Battling an insurgency, wrote T.E. Lawrence, the legendary "Lawrence of Arabia" who fought in the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire almost a century ago, is "messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife".
It's a lesson the US military has learned painfully in Iraq, a messy war dragging into its fifth year with a mounting toll in Iraqi and American lives. Stung by setbacks, Washington this year installed a new commander, General David Petraeus, to oversee a new approach to counter-insurgency. Nahrawan, a poor town of 100,000 and stronghold of Shia militiamen in the parched rural hinterland south-east of Baghdad, is one place that strategy is being tested.
A short walk from the market, cranes lift huge concrete slabs to build a protective wall for a US outpost in the centre of town -- a reverse from the old strategy of keeping troops in large bases far from population centres.
Soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 10th Field Artillery Regiment, work with the local council and tribal leaders to support reconstruction and humanitarian projects, and enlist locals to man checkpoints and monitor the area.
"We have to be close to the people, among the people, and to win their trust and work with them," said Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Sullivan, the battalion commander. "We offer a blanket of security that will allow the economy and services to develop." It's a plan that comes straight from the US military's new counter-insurgency manual, authored by Petraeus with several counter-insurgency experts.
A key message of the manual is that the military must provide security for the people, since "citizens seek to ally with groups that can guarantee their safety". Interlinked military, economic and political initiatives must be set up.
Echoing Lawrence's century-old warning that "rebellions can be made by 2 percent active in a striking force, and 98 percent passively sympathetic", it says the key is to turn the local population against the insurgents in their midst. The focus is on winning people over, not killing. "Killing every insurgent is normally impossible," the manual says.
Nahrawan's recent past illustrates much of what has gone wrong in Iraq. Its future may show whether the US military's new strategy can succeed in stabilising the country. Saddam Hussein relocated thousands of Shia here, making Nahrawan a Shia enclave surrounded by small Sunni Muslim communities. When al Qaeda militants blew up a Shia shrine in Samarra in February 2006, Nahrawan became a battleground of savage sectarian violence.
Within hours of the mosque attack, Sunni gunmen dragged 47 Shia out of a convoy of vehicles, shot them in the head and dumped them in a ditch. A week later they killed 25 Shi'ites at a brick factory and four at a nearby power station.
With no sustained US military presence in the area, locals Shia turned for protection to the Mehdi Army militia of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whom the United States accuses of waging a proxy war on US forces at the behest of Iran.
When US forces began arriving in the area this year as part of the surge, they faced frequent attacks from Shia militiamen and Nahrawan was a virtual no-go area. "It was overrun with Shia extremist militias and criminals," said Major-General Rick Lynch, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division.
US troops moved in to detain key militia leaders, began patrolling the town, and put economic and political plans in place to try to improve prosperity, governance and security. Now, Sullivan says, shops and businesses have reopened, residents feel secure, and support for the Mehdi Army -- which is observing a shaky truce ordered by Sadr -- is ebbing away.
Huge challenges remain. If Sadr's militia restarts hostilities, the base in Nahrawan could be vulnerable, although Sullivan says its position right at the heart of town, among shops and houses, will make insurgents less likely to attack it.
Corruption and patronage are endemic and much aid money disappears before it reaches its intended projects. Local police, whose headquarters are right beside the new US outpost, include many Mehdi Army sympathisers. When US forces head into Nahrawan at night trying to detain a wanted criminal, the police are not informed.
Trying to detain insurgent leaders while winning the support of the people is also fraught with problems. US raids, with women and children being forced from their beds at night and houses ransacked, often cause outrage in Iraq.
In one raid in Nahrawan, a teenage girl crouched in a corner, shaking with terror. Her mother pleaded with soldiers, saying her sons were policemen, not insurgents.
Sullivan says most Iraqis in Nahrawan welcome such raids, knowing they will restore law and order. As security improves people there will turn their back on the insurgency, he argues.
NOT EVERYONE AGREES: "Soldiers kick in the doors of houses and immediately search inside even if there are women there. According to our traditions, this is absolutely not acceptable," said Mehsin al-Chainimi, 50, in his clothes shop in Nahrawan's market. "If they insist on kicking down our doors, then, to speak frankly, we will resist them," he said.
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