Free Republic

BAGHDAD — Two months ago, a dozen Sunni insurgents — haggard, hungry and in handcuffs — stepped tentatively into a U.S.-Iraqi combat outpost near Baqouba and asked to speak to the commander: "We're out of ammunition, but we want to help you fight Al Qaeda." Now hundreds of fighters from the 1920s Revolution Brigades, an erstwhile Sunni insurgent group, work as scouts and gather intelligence for the 10,000-strong American force in the fifth day of its mission to remove Al Qaeda gunmen and bomb makers from the Diyala provincial capital. Little so well illustrates the Middle Eastern dictum: "The enemy...

Under cover of darkness, a convoy of Bradley Fighting Vehicles and M1-tanks loaded with American soldiers pulled up to a mosque Monday night in the al-Qaeda-infested neighborhood of Amariyah. More than a dozen members of Islamic Army of Iraq, a key Sunni insurgent group, and some local residents waited for them, armed with AK-47 rifles and dressed in tracksuits and T-shirts. But the two forces didn't clash. Instead, they shared information and supplies, in a growing push by Islamic Army of Iraq and their neighborhood backers to push al Qaeda's foreign fighters from the formerly wealthy district that includes Baghdad's...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The mayor of Baqouba and 1,500 police officers in Diyala province have been fired in a bid to end the raging violence in that region northeast of Baghdad, the provincial police chief said Sunday. Ghanim al-Qureyshi, who took command of police operations in the violent province after his predecessor was sacked last month, said Mayor Khalid Al-Senjeri, a Sunni Muslim, was dismissed over suspicions he was collaborating with Sunni Arab insurgents. Last week, the mayor was reported kidnapped by insurgents who blew up his office and stole several new police vehicles in Baquoba, the provincial capital. He...

by Mark Finkelstein June 23, 2006 When it comes to cutting and running, John Kerry, Jack Murtha and Nancy Pelosi take a back seat to no one. But what if, quel horreur!, the terrorist insurgents in Iraq beat them to the white flag punch? Amidst the news of the day, from plots to bomb the Sears Tower to more Dem disunity, Jim Miklaszewski let slip this little bombshell, coming from a press conference by the top U.S. commander in Iraq, General George Casey: "On the positive front, Casey revealed for the first time the Sunni insurgency has reached out to...