around $8), donations from wealthy Saudi businessmen or other sponsors, and 'ghaniama' or loot.

"Every time they arrest a Shia, we take their car, we sell it and use the money to fund the fighters, and jihad," Abu Aisha told the Guardian.

The money is then distributed, either by a sympathetic imam or the local commander. "It has become a business, they give you money to kill Shia, we take their houses and sell their cars," an insurgent told the reporter. "The Shia are doing the same.

"Last week on the main highway in our area, they killed a Shia army officer. He had a brand new Toyota sedan. The idiots burned the car. I offered them $40,000 for it, they said no. Imagine how many jihads they could have done with 40k."