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One of the most dangerous among them was Rashid Ali’s former econom-
ics minister, Yunis Sabawi.^39 It turned out that Sabawi had been responsi-
ble in May for the last-minute creation of three pro-Nazi youth
organizations in Iraq, the largest of which had instigated the Farhud, and
which included among its members some of the most virulently anti-
British and antisemitic adherents of the Rashid Ali regime. Just as it had
appeared to Europe’s fascist dictators, it had always been clear to Gaylani
and the ex-Mufti that it was the younger generation who held the key to
Iraq’s national future and the future of the pan-Arab movement. It was
above all their youthful energy that had to be harnessed and their fresh
young minds that had to be inspired. To this end, and with apparent dis-
regard for the rapidly deteriorating military situation, Sabawi established
and developed a militant youth formation along Nazi lines from the pre-
existing Futuwwa organization, to repel the British forces and support the
German troops who were expected to arrive shortly from the north. It was
an utterly unrealistic last-minute move similar to the operations that would
be launched in 1944–1945 by doctrinaire Nazis like Otto Skorzeny who
created the Werwolf organization and callously exploited HJ youths
shortly before the collapse of the Third Reich.
The original Quwwat al-Sab’awi al-Wataniya (Sabawi Nationalist Force)
organization consisted of two classes of volunteers: (1) young men in
higher education, such as medical and law students, whose educational
attainments made them too senior for the regular Futuwwa movement;
and (2) tribesmen and toughs (some of them Palestinian). Their mission
was to harry the flanks and rear of the British forces by guerrilla tactics,
and to commit such acts of sabotage as would endanger the British lines of
communication and supply. Without any military training or the dignity of
uniform, this irregular force actually proceeded to the western front, and,
though not in open battle, did exchange shots with British forces there.
Exclusively under the orders of Sabawi, who made himself responsible for
their supplies and weapons, they were briefly visited at the front several
times by their commander, who was invariably accompanied by a body-
guard of known murderers and convicts. The disparate component parts
of this organization—ill-chosen and untrained as they were—led to its
speedy downfall. The intelligentsia were not good campaigners, nor were
they good companions for the toughs. The result was the formation of
two separate units: the Katayib ash Shabab (for the ideologues) and the
Mujahideen (for the toughs). The latter came under the direct command
of a former police officer named Mahmud Fawzi Juma, and it was they