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Abu Deraa was born Ismail al-Zarjawi to a poor family in Sadr City. After a career in petty crime during the Saddam Hussein years, he became one of the first recruits of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army after the dictator's fall. "When the Americans entered the country and kicked Saddam out, we were very happy," Abu Deraa says. "But then we discovered their bad intentions against Iraq, so we started attacking the occupation forces." In the spring of 2004 he participated in the Shi'ite uprising against U.S. forces in Sadr City. That was also when he earned his nom de guerre Abu Deraa, or "Father of the Shield," a reference to his penchant for attacking U.S. armored vehicles.
He saw more action that summer in Najaf and that fall in Fallujah, when a small detachment of Shi'ites fought alongside Sunni insurgents against U.S. forces. Back then, he says, "it was a real resistance, and there was no sectarian affiliation." Abu Deraa spent the next year consolidating his position as a Mahdi Army leader, first among equals of three commanders in Sadr City. Iraqi officials say this was when he turned to kidnapping for cash, which he used to buy weapons and lure recruits.
It is the atrocities he is suspected of perpetrating against Sunnis that have earned him notoriety and helped plunge Iraq into civil war. Sunni leaders and some government officials blame him for the June 21 murder of one of Saddam's lawyers, the July 9 daylight slaughter of up to 50 Sunnis and the July 15 kidnapping of 30 officials from the Iraqi Olympic Committee. Unlike al-Zarqawi, Abu Deraa issued no statements and released no videos, except for a semicomic webcast, available on YouTube, that shows him offering a Pepsi to a camel. Still, his renown has spread beyond Iraq. On Internet bulletin boards he is hailed as a Shi'ite hero. A typical message reads, "Abu Deraa is a hero to all oppressed people on earth, fighting international tyranny of U.S. forces and fighting domestic tyranny."
The ruthlessness of Abu Deraa--and perhaps his growing fame on the Shi'ite street--has caused even al-Sadr to distance himself from his former protégé. Last month al-Sadr put Abu Deraa on a list of people no longer part of the Mahdi Army. U.S. officials began to describe Abu Deraa as a "rogue militia leader" and a "free agent" no longer in al-Sadr's control. But some of al-Sadr's associates continue to praise Abu Deraa. Falah Shansal, a member of parliament from the al-Sadr bloc, told TIME last week that Abu Deraa was still "a fighter in the Mahdi Army."
As long as Abu Deraa enjoys al-Sadr's tacit protection, he won't be easy to run down. U.S. forces believed they had him surrounded in Sadr City last month, but the militia leader narrowly escaped. A U.S. air strike is believed to have killed several of his closest fighters and severed an arm of one of his sons. "This is an honor for him, me and the family," Abu Deraa told TIME. The victims of Abu Deraa's brutality can only hope there are more such honors in store.