CourcyInt

COURCYINT SPECIAL BULLETIN

To: All Courcy's Intelligence Service members

Date: 7 November 2003

From: Joe de Courcy, Chief Executive, Courcy's Intelligence Service

Subject: AN INSIGHT INTO IRAQI OPPOSITION RECRUITMENT TACTICS

SUMMARY

A report published this week by the London-based Arabaic newspaper al-Hayat provides a disturbing (albeit predictable) insight into how the Iraqi opposition is seeking to exploit youth unemployment in Iraq.  It was filed by the paper's correspondent in Baghdad Ali Abd-al-Amir on 4 November.

ANALYSIS

Back in June, the newly appointed US administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer said that the country's "staggering unemployment rate" may exceed 50% and that finding jobs was his number one task.  He said:  "We're facing an unemployment problem that is certainly without precedent in my life, and that, of course, creates real hardship for the Iraqi men and women out there,"

However, four months on the problem remains severe, partly because of a reluctance by US sub-contractors to employ Iraqis for security reasons.  As Colonel Damon Walsh, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority's procurement office, admits:  "We don't want to overlook Iraqis, but we want to protect ourselves.  From a force protection standpoint, Iraqis are more vulnerable to a bad guy influence."  Backing this up, a recent report London's Financial Times quoted a Pakistani manager in Baghdad for the Tamimi Company, which is based in the Saudi city of Dammam and is contracted to cater for 60,000 soldiers in Iraq, as saying: "Iraqis are a security threat.  We cannot depend on them."  So instead of employing locals, companies are turning to south Asian labour to implement contracts, from prison-building to catering for US troops, and as a consequence recent weeks have seen unemployment-inspired unrest in several major cities, including the capital Baghdad.

It is against this background that al-Hayat's 4 November despatch from Baghdad should be read.  According to al-Hayat's correspondent Ali Abd-al-Amir: "Iraqi youths suffering from unemployment, which is affecting half the working force of the country, can now find a drastic solution to their problem.  This solution is represented by a generous offer made by radical Islamist groups in several areas of Baghdad, Baqubah, Al-Ramadi, and Fallujah: 'a heroic attack' against the Iraqi police or the occupation forces in return for $1,000."

Ali Abd-al-Amir goes on to report: "These groups visit certain mosques where they watch youths and listen to their views on political and social issues.  At a later stage, they urge them to join jihad operations and make them this offer: $1,000 for every operation against the Iraqi police or the occupation forces.  The amount will be tripled in the event of the success of the operation."  The reward for hitting a US tank and killing its crew is said to be $5,000.

But there is stick as well as carrot.  Ali Abd-al-Amir reports: "Radical Islamists...kill anyone who does not accept their offer.  This was what actually happened to Ihsan al-Fallahi, a young man who refused to join the 'jihad work'."

END