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"Alo?"
"Enta shonek habebe?" the Army company commander says into his cell phone.
"Zhien, zhien."
fTwenty to thirty times a day Army Captain Brian Ducote's cell phone rings in his shoulder pocket.
Ducote, the commander of the 1-28 Infantry's Bravo or 'Battle' company answers nearly every call, going through a set of greetings himself so that the Iraqi callers know it is him they are talking to before he hands the phone to an interpreter.
The calls range from tips to complaints to pleas.
This morning it is a call from one of the leaders of a Neighborhood Advisory Council who heard third hand that the body of a woman--assassinated for being Sunni--was in a vacant lot.
The location the council member gave was out of Battle Company's operating area, but Ducote sent a unit to a point to where it could over watch the area and scan for the body.
"It could be a trap. They booby trap the bodies, position a sniper over the body," Ducote said.
"I don't think he's lying, but the people who called his relative are the ones not to trust."
That night the platoon would go back and recover the body. Ducote called the council member.
"I explained to him how I went out of my area, violated rules, risked the lives of U.S. soldiers to recover the body. I went out on a limb for him, now I have a stake in this," Ducote said, thumbing the phone. "This isn't just an Army officers telling them not to go out and seek revenge, I have a place at the table and can use that."
ASYMETRIC BATTLESPACE
There are few physical front lines in Baghdad. A canal or major road may be the dividing line between Shia and Sunni neighborhoods, but that will not be the place forces clash in massed combat--or anything resembling combat for that matter.
Because the enemy does not wear uniforms and violates the Geneva Conventions by not being under arms while engaging in combatant activities, the coalition forces are rarely the first to strike--allowing the enemy to pick and choose the location he will fight.
There are no front lines, no rear areas, no behind the lines--except for U.S. bases and outposts which are magnets for mortars and rockets.
In Iraq, thinking in terms of territory is often a useless exercise. The sectarian violence is not about territory--it is about people, money and the wasta, the power and power of legends and the near irrelevance of facts to the average Iraqi enhance the assymetric battlespace.
If the assymetric battlespace works against U.S. equipment, tactics and adherence to the Geneva Conventions--the cellular battlespace plays to the U.S. strengths.
The enemy does not have secure communications and you don't need to know much about the NSA to know that the enemy that talks on cell phones is an enemy that is easy to find.
CALLING CARDS
The Black Lions of the 1-28 Infantry, 4th IBCT, 1st Infantry Division, Ft. Riley, Kansas leave a calling card everywhere they go--with the number to the Battalion tips hotline.
Company commanders even have their own calling cards with the number to the cell phone they carry.
As the platoons of Task Force Black Lion conduct patrols, clearing operations, walk and talks and census/data collection operations they hand out hundreds of calling cards.
For every hundred cards handed out during 100 conversations 5 may yield tips. One will yeild an informant who calls frequently. Over time, the officers and intel chiefs develop a network of reliable confidential informants and a few who are able to provide the sworn statements needed as evidence.
But even with the best informants there is often a gap.
Showing an Iraqi a Google earth satellite map and asking him to pick out a house, and intersection or a block is usually a futile exercise.
Most of the tips are vague--"the bad guys are in Mahala 885 and drive a BMW."
The macro view that all Shia are JAM and all Sunni are AQIZ frustrates things even more. The average Iraqi thinks the U.S. Army will operate like Saddam's secret police and round people up and kill them.
The concepts of identifying the perpetrator, gathering evidence, probable cause and clear and convincing evidence make little sense to most Baghdad residents.
The conversations can be long and painstaking. Occasionally the only way to get all the facts is to bring the informant in under the guise of a being detained or a contract negotiation at a location outside of Rasheed.
For all the pains of running informants via cell phone--it is the only way to run informants in Iraq and units that fail to put in the effort will fail to make progress.
THE WOLF
"The Wolf called me habebe," Ducote said, referring to how quickly Iraqis will use the term of strong friendship with Americans.
The Wolf is a Jaysha Mahdi assassin.
The legend is that he has killed more than 100 Sunni. Nearly every day Ducote or another member of the battalion receive a tip about The Wolf.
Ducote has talked with The Wolf on his cell phone. "We had his brother and started calling around, leaving messages. Then The Wolf himself calls."
The Wolf offered Ducote a deal--release his brother and he would kill himself.
No deal. It would be too easy for The Wolf to shotgun the face of man and put his ID on him.
The Wolf is 19-years-old. His father was killed by AQIZ and the rest of his family bore the brunt of the early killing spree by AQIZ in 2005.
He told all this to Ducote on the phone and Ducote confirmed it with sources in the Shia neighborhoods.
Other information the Wolf revealed about himself in the phone call has helped paint the intel picture and gave more information about the battle space.
Information that could only be gained by a cell phone call from the enemy.
ASAD ASWAD
Address books, video clips, voice mail messages, text messages, pictures, the last numbers called...the cell phone of a JAM or AQIZ is always a trove of information.
Immediately after Abdeel, the JAM Boss for Jihad and Mahala 885 was picked up, the intel staff interpreters started going through his cell phone.
It was a map of the cellular battlespace.
Numbers of all the players, pictures of some, video clips of Sadr, text messages, voice messages.
Abdeel's phone was ringing off the hook. The JAM leader for all of Rasheed was trying to get in touch with his lieutenant.
Later in the evening, Lt. Colonel Patrick Frank decides to make a call to Abdeel's boss.
Frank has spoken to dozens of bad guys on their cell phones and needs little introduction.
"One gentlemen I called, who is affiliated with JAM stopped me when I was introducing myself. He said, 'I know who you are. You are Asad Aswad. The Black Lion.'"
DEFEATING LEGENDS
The officers of Task Force 1-28, the Black Lions, have a constant refrain when they talk with residents in Sunni areas--'We captured 60mm mortar tubes, 80mm mortar tubes, 120mm mortar tubes. Jaysha Mahdi is on the run.'
In the Shia areas they talk about catching a Sunni assassin.
The locals do not believe the officers so they now carry pictures of the evidence.
But this is Iraq, where a scrawny 19-year-old with a Glock becomes immortal, a sniper has surely killed more than 1,000 U.S. Soldiers and every Shia is JAM and every Sunni is AQIZ.
Conspiracies run rampant.
Logic does not exist.
Until one day, standing in the market of West Farut, as a group of merchants complain about the mortars the Shia are firing, Captain Ducote asks them when was the last time a mortar landed in the Mahala?
The merchants all look at each other. Ducote knows the exact date the last time mortars fell in the area--because his Company captured the mortar tubes, rounds and team that was shelling West Farut.
Suddenly things begin to make sense to the merchants.
Maybe The Wolf is not immortal. That sniper has not been around...the other assassin has not been around...
Later that night Ducote is repeating the same refrain on the phone to men who heard it in person this morning--fighting a battle of gross rating points with his own voice.
MA SALAAMA
The tips continue to roll in--someone has set up an illegal check point to keep supplies from reaching another neighborhood.
Someone with a pistol is threatening the Sunni residents in an area.
An IED has been planted on this block of this road.
The interpeters continue to take tips. The officers talk to friend, foe and every permutation in between--occasionally pretending to be friends to set up a trap.
The cellular battle space is not something taught at the officer's course or the staff college.
But it is a battle space the Black Lions will not cede to the enemy.
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