Iraqi and U.S. military authorities said the woman -- the only casualty in the incident -- was about 18 years old and possibly a member of al-Kamsan, a widows of al-Qaida group. She died when explosives she wore beneath her hijab detonated after SOI at a checkpoint fired on her with their AK-47 rifles.

The checkpoint was on the main street of ad Duluyiah, about 7 miles from the city of Balad, which is near one of the largest U.S. military bases in the country.

"I think the target was the SOI headquarters," said U.S. Army Capt. Anthony Keller of Bravo Troop, 1st Squadron, 32nd Cavalry Regiment, which is part of the 101st Airborne Division. "It was opened only two days ago, and all the leaders spoke on television and denounced al-Qaida. Mullah Najim has his office there, and he's a guy they really want to kill."

And kill for good reason. Mullah Najim Mahmoud Khalil al-Jabouri isn't just a charismatic Muslim cleric or SOI coordinator. He was -- for 13 months -- an al-Qaida emir, its public face and voice.

"I was their media person," he said through an interpreter. "They used me to call the people to fight (the coalition forces). I gave speeches in mosques, in videotapes, on the Internet and on CDs.

"Now I work with the coalition forces and my government."

Mullah Najim's path to al-Qaida in Iraq and back has all the twists and turns of Iraq's recent history. After U.S. forces toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003, he cooperated with U.S. forces in inspecting damaged mosques around the Jabouri peninsula area of Salahuddin province that would need repair. Early cooperation ended, however, when the Sunni resistance to U.S. forces began in earnest and soldiers responded with hard-edged combat tactics.

"At that time coalition forces were making a lot of mistakes. When coalition forces kept breaking into our houses, the people started to hate them," and I was criticized for working with them, he said.

"I am from a famous family, and I was working with the coalition forces; a lot of people followed me. Some gangs were angry (about that) and started to give false information about me."

Sermons criticizing U.S. use of what he called corrupt Iraqi contractors in the area, combined with rumors and innuendo from his enemies, soured his relationship with the troops.

The preacher then joined Jaish Islami, also called Jaish Islamiya, an organization formed by former Baath Party officials and soldiers of Saddam Hussein's disbanded military. It wasn't difficult for him to make contact with them. Ad Duluyiah and the Jabouri peninsula in Salahuddin province were already a hotbed of insurgent activity.

"This is the heart of darkness," said Keller, who has patrolled the ad Duluyiah area for more than a year. "The al-Jabouri tribe seemed to have a special status under Saddam Hussein and didn't adjust very well to losing their position."

Mullah Najim moved to Baghdad and was Jaish Islami's media head until he was caught in an anti-terrorist sweep and sent to Abu Ghraib prison.

"Almost all the guys in (my) camp were foreign guys," he said. "At that time I spent five or six months listening to their ideology. They came from Afghanistan, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and other places. They gave a new ideology and talked about a big program to build an Islamic state in Iraq with all the different groups working together.

"At that time, al-Qaida soldiers were ready to fight, really ready to fight, better than our organization. And when they talked to me, I decided at last to follow this group."

The target of his speeches and sermons, he said, was coalition forces. He said he never exhorted Iraqis to kill other Iraqis and he considered what he was doing as "working for my country."

He denied ever appearing in a video showing an execution.

He moved from house to house while al-Qaida's media emir and spoke at more than 13 mosques.

Captured in 2006 by U.S. forces, he was sent to the Camp Cropper detention facility near Baghdad.

"The first time I was a detainee, I believed in continuing the fight," he said. "The second time it was different. At Cropper they treated me kindly and I made friendship with a soldier. This guy treated the detainees differently than at Abu Ghraib. All the time they talked to me, and after six months they decided that I have changed.

"When I got released, I (decided) to tell al-Qaida, 'If you don't put your weapons away and fight on the political side, I will fight you.'"

His homecoming, after a disturbing meeting with a senior AQI leader in Syria, turned sentiment to action. "I found al-Qaida everywhere. �� The flag that was flying was the al-Qaida flag, not the Iraqi flag; no one could work for the government or they and their families would be killed."

Najim, with a sympathetic sheik, began speaking with soldiers at Forward Operating Base Poliwadi, near the city of Balad, and began a reconciliation process. He also did something else. He mounted the speaker's platform in his family's Khlafa mosque in ad Duluyiah, held aloft his pistol and told the congregation why he had decided to fight al-Qaida.

More than 100 AQI gunmen have been killed or captured by or through SOI action since then, he said. AQI has tried to assassinate him at least seven times. His back and arms are covered with scars from ball bearings propelled by an improvised explosive device planted in his mosque.

Today Mullah Najim is a member of a board that helps facilitate the process of government and insurgent reconciliation. More than 300 fighters have utilized it. He also coordinates at least five 50-man groups of SOI, the armed neighborhood watch groups credited by both the U.S. and the Iraqi governments with playing a key role in the success of the U.S. surge and the dramatic downturn in violence in much of the country.

Regular meetings with U.S. forces, the Iraqi army and Iraqi police are part of his routine. About once a week he travels to Baghdad to meet with senior Iraqi government officials and U.S. representatives to try to find an alternative to the Maliki government's effort to take over and eventually disband the SOI, which it fears could become a Sunni militia.

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