Is the tribal alliance against Al Qaeda splintering in Anbar Province?

The Washington Post seems to think there may be signs that this is true. From today's report:

In an interview in his Baghdad office, Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, 35, a leader of the Dulaim confederation, the largest tribal organization in Anbar, said that the Anbar Salvation Council would be dissolved because of growing internal dissatisfaction over its cooperation with U.S. soldiers and the behavior of the council's most prominent member, Abdul Sattar Abu Risha. Suleiman called Abu Risha a "traitor" who "sells his beliefs, his religion and his people for money."

Abu Risha, who enjoys the support of U.S. military commanders, denied the allegations and said the council is not at risk of breaking apart. "There is no such thing going on," he said in a telephone interview from Jordan.

Well, let's hope that even if the tribes can't work out their differences, they still remain clear as to who their real enemy is, because as the Post duly notes:

Since the tribes began working with U.S. forces [about nine months ago] to resist al-Qaeda in Iraq -- and since they began receiving significant amounts of weapons and vehicles -- violence in the province and deaths of U.S. soldiers there have fallen dramatically.

Anthony H. Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, seems to suggest that the Sunni tribes in Anbar could care less about the reduction in casualties they've experienced because they're only in it for the money. As he reportedly told the Post: "The question with a group like this always is, does it stay bought?" What can the Iraqi government offer them over time, and is it enough for them to stay with the bargain?"

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, was less cynical. As the Post reports:

"I think they've done this for their lives," Petraeus said during a recent briefing on Anbar. "This is not just a business deal they've struck. When you oppose al-Qaeda, you are putting it all on the line. This is not an economic issue."

Suleiman alleges that Abu Risha runs an oil smuggling ring and that his tribe menaces the Anbar roads with their highway banditry. For his part, Abu Risha denied the allegations, dismissing Suleiman's criticisms as mere jealousy. "I am in Anbar and I am the first fighter in Anbar. And what they are saying about it is jealousy and no more than jealousy. They are the enemies of success," he told the Post in a telephone interview.

People in Anbar, actually in the theatre of action as opposed to in far-away Baghdad, where the Post reporter is trying to assess the situation, as the reporter is careful to note:

Another member of the council, Raad Sabah al-Alwani, said he had not heard about Suleiman's complaints about the council or plans to dissolve it. "Impossible -- I am the head of the council for Ramadi," he said, referring to Anbar's provincial capital. "The Salvation is like one family. There are no problems between us and the members."

A U.S. Marine spokesman in Anbar, Maj. Jeffrey Pool, said that "we are not detecting any of the indicators of a major restructuring in Sahawa al-Iraq," using another name for the group. "The view from Baghdad will differ from the view from Ramadi."

For now at least, according to the Post, U.S. military commanders are not giving up on the tribes in Anbar:

"When the Americans were sure of our intentions in exterminating al-Qaeda terrorists, they backed us up with weapons, cars and money," said Col. Ahmad Hamad al-Dulaimi, another top police officer in Ramadi. "Without the American forces, we couldn't do anything worth mentioning."

U.S. military officials said that virtually everyone in Anbar belongs to a tribe and that rather than ignore that fact, they were trying to exploit it. "There is an overlay of governmental structure and tribal structure, and the two, when they work well, mesh and, in a sense, complement each other in Anbar," Petraeus said.

Iraq: the country of perpetual "sahel"?

A story by Edward Wong in Sunday's New York Times about what seems to be an Iraqi predilection for tyrants and violent endings seems to have generated a lot of buzz.

Some excerpts:

PERHAPS no fact is more revealing about Iraq’s history than this: The Iraqis have a word that means to utterly defeat and humiliate someone by dragging his corpse through the streets.

The word is “sahel,” and it helps explain much of what I have seen in three and a half years of covering the war.

It is a word unique to Iraq, my friend Razzaq explained over tea one afternoon on my final tour. Throughout Iraq’s history, he said, power has changed hands only through extreme violence, when a leader was vanquished absolutely, and his destruction was put on display for all to see.

Wong goes on to report:

Most famously it happened to a former prime minister, Nuri al-Said, who tried to flee after a military coup in 1958 by scurrying through eastern Baghdad dressed as a woman. He was shot dead. His body was disinterred and hacked apart, the bits dragged through the streets. In later years, Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party crushed their enemies with the same brand of brutality.

“Other Arabs say, ‘You are the country of sahel,’ ” Razzaq said. “It has always been that way in Iraq.”

But in this war, the moment of sahel has been elusive. No faction — not the Shiite Arabs or Sunni Arabs or Kurds — has been able to secure absolute power, and that has only sharpened the hunger for it.

As he goes on to observe:

Caught in the middle of the civil war are the Americans. To Iraq’s factions, they are the weakest of all the armed groups in one crucial respect: their will is ebbing and their time here is limited. That leaves Iraqis more motivated than ever to cling to their weapons, preparing for what many see as an inevitable plunge into the abyss.

“Everyone — the Sunni, the Shia — is playing the waiting game,” an Iraqi leader told me over dinner at his home in the Green Zone. “They’re waiting out the Americans. Everyone is using time against you.”

So how did the Iraqis Wong interviewed think this would all pan out?

A Shiite neighborhood leader - and supporter of democracy - seems to have summed up the general sentiment:

“In the history of Iraq, more than 7,000 years, there have always been strong leaders,” he said. “We need strong rulers or dictators like Franco, Hitler, even Mubarak. We need a strong dictator, and a fair one at the same time, to kill all extremists, Sunni and Shiite.”

With this, Wong concludes:

I was surprised to hear those words. But perhaps I was being naïve. Looking back on all I have seen of this war, it now seems that the Iraqis have been driving all along for the decisive victory, the act of sahel, the day the bodies will be dragged through the streets.

I wonder if Wong's right about this. Are Iraqis really doomed to perpetual sahel? Is it really as bad as Fakhri al-Qaisi, a Sunni Arab dentist in Baghdad, told Wong it is? "We've changed nothing," he was reported as saying. “It’s dark. There will be more blood.”

Maybe this Baghdad dentist should talk to his fellow Sunnis in Anbar Province for a check on another Iraqi reality. While the guys in Anbar haven't had to fight a sectarian war like he perhaps has, they have had to reclaim their territory from no less formidable a foe than Al Qaeda.

They apparently reached their tipping point when Al Qaeda insisted they would now have to segregate their vegetables by gender or they couldn't sell them in the "Islamic State of Iraq" Al Qaeda had just declared. The Sunni tribes united and in just a few months have succeeded in largely kicking the AQ boys out.

Let's say that for now, I'm an agnostic when it comes to the idea that Iraqi Muslims are doomed to fight perpetual civil war and are only capable of wishing for sahel.

More on the Sunnis versus Al Qaeda in Anbar Province

Yesterday's New York Times delved into why so many Sunni tribes have turned against Al Qaeda in Anbar Province, Iraq.

Here are some of the most interesting points:

Many Sunni tribal leaders, once openly hostile to the American presence, have formed a united front with American and Iraqi government forces against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. With the tribal leaders’ encouragement, thousands of local residents have joined the police force. About 10,000 police officers are now in Anbar, up from several thousand a year ago. During the same period, the police force here in Ramadi, the provincial capital, has grown from fewer than 200 to about 4,500, American military officials say.

The Times couldn't help but diminish the situation in Anbar by characterizing it as "essentially a police state" though it at least conceded that this new police state "appears to enjoy the support of the people."

To readers not familiar with why so many Sunni tribes have suddenly turned against Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Times supplied this background:

The turnabout began last September, when a federation of tribes in the Ramadi area came together as the Anbar Salvation Council to oppose the fundamentalist militants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

Among the council’s founders were members of the Abu Ali Jassem tribe, based in a rural area of northern Ramadi. The tribe’s leader, Sheik Tahir Sabbar Badawie, said in a recent interview that members of his tribe had fought in the insurgency that kept the Americans pinned down on their bases in Anbar for most of the last four years.

“If your country was occupied by Iraq, would you fight?” he asked. “Enough said.”

As the Times went on to note:

But while the anti-American sheiks in Anbar and Al Qaeda both opposed the Americans, their goals were different. The sheiks were part of a relatively moderate front that sought to drive the Americans out of Iraq; some were also fighting to restore Sunni Arab power. But Al Qaeda wanted to go even further and impose a fundamentalist Islamic state in Anbar, a plan that many of the sheiks did not share.

Al Qaeda’s fighters began to use killing, intimidation and financial coercion to divide the tribes and win support for their agenda. They killed about 210 people in the Abu Ali Jassem tribe alone and kidnapped others, demanding ransoms as high as $65,000 per person, Sheik Badawie said.

For all the sheiks’ hostility toward the Americans, they realized that they had a bigger enemy...

As the Times wrote:

Abd Muhammad Khalaf, 28, a policeman in the Jazeera district on Ramadi’s northern edge, is typical. He joined the police after Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia killed two of his brothers, he said. “I will die when God wills it,” he said. “But before I die, I will support my friends and kill some terrorists.”

Sheik Badawie reportedly described his own change of heart this way:

“Since I was a little boy, I have seen nothing but warfare — against the Kurds, Iranians, Kuwait, the Americans,” Sheik Badawie said. “We are tired of war. We are going to fight through the ballot box.”

Anbar Salvation Front is sending Al Qaeda packing

Iraqslogger reports:

[The Anbar Salvation] Front announced the immanent defeat of al-Qa'ida-related groups in Anbar province, and asked for permission to pursue militants across provincial lines. Recent reports suggest that such clearance may have been granted.

Tribal forces have been trained in a month-long program at a camp in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, according to a separate report.

Formed in Fall 2006, the "Anbar Salvation Front" represents a coalition of Sunni tribal leaders from Anbar province, under the leadership of the tribal shaykh Abd al-Sattar Abu Risha. The Front is aligned with US forces and the Iraqi government against al-Qa'ida in the Anbar area.

...The tribal forces announced they had conducted wide-ranging attacks in Ramadi, with the help of the Falluja police, and the al-Bu 'Isa tribe in the Amiryiat al-Falluja area, targeting the remaining elements of the al-Qa'ida organization. The group said that the Askari and al-Julan areas of Ramadi had been completely cleared of al-Qa'ida-affiliates, according to al-Hayat’s report.

The tribe announced its success in battles around the Ramadi and Falluja areas, and said that remnants of the militant groups had been chased to the Jazirit Heet area west of Ramadi, al-Hayat writes.

Note what else Iraqslogger reports [especially the text I have highlighted]:

US forces were not informed of the operation, [Iraqi daily] al-Mada reports. Informing US forces would have delayed the operation, the success of
which depended on speed and surprise, the paper writes. The source also said that informing the US would have increased the possibility of the information being leaked which would have caused the terrorists to flee. Al-Mada’s sources said that the local security forces were concerned that some of the individuals working with the US could inform the suspects of the operation.

Now isn't that curious? Anyway, shows what Iraqis themselves can do if they put their minds to it.

More firsthand information from Iraq

Another eyewitness account from Anbar Province over at Outside the Wire:

The odd thing--is that I think there are parts of Al Anbar province where the war may be over and we just don't realize it.

...Whether they are the Sons of Al Anbar, Sawa, TAA, the militia or the Tribal Neighborhood Watch, tribes and clans across across the Euphrates river valley are taking charge of their own security with back up from the Marines.

In another post he recounts what an Iraqi officer told him:

"Thank you for being here. Thank you. You are a reporter? Tell America how much we appreciate Marines. Tell the people thank you and that we want the Marines, the Army here to help us."

As he looked at me, the gravity on his face not that of a 1st Lieutenant, but of a man who was a field grade officer in the former regime, who grew up in a country constantly at war and in tyranny. Lt. Ala joined the army under Sadaam because it was one of the few ways for a man to support his family.

He joined the new Iraqi Army because he wants a life for his family that is better than one of war. He fought the Americans twice, lost both times and says we offer a better life for Iraq than the terrorists.

"Tell America that the Iraqi Army is growing. We are getting stronger. Tell them thank you."

He then pulled me closer and air kissed me on the cheeks.

Live from Anbar Province, Iraq

Here's a report from someone who is actually on the ground over there, seeing things first hand (as opposed to most Western reporters who rely on Iraqi stringers to call in information).

This is what a Marine captain emailed to his buddies over at Op For (a blog you should also check out):

All,

I just wanted to let you know what is happening where I am in Iraq. I don't want to say this is in response to Harry Reid, but his comments the other day are not in line with what we're seeing.We are winning over here in Al Anbar province. I don't know about Baghdad, but Ramadi was considered THE hotspot in Al Anbar, the worse province, and it has been very quiet. The city is calm, the kids are playing in the streets, the local shops are open, the power is on at night, and daily commerce is the norm rather than the exception. There have been no complex attacks since March. That is HUGE progress. This quiet time is allowing the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police to establish themselves in the eyes of the people. The Iraqi people also want IA's and IP's in their areas. The Sunni Sheiks are behind us and giving us full support. This means that almost all Sunnis in Al Anbar are now committed to supporting the US and Iraqi forces. It also means that almost all insurgents left out here are AQ. FYI, the surge is just beginning. Gen Petraeus' strategy is just getting started and we're seeing huge gains here.

However, you don't see Harry Reid talking about this. When I saw what he said, it really pissed me off. That guy does not know what is going on over here because he hasn't bothered to come and find out. The truth on the ground in Al Anbar is not politically convenient for him, so he completely ignored it.

This war can be won. We just need the time to get the IA and IP operating on their own. Gen Petraeus is treating the war like a counter-insurgency rather than a stability operation. For non-military personnel, there is a HUGE difference between the two. What we've been doing in Iraq since Petraeus took over is completely different than what we were doing under Gen Casey. However, you don't hear the press or the democrats say that.

Most of them are too committed to saying we've lost to further their own political agendas that they cannot acknowledge we're doing something totally different and it is working.

Why Sunnis are now turning against Al Qaeda in Iraq

Well, it's not for any of the reasons I would have expected.

According to the Associated Press, after the Sunni tribes realized that Al Qaeda expected vegetable vendors in their areas to segregate their tomatoes from their cucumbers - because of the their gender differences - it finally dawned on the Sunni leaders that life under Al Qaeda wouldn't exactly be, well, free.

While admittedly I don't have a clear sense of what the mentality might be over there, it does still strike me as odd that this was a reason cited - as opposed to say, the fact that Al Qaeda is now reportedly forcing children to carry out its deadly missions.

Not to imply, however, that I would want to live under an order that wanted to police sex between vegetables either.

Look who's reporting good news from Iraq...

Why it's none other than Al-Jazeera:

The guns in the city of Hiyt in Iraq's western province of Anbar have finally fallen silent, thanks to the efforts of local administrators and security force.

Not only are the streets safer, but since March 15, some 500 residents of this former Sunni insurgency stronghold have joined hands with the Anbar Salvation Council to help fight al-Qaeda.

On April 4, Hiyt was even able to hold peaceful elections - for a municipal council that has already gotten to work. As Al-Jazeera reports:

The council has also seen to the reopening of schools for girls, which had been closed down by the al-Qaeda-led Islamic State of Iraq, the self-styled Islamist government set up by the group.

Anbar University is also expected to reopen in the near future, the council told residents.

Internet cafes, which have been targeted throughout most of Iraq, quickly took advantage of the new security environment and reopened.

The optimism seems palpable:

"No more military operations," said a man on his way to market.

"Now people in the city have started to forget the sounds of mortars and explosions."

More news on the Sunni tribesmen versus Al Qaeda in Iraq

Look, the Washington Post has a story today about the growing number of Sunni tribes lining up to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq:

Not long ago it would have been unthinkable: a Sunni sheik allying himself publicly with American forces in a xenophobic city at the epicenter of Iraq's Sunni insurgency.

Today, there is no mistaking whose side Sheik Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi is on...

The 36-year-old sheik is leading a growing movement of Sunni tribesmen who have turned against al-Qaida-linked insurgents in Anbar province. The dramatic shift in alliances may have done more in a few months to ease daily street battles and undercut the insurgency here than American forces have achieved in years with arms.

According to the U.S. commanding officer in Ramadi, Col. John W. Charlton, the Sunni tribesmen, the new U.S. strategy to fight the insurgency, and the addition of thousands of Sunni police have reduced the number of attacks in Ramadi by half in recent months.

Why have the tribes turned against Al Qaeda? The Post reports:

Al-Rishawi, whose father and three brothers were killed by al-Qaida assassins, said insurgents were "killing innocent people, anyone suspected of opposing them. They brought us nothing but destruction and we finally said, enough is enough....

"I was always against these terrorists," al-Rishawi said in an interview inside his American-guarded compound, adjusting a pistol holstered around his waist. "They brainwashed people into thinking Americans were against them. They said foreigners wanted to occupy our land and destroy our mosques. They told us, 'We'll wage a jihad. We'll help you defeat them.'"

The difficult part was convincing others it wasn't true, and that "building an alliance with the Americans was the only solution," al-Rishawi said.

Not every Sunni tribe has joined al-Rishawi's movement, the Anbar Salvation Council, but as the Post goes on to describe the situation:

[V]iolence in some districts of Ramadi previously hit by daily street battles has dwindled to a degree so low that American soldiers can walk on the streets in some areas and hand out soccer balls without provoking a firefight _ apparently a direct result of the sheik's influence.

"If I had the tools, I could wipe al-Qaida from Anbar within five months," al-Rishawi was reported as saying.

Good news from Iraq?

Iraqslogger posted this VOI report today:

Iraqi security forces arrested a so-called amir (leader) of al-Qaeda Organization in Iraq and two of his aides in Abu Ghraib area in western Baghdad, a spokesman for the Baghdad security plan said on Monday.

"A force from the 3rd Brigade raided Abu Ghraib area and arrested Ahmad Farhan and two of his close associates last Tuesday," Brig. Qassem Atta said in a press conference he held on Monday in Baghdad.

Atta played a videotape showing Farhan confessing to his ties with a wanted man called Abu Omar al-Baghdadi.

"I receive support from Syria and Jordan and have got four groups with an amir and 25 members for each," Farhan said in his videotaped confessions.

Centcom seems to be confirming the story. It seems like this would be an important enough story, so where is all the coverage in the mainstream media?

An open Sunni war against Al Qaeda in Iraq?

On Saturday, Omar at Iraq the Model blogged from Baghdad:

With this series of dirty chemical bombings a war between al-Qaeda and the tribes in Anbar is no longer a possibility. It just became a fact...

Al-Qaeda's terrorists-whom AP insists on calling insurgents-expended three suicide bombers and precious resources against their supposedly sympathetic civilian Sunni hosts instead of American and Iraqi soldiers and Shia civilians; their usual enemies....

The reason: al-Qaeda is sensing a serious threat in the change of attitude of the tribes toward them...

The tribes in Anbar are stubborn and they have many ruthless warriors. That's a proven fact and it looks like Al-Qaeda had just made their gravest mistake—their once best friends are just about to become their worst enemy.

And then yesterday, Omar followed up with this report:

The Al-bu Issa tribes in Amiriyat al-Fallujah, backed by local police and the MNF, clashed today with members of the al-Qaeda linked “Islamic State in Iraq” terror organization, according to al-Hurra TV. The battles that are still ongoing have so far left 39 terrorists killed including the “ministers of oil and war” of the terror organization. Six policemen and 11 tribal fighters were also killed during the fighting.

Maybe it's not so great living in the Islamic State in Iraq run by Al Qaeda after all.

Progress in Anbar? Yes, but the mission is not yet accomplished

Stars and Stripes interviewed Col. Sean B. MacFarland, a brigade commander who just returned to Germany after a 14-month tour in Iraq, most of which was spent in Ramadi, the largest city in the restive Sunni province of Anbar. As MacFarland told the Stars and Stripes, Al Qaeda had selected Ramadi to be the capital of "Al Qaedastan."

But thanks to the help of the local shieks, in particular one Sheikh Abdul Sattar, the mostly Sunni Arabs in Ramadi turned against the insurgents.

“One thing Sheikh Sattar keeps saying is he wants al-Anbar to be like Germany and Japan and South Korea were after their respective wars, with a long-term American presence helping ... put them back together,” MacFarland is reported as saying. “The negative example he cites is Vietnam. He says, yeah, so, Vietnam beat the Americans, and what did it get them? You know, 30 years later, they’re still living in poverty.”

The New York Times reported about this tribal alliance against Al Qaeda in September, saying:

Twenty-five of about 31 tribes in Anbar, a vast, mostly desert region that stretches westward from Baghdad to the borders of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, have united against insurgents and gangs that are “killing people for no reason,” said the tribal leader, Sheik Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi [yes, the man Col. MacFarland was referring to as Sheikh Sattar].

“We held a meeting earlier and agreed to fight those who call themselves mujahadeen,” Sheikh Sattar told the Times. “We believe that there is a conspiracy against our Iraqi people. Those terrorists claimed that they are fighters working on liberating Iraq, but they turned out to be killers. Now all the people are fed up and have turned against them."...

Sheikh Sattar estimated that the alliance of 25 tribes had some 30,000 armed men under its control, men who, the Sheikh said "were willing to confront and kill the insurgents and criminal gangs that he blamed for damaging tribal life in Anbar, dividing members by religious sect and driving a wave of violent crime in Ramadi."

Al Qaeda, not surprisingly, was not exactly thrilled to hear about the news of this tribal alliance. The Times quoted one Al Qaeda militant who told Reuters, “This tribal system is un-Islamic. We are proud to kill tribal leaders who are helping the Americans.”

And in spite of the progress MacFarland noticed during his stint, unfortunately, there is still an enemy that has yet to be defeated in Iraq. Just this week in fact, SITE Institute reported that the Islamic State of Iraq -the name Al Qaeda in Iraq has taken to using- claimed responsibility for three suicide bombings, two of which were targeted at the “apostate” followers of none other than Sheikh Sattar. While I'm happy to report that he survived the attacks, alas, some of those around him did not - five police officers and six civilians were reportedly killed in the blasts.

Does this mean the Sunnis will now start pressing for the break-up of Iraq?

The New York Times is reporting that new studies indicate there may be far more oil and gas deposits underneath Sunni-controlled lands in Iraq than was previously thought.

As the Times writes:

The development is likely to have significant political effects: the lack of natural resources in the central and western regions where Sunnis hold sway has fed their disenchantment with the nation they once ruled. And it has driven their insistence on a strong central government, one that would collect oil revenues and spread them equitably among the country’s factions, rather than any division of the country along sectarian regional boundaries.

As Brig. Gen. John R. Allen of the Second Marine Expeditionary Force, the deputy commanding general of Multi-National Force-West, which has responsibility for Anbar Province, told the Times, “What this [new information] does is it gives Anbar and the Sunnis an economic future different from phosphate and cement,” he said, referring to products of some of the aging factories in the area.