Smash hit

They operated north of Baghdad up to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, firing rockets at American bases, planting roadside bombs against military convoys and, on occasion, following up with an armed ambush.

The first mission that Mr Abdullah planned, against a base in Tikrit, was a bit of a failure because he miscalculated the distance for a barrage of rockets to be fired. He became much more accurate over time.

“We had many successful operations,” he said, with a knowing smile when asked if he had killed any American soldiers. Mr Abdullah says that he lost 26 fighters. Over a ten-month period his men carried out attacks twice a day. Using their superior knowledge of the terrain they would creep down dirt tracks and hide in farm houses. “The Americans would never know where we were coming from.” Sharing intelligence at meetings with other insurgency groups, he recalled how praise was heaped on any fighter who pulled off a complex mission.

“That was motivational. When you heard of someone else’s successes you wanted to go out and do something better,” said Mr Abdullah, a tall, well-built man who used to be a boxer and is a martial arts expert.

The former officer’s attacking spree was halted when he was arrested by US troops driving away from the scene of his biggest mission – blowing up five American lorries with 12 roadside bombs as they travelled towards the once-restive city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, in March 2005.

“The soldiers told us that they were going to execute us by pushing us out of their helicopter. I thought to myself that I was just defending my country and if you want to kill me then go ahead,” he said.

Thrown into Abu Ghraib, the US-run detention centre that become infamous after American soldiers were pictured humiliating Iraqi prisoners, Mr Abdullah said that he was kept in a box-like cell that measured a metre square.Forced to sit squashed up because of his large frame, he said that he was held in there for 29 days, allowed out for only four hours a day.

He also claimed that he was beaten and interrogated repeatedly. “In one of the worst moments, which I will never forget for as long as I live, I was handcuffed to a chair and a female soldier hit me across the head with a metal pipe. You might be able to see the scar,” he said, touching his hair-line. “I started to bleed and she hit me on the arm, breaking it. They left me for a week without medical attention. As I experienced all of this I kept thinking about two things: my son and my country. I felt really sad for my country.”

Mr Abdullah, who said that he never admitted to any crime, spent three months in Abu Ghraib before being moved to Camp Buka, a larger detention centre in southern Iraq, where he said that conditions were much better.

After another six months he was released, but his time in captivity left him even more embittered towards the US forces and he vowed to return to the resistance. “When I arrived back in Samarra I found that a lot of things had changed. My group had become part of al-Qaeda and was killing members of the Iraqi security forces and even civilians,” he said.

Most of the people he had fought with had fled to Syria, being replaced by hired guns who were working for an influx of new commanders, many of them foreign. Mr Abdullah said that other Arab countries and Iran were helping to fund the operations.

Despite many misgivings, he rejoined the group at the end of 2005 but quickly regretted it. “I found out that my cousin had been killed because he had refused to join.” Mr Abdullah was also shown footage of two policemen being beheaded.

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