A Defiant Roar From Iraqi Rebels

With a pair of deadly car bombs early Monday, Iraqi guerrillas let it be known that the capture of Saddam Hussein would not end their war against the U.S. occupation.

The Bush administration and American officials running Iraq have long portrayed the insurgency as dominated by loyalists of the now-imprisoned former dictator. Removing him definitively was meant to deflate the resolve and inspiration of the resistance.

“The Americans can think what they want, but Saddam was not a symbol for us,” said Hamjed Abdullah, a lanky man of fiery rhetoric studying to be an imam. “We are fighting for our country and our religion. We are not fighting for Saddam.”

Abdullah was speaking at the Garden of Paradise Martyrs’ cemetery on the grounds of Baghdad’s Abu Hanifa Mosque, an area of stiff opposition to foreign presence in Iraq. Buried in the tree-shaded cemetery are about 40 people killed fighting U.S. troops on April 10, the final battle in the conquest of the capital.

“It is the same whether Saddam is alive or dead,” said the cemetery caretaker, Abdel Hadi Jasem, 57. “The resistance will continue bombing [U.S.] tanks and their headquarters. We must kick them out.”

“Inshallah!” -- or God willing -- several young men standing nearby shouted.

Before the dictator’s capture, the resistance had morphed into something beyond a fight by former members of the regime to restore Hussein to his palaces, according to a handful of the fighters who spoke over the last several months.

The widening insurgency was fed by several motives, from a raw clinging to power by those losing it to bitter resentment over invasive U.S. army raids and disillusionment over the slow pace of the nation’s recovery.

By all accounts, the insurgency was growing in sophistication of tactics, strategy and execution, and it was taking a higher toll among U.S. troops and Washington’s foreign allies.

The insurgents, whose ranks include ex-officials of Hussein’s outlawed Baath Party and militant Islamists, benefit from a network of sympathetic businessmen, tribal elders and imams. They are especially strong in the deeply conservative, Sunni-dominated parts of central Iraq but have also extended their reach to the north and south.

In some ways, the insurgency is a power struggle launched by Sunnis, who ruled Iraq under Hussein and who now fear the emerging political clout of the Shiites, Iraq’s long-repressed majority community. That motivation for fighting occupation authorities did not ease with the capture of Hussein; it may even grow if Sunnis become convinced that Shiites will exploit the moment for further gains.

Key to the question of whether Hussein’s capture will slow the pace of attacks is the extent to which he was in fact directing or financing any military actions.

U.S. officials are attempting to build a case that Hussein was involved in channeling funds to the guerrillas, and they are hoping that intelligence gleaned from him will lead to the breaking apart of major insurgent cells. Officials said they found $750,000 in cash with Hussein and that documents seized from his briefcase, along with information from his interrogation, have already led to the arrest of several figures.

U.S. officials are especially keen to flush out one of Hussein’s main henchmen, Izzat Ibrahim, vice chairman of the former regime’s Revolutionary Command Council, who they believe may have a direct role in coordinating attacks.

A portion of the insurgency has taken on a heavily religious tone, a departure from the traditionally secular line of the Baath Party and Hussein himself. It reflects, in part, the influence of a fundamentalist strain of Sunni Islam that has gained strength in the political vacuum following the fall of the old regime.

Abdullah, the student at the “martyrs” cemetery, said it was Islam and not Hussein that united the “moujahedeen” fighting the “foreign infidels,” as he put it. Nodding toward the rows of graves, he extolled the virtues of being able to die for the cause.

“Even if Saddam is gone, this very night will witness new operations,” he said.

The point would not have been lost on the police officers at Husseiniya, a town on the northern outskirts of Baghdad. Earlier Monday, nearly 24 hours after Hussein’s capture was announced, a suicide bomber detonated his Toyota Land Cruiser full of explosives outside the local police station. Eight Iraqi officers were killed, and more than a dozen civilians were injured.

A second suicide bomber attacked another police station in the Baghdad suburb of Amiriyah. Seven Iraqis were injured.

Rabia Abdul Aziz’s husband and two daughters were injured when the blast tore into their home across the street from the blood-spattered police station.

“We were so happy yesterday to hear Saddam was captured,” she said as she picked pieces of furniture from her living room. “We thought we got rid of Saddam. Today we have 100 Saddams.”

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Special correspondent Samir Zedan in Husseiniya contributed to this report.