Uneasy Alliance Tames One Insurgent Bastion

[tequila]

NYTIMES article summarizing what those who have been keeping track already know about progress in Anbar province.

[SWJED]

An excerpt from the NY Times article:

... Many Sunni tribal leaders, once openly hostile to the American presence, have formed a united front with American and Iraqi government forces against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. With the tribal leaders’ encouragement, thousands of local residents have joined the police force. About 10,000 police officers are now in Anbar, up from several thousand a year ago. During the same period, the police force here in Ramadi, the provincial capital, has grown from fewer than 200 to about 4,500, American military officials say.

At the same time, American and Iraqi forces have been conducting sweeps of insurgent strongholds, particularly in and around Ramadi, leaving behind a network of police stations and military garrisons, a strategy that is also being used in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, as part of its new security plan...

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29 April LA Times - Iraqis Reclaim Ramadi from Insurgents by Charles Kraul.

They closed down Hissam Hamed's Internet cafe, told history professor Abid Mohammed how to pray, and killed 16-year-old Ammar Alwani because he scoffed at their religious edicts.

Nearly everyone you talk to in Ramadi has a story about how life under the insurgents calling themselves Al Qaeda in Iraq progressively worsened over the three years they were in control here, finally pushing the residents of this Sunni Triangle city into the unlikely arms of the U.S. military.

When they arrived in the summer of 2003, the Islamic extremists found Ramadi fertile ground for recruits to fight the U.S. Marines and soldiers who had occupied the city after overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Al Qaeda in Iraq even declared an Islamic state of Iraq, with Ramadi its provisional capital.

But over time, the extremists overplayed their hand by imposing strict religious doctrine, hijacking the city government and enforcing a brutal intimidation campaign to keep the locals in line, residents said...

[jwkelley]

It would be extremely interesting to know the difference between those Iraqi Wohabist and those in Saudi Arabia. Wohabs teachers were not normally as violent as they seem to come out today. It was his teaching mixed with those of an Ibn Tamiyah, a scholar who wrote during the invasion of the mongols (wonder why he is so extreme and militaristic), that create alot of this very militant islam we see today. Wohab though was militant, but alot calmer, it took the Sauds 27 years to conquer Riyad because Ibn Wohab believed that you had to negociate to extremes before fighting.

it be interesting to see if that was why they were more willing to work with the Americans. Makes me fearful though for they will probably be going back to fighting us in the end if we do not leave to their satifaction. Reminds me of the times in the Koran where Mohammed talks about working with infidels, he tells Muslims to stick to their work, but once their promise is over war can be brought back on.