Insurgents' last stand in Fallujah? What the interrogators have learned

Omar Hadid represents the link between Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi, and the former
Saddam Hussein regime. Hadid has commanded hundreds of Sunni insurgents in
Fallujah and could be leading them into a suicide last stand.

Or like his boss, Al Zarqawi, Hadid might have given everybody the slip and
long escaped Fallujah. The U.S. military still doesn't know.

"I'm not absolutely convinced that Omar Hadid or Sheik Janabi or the leader
of Mohammed's Army, that those very significant leaders within the insurgent
community either got out of the city, survived the attacks or are not still
in there fighting with some of this resistance," said U.S. Central Command
deputy chief Lt. Gen. Lance Smith.

"So I think it's going to take a while before we can really say that the
leadership of the insurgent effort escaped Fallujah."

If Hadid has ties with Al Zarqawi and the Saddam regime, he is a link as
well with Al Qaida. Hadid has been in bed with everybody, from serving as an
officer in Saddam's Special Republican Guard to being an Al Qaida operative.

U.S. officials said Hadid was the perfect choice for the last stand at
Fallujah. As a longtime resident of Fallujah, Hadid knows every back alley
and hideout in the city. In 1994, he joined Al Qaida and was trained in
Afghanistan.

During the past week, U.S. military intelligence has learned more about the
Sunni insurgency than they have over the last year. Officers have combed
through a suspected Al Zarqawi command and control center in Fallujah and
retrieved documents and computers.

"Initial indications are that it is a fairly significant treasure trove of
information," Smith said.

At the same time, the coalition has managed to interrogate more than 1,200
insurgents. Many of them have told Iraqi and U.S. military interrogators
that most of the insurgents fighting in Fallujah were former security
officers for the Saddam regime. The insurgents asserted that starting from
2001 Saddam prepared special operations units to counter any foreign
invasion in Iraq and that most of them were still active in the Sunni
Triangle.

Officials said the Sunni insurgency is being directed from Syria. They said
Saddam loyalists were receiving funding and orders from senior aides of the
former Saddam regime based in Damascus, including ex-Vice President Izzet
Ibrahim Al Douri.

But many of the fighters in Fallujah have been recruited from abroad,
including Afghanistan, Algeria, Jordan, Morocco, Syria and other Arab and
Islamic countries. Most of the insurgents arrived in Iran and Syria for
recruitment and training and then crossed the border into Iraq.

Iraqi officials identified Mohammed Yunus Ahmad as the key liaison and
coordinator between Saddam loyalists in Syria and Iraqi insurgents. Ahmad
had been a minister and a senior official in Iraq's ruling Ba'ath Party.

Ahmed was said to have met former Iraqi minister Al Ahmed in Syria to
coordinate the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. Officials said Saddam established
the Mohammed Army - composed of former special operations officers - as the
military wing of the Ba'ath Party in April 2003 after the fall of the
regime.

Hadid's reach has extended in all directions, including the Arab media.

His brother managed Al-Jazeera's office in Baghdad before it was closed down
on August 2004. This could explain how Al-Jazeera obtained first reports of
Al Zarqawi abductions and executions of Westerners and Iraqis.

The United States knows more about Hadid through the capture of the man
officials believe has led Mohammed Army. Muayad Yassin Ahmed was arrested
Nov. 15 and identified as a former officer in the Iraqi Air Defense Command.

Even as an officer in the Saddam elite forces, Hadid appeared more
sympathetic to Al Qaida's goals. In the early 1990s, Hadid bombed a movie
theater in Fallujah to stop Western influence in that Iraqi city. He then
fled to Pakistan and to Afghanistan, where he trained with Al Qaida.

By 2002, Hadid was said to have returned to Pakistan. A year later, Hadid
was back in Iraq and benefited from the pardon of prisoners and fugitives by
Saddam. By then, he was taking orders from Al Zarqawi.

Smith said Al Zarqawi has clearly formed a relationship with the Al Qaida
leadership. He cited the Al Zarqawi's announcement that his Tawhid and Jihad
group was part of Al Qaida.

"I'm saying that there is a relationship between Al Qaida senior leadership
and Zarqawi," Smith said. "How to characterize that we don't know yet."

For months, Hadid was a target of the U.S. military. Hadid's brother was
killed in a U.S. air attack in Fallujah in October. Officials said the
brother was in the family home hours after Omar left.

The rumor mill is working overtime as Hadid and Al Zarqawi have been
purportedly sighted in and around Fallujah. What U.S. military intelligence
is certain of is that Hadid and Al Zarqawi are having trouble obtaining
orders, guidance or money from Bin Laden. As a result, Bin Laden and his
chief deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, have been giving general orders via couriers
to loyalists in Iraq.

"I think there are attempted communications between Zarqawi and Bin Laden,"
Smith said. "Whether or not they've been successful - because of the huge
distances involved in those lines of communication, I would say that they
probably have not been. But we know for a fact that there are attempted
communications between them, and they would have to be conducted over the
kinds of lines that I just described."