Awakening Ramadi: Troops, tribes find common ground and success

Stars and Stripes ^ | March 6 2007 | Matt Millham

[jmc1969]

But for the most part, the brigade made little headway in getting Ramadi’s citizens to join the fight against the insurgency, MacFarland said. That is, until Aug. 21. That day, an influential sheik in a Ramadi suburb was killed by al-Qaida in Iraq militants, who held his body for four days and prevented him from being buried in the Muslim tradition.

“That was the decisive miscalculation by al-Qaida that we were able to exploit and that will ultimately lead to the downfall of AQ in al-Anbar province,” MacFarland said. “Al-Qaida had its Waterloo.”

But shortly after the sheik was slain, a group of sheiks — mostly from Ramadi, but some from other parts of Anbar as well — banded together to form a movement against the insurgency. They call it the “Anbar Awakening” movement.

The sheiks aligned with the movement had had enough of the insurgency. They told MacFarland they wanted to help the Americans root out al-Qaida in Iraq. The decision had an immediate impact on the battle for Ramadi.

“Wherever one of these tribes joined the awakening movement, attacks on American forces in that tribal area ceased,” MacFarland said. “It was phenomenal.”

The tribes, with American backing, accomplished more in Ramadi and its suburbs since the awakening than U.S. and Iraqi government forces together had in nearly three years there.

“I saw a lot more cooperation and honesty from the tribes than I saw from the Iraqi government,” MacFarland said.

One of his goals was to get the tribes to join the government, in the hope that some of that cooperation and honesty would transfer over. That process was starting when the brigade left last month.

“There’s still hard fighting to be done,” MacFarland said confidently, “but the decisive victory has already been won.”

[jveritas]

Hopefully we can finally subdue Ramadi, it will be a fatal blow for the Sunni and Al Qaeda terrorists.

[RAY]

You will not see this in the MSM!!

[Stars&StripesNE]

Thank goodness it's starting to turn around in Ramadi. My daughter served there...she said it was a hell hole infested with Al Qaeda.

[vigilante2]

ping

[reagan_fanatic]

Wow - good news. This will be like poison to the drive-by media. They won't touch this with a ten foot jihadist.

[SandRat]

FR WAR NEWS!

WAR News at Home and Abroad You'll Hear Nowhere Else!

All the News the MSM refuses to use!

Or if they do report it, without the anti-War Agenda Spin!