Live from Baghdad: New Sunni alliance forming to oppose Al Qaeda in Iraq

USA Today reports, er, yesterday, that more Sunnis are joining the fight:

More than 10 Iraqi tribes in the Baghdad area have reached agreements with U.S. and Iraqi forces for the first time to oppose al-Qaeda, raising the U.S. military's hopes that a trend started in western Iraq is spreading here.
Some of the groups, which have members who fought alongside al-Qaeda in the past, have been providing useful intelligence to U.S. forces about their former allies, according to the U.S. military.

"They know where they live and who they are," said Lt. Col. Rick Welch, a staff officer who works with tribes in the capital area.

Another Sunni province in Iraq turning against Al Qaeda; meanwhile Sadr's militia is terrorizing Iraqi policemen elsewhere in Iraq

The Associated Press reports:

American forces freed 42 kidnapped Iraqis — some of whom had been hung from ceilings and tortured for months — in a raid Sunday on an al-Qaida hideout north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

Military officials said the operation, launched on tips from residents, showed that Iraqis in the turbulent Diyala province were turning against Sunni insurgents and beginning to trust U.S. troops.

As the AP went on to report:

"The more contact we have (with) the Iraqi citizens, the more confidence that they develop in us, and in the Iraqi police and the Iraqi army. That leads to greater cooperation from the Iraqi citizenry," said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman.

Meanwhile, as the AP goes on to report:

...in Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, 70 police officers resigned from an elite police unit and handed over their weapons, saying they were afraid of the Mahdi Army militia of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, police said.

As one officer told the AP: "I fear reprisals, I want to keep my family and relatives safe."

More evidence that Al Qaeda is losing its base in Iraq

Time Magazine reports:

Al-Qaeda has lost its most powerful friend in Iraq: Harith al-Dari, the country's most influential Sunni cleric and a prominent anti-American figure, has rejected al-Qaeda's vision of an Islamic state, telling TIME that Iraqis "will not accept such a system." In a sharp departure from his long-standing view of the terror group, al-Dari now says al-Qaeda has "gone too far." He also repudiates recent statements on Iraq by Osama bin Laden's deputy, saying: "Ayman al-Zawahiri doesn't represent Iraqis."

Of course this doesn't mean that he's suddenly fallen in love with the "U.S. occupation" as Time characterizes it - or the Shiite-led Iraqi government.

Now who exactly is this guy? U.S. military commanders told Time al-Dari "is the spiritual head of the insurgency, and [they] accuse his son Muthanna of personally commanding a deadly terror group known as the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution (named after an anti-British uprising led by Harith al-Dari's grandfather)."

He's also the guy, Time goes on to report, that "has given religious sanction to some of the insurgency's more controversial tactics, such as kidnapping and killing foreigners, citing precedents from Islamic history."

So why the sudden change of heart? He told Time that the suicide bombings and attacks on civilians finally got to him.

But, as Time goes on to report, there may be a more personal motive here: Al Qaeda just happened to have murdered his nephew, a top commander of the Brigades, in March.

Hey, I'm just happy he finally figured out how despicable these guys are.

Live from Baghdad: More Sunnis revolting against the "insurgency"

Omar Fadhil reports:

Al-Sabah reported today that “some community leaders in Adhamiya [a Sunni stronghold in Baghdad] are working on forming a salvation council for their own district they will be calling The Adhamiya Awakening. Sources close to the leaders said they (the leaders) have managed to win the support of some hundred people who agree with the new position. The sources asserted that the goal of the Awakening is to rid Adhamiya of the terrorists.”

Last but not least I’d like you to read this story “Iraqi artists find canvas in the cruel concrete of war”. Those brave artists are risking their lives to simply offer fellow Baghdadis a glimmer of hope, something beautiful to look at and remember that not everything about their life is dark. Remember that those artists are standing on both sides of Blast Walls. It’s this kind of spirit that helps me and other Baghdadis remain hopeful.“Wild horses couldn’t drag me away. / Wild, wild horses. We’ll ride them some day.”

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.

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.

Even more Sunnis turning against al Qaeda in Iraq

From today's Washington Post:

In the Sunni heartland of Anbar and other provinces, Sunni groups are accusing al-Qaeda in Iraq of killing, kidnapping and torturing dozens of their fighters, clerics and followers.

Alaa Makki, a Sunni member of parliament who reportedly has close ties to the insurgents told the Post: "They have realized that those people are not working for Iraq's interests. They realized that their operations might destroy Iraq altogether."

But according to the Post's own sources inside the Iraqi insurgency:

Insurgent leaders, in interviews in person or by telephone, offered different explanations for their split. Many said their link to the al-Qaeda groups was tainting their image as a nationalist resistance force. Others said they no longer wanted to be tools of the foreign fighters who lead al-Qaeda. Their war, they insist, is against only the U.S. forces, to pressure them to depart Iraq.

"We do not want to kill the Sunni people nor displace the innocent Shia, and what the al-Qaeda organization is doing is contradictory to Islam," said Abu Marwan, a religious leader of the Mujaheddin Army in Baqubah, northeast of Baghdad. "We will strike whoever violates the boundaries of God, whether al-Qaeda or the Americans."

..."Al-Qaeda has killed more Iraqi Sunnis in Anbar province during the past month than the soldiers of the American occupation have killed within three months. People are tired of the torture," said Abu Mohammad al-Salmani, an Islamic Army commander.... "We cannot keep silent anymore."

In a letter addressed to al Qaeda and written by one such Sunni group, al Qaeda is accused of "killing innocent people with gases like chlorine." The group also objected to the "Taliban-like" Islamic codes al Qaeda was trying to impose on Iraqis in the areas under its control.

Some Sunni leaders are now even blaming al Qaeda for the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. As Khalid Awad, a commander of the Jamiat Brigades, another insurgent group in Anbar, reportedly told the Post: "We must confess that if it was not for al-Qaeda, neither Iraq nor Afghanistan would have been occupied. For al-Qaeda has awakened the American ogre against the Islamic nation after the September 11th events, and it is still causing disasters."

Some Sunni groups are now urging uniting in order to better fight Al Qaeda. As the Post reports:

"If they do not unite, they will be weakened," Mutlaq said. "Then al-Qaeda will manage to make their Islamic state in Iraq, and it will be a sad day for the country and the world."

What are the chances the Democrats and the Republicans, not to mention Iraq's neighbors, will follow the Sunnis' lead?

What the Sunni tribesman opposed to al Qaeda have to endure

The New York Times reports:

Gunmen attacked a car carrying Harith Thahir Khamees al-Dari and fired a rocket-propelled grenade, killing him and wounding his driver, in Abu Ghraib, the authorities said.

“We accuse Al Qaeda,” said a relative of the family, Abu Abdullah. “The sheik has his stands against Al Qaeda, as Al Qaeda started targeting the innocent, civilians and children, police and army.”

And of course there's more:

In another attack, a suicide bomber detonated his explosive belt at a bus stop near a restaurant in Ramadi, west of Baghdad in Al Anbar province. At least 10 people were killed and 20 wounded, according to Col. Tariq Yusuf, the security supervisor in the city.

Reuters reported that at least 17 people were killed and 32 wounded in the attack, in an area frequented by the Iraqi police and where local tribes have joined the tribal alliance against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the insurgent group that claims ties to the Qaeda organization and has been associated with some of the most destructive attacks in Iraq.

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.

Popular misperceptions about Iraq?

Jay Nordlinger, in the NRO, pokes some holes in popular perceptions:

The conventional line is that this is a Sunni-Shiite civil war; but the news pages often tell us that it’s a war by terrorists on any and all wanting a decent life.

As an example of a story that doesn't fit into this narrative, Nordlinger cites the case of the attempted assassination of Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaieas on Saturday.

If Iraq has truly descended into a sectarian civil war, why then, as Nordlinger points out, were Al-Zubaieas' would-be assassins not Shiite? Shouldn't they have been given that he is the ranking Sunni leader in the Iraqi goverment?

So why do you think his would-be assassins turned out to be his fellow Sunnis? Yes,that's right, the folks at Al Qaeda. In addition to seriously wounding the Deputy PM, they killed nine people in the car bombing timed to go off while the men were praying. Among the dead was al-Zubaieas' brother.

This news clearly took Nordinger's breath away:

I have said it before, and must say it again: Those who serve in the Iraqi government are among the bravest people in the world. They are constantly ducking murder, and their loved ones are having to do the same. But these officials get nothing but grief, from all quarters. They should really have our gratitude and admiration, whatever the mistakes they have made.

Then there is the myth of the noble insurgents in Iraq, those who are only resisting occupation as the conventional thinking would have it. But as Nordlinger points out, these noble insurgents, who he calls terrorists are, to quote him, "[now] using children in their suicide bombings — leaving them in the backseats of cars, to be blown to bits, along with other innocents." As Nordlinger asks:

What does it take to awaken the world at large to the nature of this enemy? A lot, apparently. Many people in this country are convinced that George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Al Gonzales are the enemy. One should be so lucky.

And, by the way, above, I should have said “terrorists in Iraq,” rather than “Iraqi terrorists.” The terrorists in that country are as likely as not to be foreign — fighting one, everywhere jihad.

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.

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.