BAGHDAD, Nov 16 (Reuters) - They call him the "Shi'ite Zarqawi", a torturer with a passion for power tools, a sectarian warlord bent on driving Sunnis from Baghdad, a man whose shadowy legend has grown with recent narrow escapes from U.S. forces. But the elusive militia commander known as Abu Deraa says he has just been misunderstood, turned by the media into a bogeyman when in fact he loves Sunnis as his brothers in Islam and wants only to protect his city's poor and drive Americans from Iraq. "I find those allegations really odd," he said in interview this week with an Iraqi journalist working for Reuters. "As for using electric drills, I would never mutilate a human being because Islam prohibits mutilation, even for dogs. "Sunnis are as much my brothers as Shi'ites. My only enemies are the occupiers," he said during the encounter in Sadr City, the sprawling Baghdad slum where U.S. and Iraqi forces have been hunting him as, effectively, Public Enemy No. 1 for months. Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has accused Abu Deraa of running sectarian death squads and told Reuters he narrowly evaded capture in a major raid on Sadr City last month by troops hunting kidnapped Iraqi-born U.S. soldier Ahmed al-Taei. Familiar to many of the three million residents of Sadr City, he now moves discreetly, unable regularly to see his family, but said he did not hold a grudge against Maliki: "Maliki doesn't know me personally," he said. "The man is relying on reports given to him by the occupation forces." Maliki, anxious not to alienate fellow Shi'ites, criticised the U.S. raid as heavy-handed. Taie is still missing. Though reluctant to say his name, U.S. and Iraqi leaders hold Abu Deraa responsible for many of thousands of kidnaps and killings this year, and victims found with skulls and bodies drilled through. "FATHER SHIELD" Abu Deraa -- he uses only this nickname meaning "Father Shield" -- insisted he was still a loyal follower of young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia dominates Sadr City despite U.S. and Iraqi government efforts to suppress it. He flatly denied reports from Iraqi officials, and veiled suggestions from Sadr's inner circle, that he has been disowned by the anti-American preacher for being too violent: "All these lies and rumours are published by those who serve the occupation. I was and remain a soldier of the Mehdi Army," he said calmly, hints of Iraq's southern Shi'ite heartlands in his accent, his speech salted with phrases typical of Sadr. Dressed in the militia's uniform black and sipping cola on a sofa in a modest family home where children played, he recounted how his calling hurt his extensive family -- three sons are in U.S. custody, another lost a hand in a recent U.S. raid. Stocky, with a trim black beard, he has a limp that is the legacy of American bullets and the incident that made his name. By his own account, the middle-aged fishmonger confronted a U.S. armoured vehicle wielding only a machinegun during a Mehdi Army uprising in Sadr City in April 2004. He ended up wounded but locally famous and with his "shield" nickname, derived from the Arabic for armour plating. Of his background, he says little beyond confirming he used to sell fish: "I was a worker, like others, before the war," he said. "I gained recognition through my rejection of occupation, my love of my country and my support for the oppressed." Dubbed the "Shi'ite Zarqawi" by some media who compare his taste for violence to that of the late Sunni al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Deraa said such labels did not bother him: "We all know that the media who call me this name themselves created Zarqawi and the media are a mouthpiece for the occupation." "Have you ever seen me slaughter people like the criminals? Have you ever seen me make car bombs and place them in markets?" he said. "Have you ever seen me forcing families from their homes..? You have seen me resisting the occupier. "If someone who resists the occupation is a terrorist, then use whatever name you like -- God is watching from on high."
