Villagers split over Saddam, their tribe's most famous son

As American troops step up their hunt for Saddam Hussein after the capture of his closest aide, people in his home village of al-Awja, overlooking the Tigris north of Baghdad, view the fate of their most famous son with mixed feelings.

On the wall of the gatehouse to Saddam's local palace somebody has written: "It is your house Saddam and it will always flourish and we will guard it for ever." Elsewhere there are many slogans painted on walls. One reads: "After you, Saddam, we became slaves."

But al-Awja is not a stronghold of pro-Saddam loyalists. Many of the 1,000 people suffered during his long reign or drew no benefit from living in the village where the former Iraqi leader was born in 1937. Sheikh Ahmad Ghazi, the leader of the Albu Nasir tribe into which Saddam was born, said it was difficult to explain to Americans, and even Iraqis, that while some of his tribe flourished others were persecuted.

He said: "He killed my own brother in 1995."

A well-educated engineer who speaks fluent English, Sheik Ahmad said that the village was the last place that Saddam or his immediate entourage would have taken refuge because of deep divisions within the tribe and the local community.

He said: "You notice that Abed Hamid Mahmud, Saddam's private secretary, was arrested yesterday near Tikrit and not in al-Awja where he was born because he knew he was not popular here."

American military commanders clearly had a different view during the war. In an orchard below the low hill on which al-Awja stands is a long house where Sheikh Ahmad's father, and predecessor as leader of the Albu Nasir, Ghazi Ahmad al-Khatab, was shot dead by US troops who arrived by helicopter on the night of 12 April.

By the family's account Sheikh Ghazi was not armed when he opened the door to American soldiers, though given the fear of looting this sounds unlikely. Blood still stains the floor where he fell. Ahmad Ghazi and three of his brothers were arrested and later released with apologies.

Sheikh Ahmad sounds depressed and just occasionally amused by his difficulties in explaining the complexities of Iraqi politics and tribal life to successive American commanders in al-Awja.

"They seem to get most of their ideas of the Arab world from Hollywood," he said. "We have also had three different commanders here in six weeks so I have to start all over again with each one. They never seem to talk to each other. Since they don't pass anything I've stopped talking to them."

It is easy enough to understand the Americans' perplexity. Saddam belonged to the Albu Nasir tribe and the essence of tribal life is loyalty to each other, particularly against a general threat. But within the tribe Saddam was a member of the Baijat clan, which is further subdivided into six lineages, to one of which, the Albu Ghafur, Saddam belonged. It was members of the Albu Ghafur who held the top jobs in the Republican Guard and the Special Security Organisation.

Iraqi tribes were almost all divided in their relationship with Saddam's regime, with some individuals and families benefiting and others losing out. For instance, the first man Saddam was known to have killed in 1959 was a distant cousin who was a member of the Albu Nasir but also a member of the Communist party, powerful at the time.

Sheikh Ahmad shook his head wearily over what he sees as American ignorance of the way Iraqis live. For instance, at the time his father was killed a large sum of money was found in the house. He said: 'The Americans regard this as suspicious but Iraqis usually keep large sums of money at home, sometimes literally under the bed, because in 1991 Saddam closed the banks before the war." By the time Iraqi people could get at their money again, it was worth almost nothing.

Iraqi villagers have always carried weapons. But with the current fear of looting they often have them close at hand. This is understandable.

Saddam's local palace had been hit by a US missile, smashing its pretty blue mosaic entrance and decapitating a ceramic palm tree, but it had been thoroughly stripped by looters who set it ablaze.

As a result, American forces launching raids at night are often met by a farmer with a rifle, who thinks they are thieves, when they bang on a door after dark, sometimes with fatal results for the occupant.

Iraqis also talk about searches of the women's quarters in their homes, action seen as insulting and unacceptable.

Although Saddam and the rest of his family all built palaces in al-Awja, the Iraqi leader did not spend much time there in recent years. "I saw him only twice in my life," said one local man who did not want to be named. "Mostly he and his family lived in Baghdad."

Overall al-Awja, aside from the abandoned palaces of Saddam and his family, is little different from other Iraqi villages in the Sunni Muslim heartlands north of Baghdad.

The columns of American armour on the roads seem like visitors from another planet. The slogan writers express regret for Saddam, but Sheikh Ahmad said that the real danger was the growing anger among local young men at the American occupation.

* Attackers fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a US military ambulance yesterday, killing one American soldier and wounding two others, a military spokesman said. It was the third reported attack on US personnel, or their offices, within 24 hours.