Tribal Coalition in Anbar Said to Be Crumbling; U.S.-Backed Group Has Fought Al-Qaeda in Iraq

[maddezmom]

Source: Washington Post

By Joshua Partlow and John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, June 11, 2007; Page A11

BAGHDAD, June 10 -- A tribal coalition formed to oppose the extremist group al-Qaeda in Iraq, a development that U.S. officials say has reduced violence in Iraq's troubled Anbar province, is beginning to splinter, according to an Anbar tribal leader and a U.S. military official familiar with tribal politics.

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.

Lt. Col. Richard D. Welch, a U.S. military official who works closely with the tribal leaders in Iraq, said that relations inside the group were strained and that he expected a complete overhaul of the coalition in coming days.

U.S. military leaders hailed the creation of the nearly nine-month-old Anbar Salvation Council, first known as the Awakening, as one of the most important developments in the four-year war, signaling that insurgents and the local population in Anbar, which is overwhelmingly Sunni, have begun to see al-Qaeda in Iraq as their worst enemy, rather than the United States and its allies.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/10/AR2007061001453.html

[rodeodance]

1. Our troops have tried so hard.

[KT2000]

2. Was this the group

in Anbar province that the US haw supplied with arms? In the NYT article this morning, the test for arming Sunnis was done in Anbar province and was "so successful" they are trying it elsewhere.
?!?!?!?!??!

[sam sarrha]

3. hey... it is working so good maybe they will give them planes and razor knives ... and who do you

think they will kill with those guns..you have to read this

the Sunni vs Shia mess is actually a 1400 year old family feud,
http://www.islamfortoday.com/shia.htm
http://www.islamfortoday.com/history.htm

[sabra]

4. k & r

:kick:

[maddezmom]

5. US backs Sunni tribal police, Anbar force splinters

BAGHDAD, June 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. military will cautiously continue arming and training local Sunni Arab tribal police units to fight al Qaeda, its top generals say, even though a much-praised model in western Iraq is unravelling.

Tribal sheikhs gathered in Anbar province, once the most dangerous area in Iraq, on Wednesday to discuss abandoning the Anbar Sahwa Council, held up by Americans as an example of how Sunni Arab Iraqis have united to combat Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.

The strategy of working with local sheikhs to develop tribal police to secure their own neighbourhoods showed local Sunni Arabs had become tired of the indiscriminate killing of thousands of Iraqis by al Qaeda, U.S. generals say.

more:http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/B36461.htm