How not to make friends

Michael Yon continues his excellent and fair reporting from Iraq. He has been embedded with our guys leading up Operation Arrowhead Ripper to clear Al Qaeda out of Baqubah. He says that some Al Qaeda leaders were probably able to escape before the attacks began, but there were still some who were captured and others who seem to be surrounded and under attack now. While the Iraqi army is performing okay, the Iraqi police seem to be extremely incompetent.

One of our greatest weapons now is that Al Qaeda has made many enemies among ordinary Iraqis with their severe attempt to impose their form of sharia law.

Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) had tarnished its name here by publicly attacking and murdering children, videotaping beheadings, all while imposing harsh punishments on Iraqi civilians found guilty of violating morality laws prohibiting activities like smoking. The AQI installed Sharia court had sanctioned the amputation of the two “smoking fingers” for those who violated anti-smoking laws. In part because local sentiment was shifting against it, AQI synthesized with other groups and undertook an image makeover, christening itself “The Islamic State of Iraq.” But the new name was just lipstick on a pig here.

On the evening of the 24th I spoke with a local Iraqi official, Colonel Faik, who said the Muftis would order the severance of the two fingers used to hold a cigarette for any Iraqis caught smoking. Other reports, from here in Diyala and also in Anbar, allege that smokers are murdered by AQI. Most Iraqis smoke and this particular prohibition appeared to have earned the ire of many locals. After an American unit cleared an apartment complex on the 23rd, LTC Smiley, the battalion commander, reported that residents didn’t ask for food and water, but cigarettes. In other parts of Baqubah, people have been celebrating the routing of AQI by lighting up and smoking cigarettes.

Other AQI edicts included beatings for men who refused to grow beards, and corporal punishments for obscene sexual suggestiveness, defined by such “loose” behavior as carrying tomatoes and cucumbers in the same bag. These fatwas were not eagerly embraced by most Iraqis, and the taint traveled back to the Muftis who sat in supreme judgment.

It's a pretty insecure religion that worries about cucumbers being corrupted by the presence of tomatoes.

And AQI is going to simplify matters for us if they continue their murderous decrees against smoking. As Yon reports, some of the easiest ways for our guys to clear out planted explosives is to listen to the reports of the citizens of Baqubah who are happy to get their city back and to light up a smoke.