Dhuluiyah: Once a senior Al-Qaeda leader in central Iraq, Mullah Nadhom Mahmud is now one of the US military's chief allies in an area still swarming with jihadists who have tried to kill him many times.

The young imam -- who is both admired and feared -- symbolises all the ambiguities of the "Sahwa" (Awakening) movement, the Sunni militia recruited by the US military to fight against Al-Qaeda.

With 650 fighters, a mix of ex-insurgents and former Al-Qaeda members, he has for the past five months been enforcing security in Dhuluiyah alongside Iraqi police.

Deep in the heart of Sunni territory, the agricultural town of 62,000 people 80 kilometres north of Baghdad, with its red brick houses lined up along a dusty street backed by palm plantations, had been until the end of last year firmly under the control of Al-Qaeda for around 12 months.

"I was one of six members of the Shura council of the mujahedeen," said the poker-faced Mullah Nadhom, whose left leg bears the scars of the latest bombing attempt on his life.

His involvement in the insurgency ran deep and one of his first appointments was as media head within an organisation grouping Al-Qaeda and its allies before the creation in October 2006 of "the Islamic State of Iraq", a caliphate proclaimed in Iraq by followers of Osama bin Laden.

"I met Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi when he was filmed while firing a machine-gun in the desert," said Mullah Nadhom referring to Al-Qaeda's former leader in Iraq who was killed in a US air strike in June 2006.

Mullah Nadhom, 30,comes from a respected Dhuluiyah religious family. Once he had completed his Islamic studies in 1998,he became the imam of the principal mosque in the town, thanks in part to his oratory skills.

Source : PTI