Posted on 11/16/2007 4:33:39 PM PST by Dog
BAGHDAD - An armed Sunni group has ended Al-Qaeda’s tight two-year grip on north Baghdad’s volatile Adhamiyah neighbourhood and is now in control, an AFP correspondent witnessed on Friday.
A local militia calling itself the “revolutionaries of Adhamiyah” took over the Sunni district on the east bank of the Tigris on November 10 in a swift and audacious raid that sent Al-Qaeda fleeing from its last stronghold in Baghdad.
On Friday, members of the “revolutionaries of Adhamiyah” controlled main roads into the neighbourhood as well the square housing the famous Abu Hanifa mosque where Saddam Hussein made his last public appearance before fleeing Baghdad in 2003 as US-led forces invaded the country.
A Sunni bastion encircled by Shiite districts, Adhamiyah had been one of the most dangerous areas of Baghdad, under the tight control of Al Qaeda “emirs”.
The AFP correspondent said the neighbourhood was calm with the streets taken over by men wearing dark grey shirts and toting light weapons, Kalashnikovs and machine guns.
There was no sign of any Iraqi police or soldiers as militiamen, most of them in their early twenties, manned makeshift checkpoints, demanding at gunpoint identification from all motorists and passersby.
They were operating without hindrance by the US military, who were patrolling the streets in armoured vehicles.
Occasional sporadic shots could be heard but despite the volatile atmosphere many traders opened their doors and the faithful went quietly to the Abu Hanifa mosque for Friday prayers, lending a semblance of normality to the district.
“We got rid of the groups of murderers who assassinated people in the streets with impunity”, the leader of the group, Abu Abed, told AFP at his headquarters in Adhamiya -- a disused library near the mosque.
“We, the sons of Adhamiyah, decided to fight the terrorists and to chase them out of our district,” said 35-year-old Abu Abed, a baby-faced man whose eyes were hidden by dark glasses.
Abu Abed said his group had seized control of Adhamiyah “in less than two hours” with only around 50 men in a “surprise attack” very early on November 10.
“The Al Qaeda fighters fled when they saw us and took refuge in the bazaar, and then in Kam (in the northern part of Adhamiyah). Thank God we overcame them and we now control the entire zone.”
Three Al Qaeda combatants were killed while 15 were taken prisoner and handed over to the Iraqi security forces, according to Abu Abed, who said only one of his group had died “as a martyr.”
“Our men seized 11 car bombs and discovered several clandestine bomb-making workshops,” said the chief of the “revolutionaries of Adhamiyah”, surrounded by armed bodyguards.
“We fought alone,” he stressed. “Nobody helped us -- neither government forces nor the American army.
“Our only support, material and moral, come from our brothers in the Sunni Endowment who provided us with money, weapons and ammunition,” added Abu Abed, referring to the body which manages Sunni religious sites across Iraq.
He said that the US military had offered to aid the group should there be a massive counter-attack by Al Qaeda, which so far had not occurred.
“We were 50 at the start, we now number more than 1,000. If God wants it, we will soon be 1,500
Democrats everywhere are deeply saddened.
QUICK! HURRY! can the dems still raise the white flag before the last terrorist leaves?????? Oh no! what shall they do now? I guess dialogue really wasn’t what end all.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Amazing...finally Iraqis’ taking control of their country...;o)
Terrorist are going to have no place to call home, saddening Democrats even more.
Good riddance.
"Yes we are saddened. Deeply, deeply saddened."
But Benedict Murtha and the Jihadicrats told us the war was lost etc.
"This ain't no way to run a quagmire!"
So tell me again, Nancyness and Baghdad Bob Reid, what exactly is not working?
Bush should be holding press conferences every day side by side with actual troops to hammer what is happening home.
And to the mullahs, and Ahmanutjob, payback is gonna be a bit@h.
5.56mm
Too bad this post had to come from the Khaleej Times instead of the New York Times.
I guess that shows what Times we are in.
May Allegra have that quiet dinner in a Baghdad sidewalk cafe very soon. And God bless our military.
News you won’t see in a major American Media outlet, that’s for sure...
It doesn’t help in the eternal struggle to “Get” Bush for winning in 2000, so it must be buried...
ping
“We were 50 at the start, we now number more than 1,000. If God wants it, we will soon be 1,500”
I don’t find it particuliarly heartening that one - non government controlled - group got rid of another. Of course, I’m glad to see Al Quada get shoved off, but how long before this group gets to feeling its oats and makes trouble for the Iraqi government and thus the U.S. military?
And who is the group that funded them? The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend.
In Afganistan we supported the Taliban fighting the USSR only to have to fight the Taliban ourselves.
I would prefer that the locals snitch on the bad guys and let us (the U.S. military) take them out, or the Iraqi government do so with our help. Militias in that part of the world are just gangs.
one more, similar to other recent topics.
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