Iraq's Awakening stripped of their police ranks - Washington Post, 27 Sep 2010:

Hundreds of police officers, formerly members of an American-backed Sunni paramilitary force, will be stripped of their ranks in the Sunni Arab province of Anbar, tribal leaders and Anbar police said Sunday.

The officers called the move by Iraq's Interior Ministry, which oversees police, a threat to security in Anbar, once a stronghold of Sunni insurgent violence.

In 2006, a group called the Awakening, some of them former insurgents, rose up with tribal and U.S. backing to battle al-Qaeda in Iraq. The same strategy was mirrored across the country with American backing and funding, and what became the Sons of Iraq is credited with helping calm Sunni Arab areas ...