Last month Al-Qaeda fighters Abdul Rahman Mohammed and Ahmed Ali laid down their arms after nearly four years of fighting US soldiers in Iraq.

The two young men and hundreds like them from Al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups in largely Sunni Arab Salaheddin province surrendered under an amnesty offered by US and Iraqi militaries with a pledge to begin a new civilian life.

Wearing a light brown traditional Arab dishdasha, a clean shaven Mohammed (22) spoke calmly of wanting to kill US troops as his blood boiled with anger at their presence in his homeland.

"I don't remember how many firefights we had with the Americans because there were many. I don't remember how many American vehicles we blew up," Mohammed told AFP in his hometown of Dhuluiyah, north of Baghdad.

Islamic Army

"I could not tolerate the occupation and so joined the Islamic Army," Mohammed said, referring to the rebel group formed by loyalists of executed president Saddam Hussein. "It was jihad for me."

Mohammed and Ali (21) who gave false names for fear of Al-Qaeda reprisals, said they began their fight against the US military by joining the Islamic Army but later switched to the jihadists as they were more ferocious.

Mohammed's entry into Al-Qaeda occurred right under the noses of his American captors.

In 2006, he was detained for six months in Camp Bucca, a US detention centre near Iraq's main southern city of Basra.

"I met Al-Qaeda militants in the camp. They were fiery and fierce. Their anti-American speeches and agendas influenced me and I joined them after I was released," Mohammed said.

For boyish-looking Ali it was friends like Mohammed who introduced him to Al-Qaeda.

"The whole town was Al-Qaeda's battlefield," said Ali, who said he was a member of a cell of 200 fighters. "They dominated the fight here."

What really excited the two men about the jihadists was their ability to carry out almost every attack they planned.

"When they want to do something, they will do it," said Ali.

"There was a time when not a single American truck passed this area without being attacked," said Mohammed.

Ferocious campaign

But it was the very ferocity of Al-Qaeda's campaign that began to turn Dhuluiyah's residents and rival insurgent groups against the jihadists.

"Our leaders were foreigners... from Syria, Iran. They were fundamentalists and did not care about Iraqis. They killed Iraqis in cold blood," Mohammed said. "It became a fruitless fight."

"Our families and friends stopped supporting us. They were tired of violence. They started suffering," added Mohammed, who lived as a guerrilla in the desert for four years.

The whole town turned against al-Qaeda late last year when a group of young Iraqi security recruits were slaughtered by Al-Qaeda gunmen, said Ahmed Hammud, one of the leaders of a US-sponsored anti-Qaeda group in Dhuluiyah.

"They killed those young boys for no reason. That is when the locals turned against the insurgency and the Sahwa mushroomed," Hammud said.

Sahwa, or Awakening Councils, have been set up across Sunni Arab areas of Iraq, with their membership drawn from tribes and former rebels. Hammud himself fought the US-led occupation in the Islamic Army before finding common cause with the US military against Al-Qaeda.

It was the Sahwa that introduced AFP to the two Al-Qaeda defectors, who are now hoping for a better future but are not sure how to go about it.

"I have not killed Iraqis so I am sure I would be accepted back without any difficulty," said Mohammed, a member of a prominent Dhuluiyah family.

But Ali is desperate for work. "I'm not a skilled labourer but I need a job... maybe in the security forces as I'm also a target of Al-Qaeda now," he said.

The Dhuluiyah municipality has approached Salaheddin provincial council with reconstruction projects in the hope of giving men like Ali work.

New projects

"We have proposed several road projects, a new hospital and a school," said Dhuluiyah council chief Khalaf Turkhi Khalaf, adding that former rebels who had not killed Iraqis would be given jobs.

"The Americans and Iraqis have decided to give these insurgents another chance by joining the political process," Khalaf said.

The two young men may have abandoned the insurgency but they are no fonder of the US troops that continue to patrol Salaheddin province.

"I feel sad when I see an American convoy. It's an occupation. They do not respect anyone," Ali complained.

AFP