Posted on 06/01/2007 8:19:23 AM PDT by ASC2006
Several indications point to US progress at co-opting Iraq's Sunni minority, which has been the backbone of the insurgency in that country.
Tired of the random violence wrought by al Qaeda terrorists, some Sunni political leaders and communities appear to be allying themselves with the US in an effort to rid themselves of al Qaeda. If those trends are confirmed, they could amount to a key watershed for the US mission. Meanwhile, US military leaders have sought to arrange separate ceasefires with different Sunni groups.
The Washington Times reports, "A battle raged yesterday in western Baghdad after residents rose up against al Qaeda and called for US military help to end random gunfire that forced people to huddle indoors and threats that kept students from final exams, a member of the district council said."
The AP says the Amariyah fight "reflects a trend that U.S. and Iraqi officials have been trumpeting recently to the west in Anbar province." Many Sunni tribes "in the province have banded together to fight al-Qaida, claiming the terrorist group is more dangerous than American forces."
The Washington Post notes the mayor of the Amiriyah neighborhood, Mohammed Abdul Khaliq, "said in a telephone interview that residents were rising up to try to expel al-Qaeda in Iraq, which has alienated other Sunnis with its indiscriminate violence and attacks on members of its own sect."
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...
Ping.
Ironically, it maybe Al Qaida that unites Iraqis and brings and end to insurgency. Now if the Sunnis can just remain pacified until this thing plays out.
maybe = may be
More good news that the media will not report.
Th excellent news keeps on coming, even the liberal media has difficult times hiding it, although they will keep trying.
This is from US News & World Report—pretty much MSM.
Interestingly, this was Bush’s plan from the beginning; that the people of Iraq embrace democracy and reject the culture of death. In that way, Al Qaeda does hurt it’s own cause.
I didn’t think that it would be the Sunni who come around first.
Here is a cute sentence included in an AP article about the Sunni’s fighting AQ:
“The fight reflects a trend in which many Sunni tribes in Anbar province have banded together to fight al-Qaida, claiming that the terrorist group is more dangerous than American forces.”
If they wouldn’t include this sh*t, it wouldn’t be AP.
When Iraq is cleaned of Al-Qaeda, the Mahdi Army will lose a lot of influence. The only real reason they exist is as a “protector of the Shias” against Al-Qaeda. They need Al-Qaeda to justify their usefulness to the Shia population.
The Sunnis are by in large much more secular and the educated elite of Iraq and they are anti Iranian.
They are our natural allies in the country.
Of course we fired them all from their jobs and put religious Shia close to Iran in charge of controlling who gets their jobs back, basically making them second class citizens in the country they ruled for hundreds of years. Why they by in large opposed our project in Iraq is obvious and why they are some of our best allies in Iraq today is also obvious.
As I said, we won this in August-Nov. 2004. It takes a while for the drive-bys to figure it out.
See today's www.iraqthemodel.com post for a slightly different "Iraqi" take on this battle.
The people who are fighting al-Qaeda in Baghdad are Baathists and tribe members. They are the power in the Sunni community other then al-Qaeda.
And, the reports from the Iraqi and US media are that locals are helping the Baathists.
You have to be careful though...
Just because there may be a Sunni uprising against Al-Qaeda doesn’t mean they become our friends. After they kick Al-Qaeda out of our region they’ll do whatever it takes to kick us out including killing our soldiers there.
Answer:”Al-Qaeda terrorists” in Iraq.
Question: (from Rosie O’D), “Who are the terrorists?”
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