Sunnis revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq

[Culpeper]

By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writers 34 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - U.S. troops battled al-Qaida in west Baghdad on Thursday after Sunni Arab residents challenged the militants and called for American help to end furious gunfire that kept students from final exams and forced people in the neighborhood to huddle indoors.

[Tom Odom]

Ahmed denied being a member of any insurgent groups but said he sympathizes with "honest Iraqi resistance," referring to those opposed to U.S.-led efforts in Iraq but also against the brutal tactics of al-Qaida.

"Al-Qaida fighters and leaders have completely destroyed Amariyah. No one can venture out and all the businesses are closed," he said. "They kill everyone who criticizes them and is against their acts even if they are Sunnis."

"What al-Qaida fighters do is not jihad (holy war), these acts are just criminal ones. Jihad must be against the occupation, Shiite militias and those who cooperate with them," he added. "Those fighters are here only to kill Iraqis and not the Americans. They are like cancer and must be removed from the Iraqi body."

This reminds me of the final gunfight in the movie; just who gets to play "Angel Eyes" and who ends up being "Tuco" depends on which section of the audience is voting.

Tom

[goesh]

-hard to beat that analogy

[sullygoarmy]

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend".

As much as its good to hear about this incident and the Sunni "Awakening" in Al Anbar, one wonders how long before Sunnis turn on the U.S. if AQ were to pull out.

[Abu Buckwheat]

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend".

As much as its good to hear about this incident and the Sunni "Awakening" in Al Anbar, one wonders how long before Sunnis turn on the U.S. if AQ were to pull out.

Hmmm ... These press reports reek of IO. We must keep in mind that the Sunnis ARE the insurgency (the "honest resistance" that has killed over 3,000 US troops). AQI is about 2-5% of the whole resistance force ... if they left tomorrow the insurgency would be in full swing but SVBIED attacks would give way just a bit in intensity but would not stop ... the first SVBIED attacks in Iraq were by Saddam loyalists.

[Stu-6]

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend"

But some people have more than one enemy.

[SWJED]

10 June LA Times commentary - Al Qaeda's New Enemy -- Iraqis by Frederick Kagan.

... The story of the "Anbar Awakening" — the uniting of the province's Sunni Arab tribes against Al Qaeda — is relatively well known. In mid-2006, a Marine intelligence officer in Al Anbar declared the situation hopeless and the province irretrievably lost. The Iraqi government was unable to recruit Anbaris into the local or national police or into the Iraqi army. But later that year, a combination of Al Qaeda atrocities and skillful counterinsurgency techniques by U.S. forces convinced Sunni tribal leaders that enough was enough.

Today, more than 12,500 Anbari recruits, the overwhelming majority of them Sunnis, are fighting or preparing to fight Al Qaeda despite ferocious counterattacks by the terrorists against them and their families. Tribal leaders are negotiating with the Iraqi government to rebuild their war-torn province. Violence in the provincial capital has dropped precipitately, from 108 deaths a week in mid-February to seven in the second week of May. Al Anbar has gone from hopeless to a beacon of hope and a signal of the turn of Iraq's Sunnis against their erstwhile terrorist allies.

Now the movement against Al Qaeda is spreading. "Salvation councils" similar to the Anbar Awakening have been formed in mostly Sunni Salahuddin province (north of Baghdad),Shiite-Sunni mixed Diyala province (northeast of the capital) and mostly Shiite Babil province (south of Baghdad). In some cases, their coming together coincides with cease-fires between U.S. forces and non-Al Qaeda insurgent groups. All are striving to reestablish normal relations with the Iraqi government.

Al Qaeda has responded in characteristic fashion — a campaign of atrocities designed to intimidate or kill its new antagonists. Such tactics were successful in the past. No longer...

[Abu Buckwheat]

10 June LA Times commentary - Al Qaeda's New Enemy -- Iraqis by Frederick Kagan.

Somehow I knew this would be written by a Kagan ...

[Jedburgh]

Iraq's Sunni Arabs, once one of the most supportive communities of Al Qaeda, are now among the most hostile, repudiating their alliance of convenience with the terrorists and risking their lives to fight with us against our worst enemies. This is a trend worth fighting to continue, and Iraqis who now stand with us at their own peril are people worth fighting for.

This is a true rose-colored glasses POV. Don't misunderstand me, Al Qa'ida in Iraq driving indig Sunni over to our side is a very good thing - in general terms. This has been discussed before on the board.

But keep in my mind that for them, this is also an "alliance of convenience" - and temporary. This doesn't translate into love for the Shi'a or for the coalition in broad terms. They are simply exploiting us to aid them in ridding themselves of a particularly virulent parasite.

However, this can be massaged into a long-term strategic benefit for us, if handled with care. But we can't do it by ourselves - once again, we need the indig Shi'a to take significant positive measures that will reinforce Sunni integration into the new Iraq. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening any time soon. The Shi'a political groups in Iraq are beset by infighting, and as they fragment there is no chance of any substantive movement in this direction.

So, if substantive measures aren't taken, then this will end up being no more than a temporary alliance to kick out one set of foreign SOBs. And the indig Sunni will most likely exploit this opportunity to enhance their capabilities to renew the offensive against us once they've driven Al Qa'ida out of their territory. This is not to say that they are exactly passively sitting around right now....

[Culpeper]

Jedburgh

I agree with your assessment based solely on the history of the region. If Al Queda is complicating matters with forcing their brand of Islam on the Sunnis than the fight is just between Al Queda and the Sunnis involved. It has little to do with America versus Al Queda. But that doesn't really matter if the end result complicates Al Queda and Sunni operations against coalition forces. The fact that this is happening is a goal of counterinsurgency operations. It is almost putting a sqaure peg in a sqaure hole. I state this because America is a stumbling block between the real fight between the Sunni and Shiites. A fight that has been going on since the beginning of the Islamic calendar. There is nothing we can do about that. In the meantime, and like you stated, in the short term, we have bad Sunnis killing Al Queda and vice versa. This works in our favor. Incidentally, this in-fighting, such as between different tribes and sects, has been occurring ever since Operation Iraqi Freedom got under way. Up until then it was a one-sided fight while Saddam was in power. But as for this development. It is also recorded since the beginning the Islamic calendar of Muslims making deals with the devil. So, anything is possible. What is good for the company is good for everyone.

I guess I'm an optimist. Counterinsurgency is unconventional warfare. When we see signs that something is occurring along that doctrine that is in the counterinsurgents' favor I looked at it as a positive. Most learned thinkers on the subject tend to reflect negatively. As if counterinsurgency is an impossibility and any good news should be viewed with caution all the time. At what point do we decide it is working? Never?

The history of the region is long term. Our involvement will forever be on a short term basis. Just ask the Mongols.

[Jedburgh]

...Counterinsurgency is unconventional warfare. When we see signs that something is occurring along that doctrine that is in the counterinsurgents' favor I looked at it as a positive. Most learned thinkers on the subject tend to reflect negatively. As if counterinsurgency is an impossibility and any good news should be viewed with caution all the time. At what point do we decide it is working?

The problem is that the fight we face in Iraq isn't a just a COIN fight. As others have mentioned on this board (I believe Bill Moore has put it very well a few times), in Iraq we have elements of COIN, terrorism, civil war/sectarian fighting, inter & intra militia warfare, and plain old fashioned brutal criminal gangs - all of this as we attempt to help the Iraqis forge a new democratic state in a country which has no history of such a thing.

Success is not impossible. But it's damn hard when you don't know what the hell you're doing.

[Abu Buckwheat]

This is a true rose-colored glasses POV. Don't misunderstand me, Al Qa'ida in Iraq driving indig Sunni over to our side is a very good thing - in general terms. This has been discussed before on the board.

But keep in my mind that for them, this is also an "alliance of convenience" - and temporary. This doesn't translate into love for the Shi'a or for the coalition in broad terms. They are simply exploiting us to aid them in ridding themselves of a particularly virulent parasite.

However, this can be massaged into a long-term strategic benefit for us, if handled with care ... So, if substantive measures aren't taken, then this will end up being no more than a temporary alliance to kick out one set of foreign SOBs. And the indig Sunni will most likely exploit this opportunity to enhance their capabilities to renew the offensive against us once they've driven Al Qa'ida out of their territory.

This is a good assessment of the article and the situation between the three wings of the Sunni insurgency. AQ’s presence is an alliance of convenience. However, I believe that the alliance between Al Qaeda and the Sunni Religious extremists and the main force FRL insurgents is the opposite of what Kagan and many other planners believe. This may be related to Kagan’s eternal love for small resistance groups (he was a big supporter of the Contras). Near daily ideological thinkers such as Rober and Kimberly Kagan (in her National Review Online “Iraq Reports”) are giving the mis-guided impression that AQI is the motivating and guiding leadership of the insurgency. In fact, they believe that AQI is almost exclusively the heart and soul of the insurgency.

For the last two months many in the media have been forwarding the belief that we are in the midst of a Sunni-wide upraising against AQI. Repeatedly one report about a tribe supporting the coalition has been evolving into a tidal wave of Sunni support for the coalition and a major "awakening" against the foreign Salafists.

From my study each report of support has been limited to very specific areas and people/tribal leaders who now, with coalition assistance, are the economic and power players in their small piece of terrain. I believe many of these leaders are not long for this world or are merely laying their community’s need for immediate gratification while still supporting the insurgency with material support. The report that 1,200 men out of a 5 million person population joined the local IP and swore an oath at the urging of tribal leaders and that they have sworn to kick out AQI is a good step. However the 1,200 men who participate in this effort remains a far cry from estimated 8,000 men per year who join the Sunni insurgents.

I believe there is a small amount of friction between AQI-Islamic State of Iraq’s ludicrous goals of imposing Islamic law and acting as defenders of Iraq. Friction between competing irregular forces is a historical fact. The history of the Fatah movement in the Palestinian community is a good example of rivals attacking each other... over four decades the PLO, PFLP, DFLP and now HAMAS and other groups have clashed as they vied for dominance in a field of combat against a common enemy. Yet they have cooperated far more than they have fought. AQI has always been a foreign presence in Iraq that was barely tolerated. Every time they start placing posters in areas they infest and declaring Sharia’ law, most Iraq locals take it in stride and balance that out against getting a few licks in against the columns of Bradley AFVs, Humvees and M-1As that deny them jobs, money and electricity. When one’s child is crying from lack of sleep because its 120 degrees and you have no fuel oil to run the generator to run the AC then smiling when the foreign Takfiris blow up an American tank or Humvees with an IED it all doesn’t seem so bad. Crying child, lack of sleep and someone strikes the blow against the people who all made your lack of sleep happen. You will support that blow either passively or actively.

The Sunni community sees all of the insurgents, FRL, AQI and Iraqi Islamic extremist nationalists as a hedge against the Americans and the Shiite-Kurd government... its all the hope they have. For the local on the ground its a zero sum game. Occasionally and I think this is an example where the local population have friction and are using the Americans to cover for that friction. A few small clashes in Baghdad does not mean AQI is falling. At anytime the FRLs could snap their fingers and AQI would disappear from the face of the earth ... I have been actively encouraging this. We could leave Iraq tomorrow if Al Qaeda ended as a movement in the FRL-based insurgency, given that they would have no community base in which to operate. However the FRLs need AQI to sustain the pressure on the psyche of the world through SVBIEDs .... I really believe the SVBIED pipeline is neo-Baathist run and Salafist executed. It has such a disproportionate impact that Robert Kagan takes the slightest internecine friction as a sign the end is near.

The neo-Baathists must love this guy... the pro-war crowd has been dancing to the tune of a brilliant, concerted FRL information war since day one. The FRLs operating out of Damascus, Sharjah UAE and Amman are smart and they know what kind of news makes is think we are winning and everytime we believe it they employ a wave of bad news, through AQI, and we lose face -again. In fact, they are most likely planning for a nation-wide push at some point in September (if May’s wave of attacks wasn’t that push then we have big trouble) with AQI just to show how wrong we are, but they will wait until we are entrenched in the idea that we have now started defeating AQI with Sunni insurgent proxies. We fell for this in 2004 and it is destine to happen again. We appear to be embracing any bad idea to make the appearance of forward progress.