I'm just as skeptical, especially as far as a long-run solution. Relying on and building up the Ramadi tribes into the security forces is, IMO, a long-run nightmare in waiting if the Shia-dominated government ever tries to extend its power over Anbar.

Anyway, AQI appears to be hitting back.

In Monday's deadliest attack, suspected al Qaeda militants pulled the family of mourners from a minibus in daylight and gunned them down, including two young boys, after finding out they were from a Sunni tribe opposed to al Qaeda, police said.

The western city of Falluja is in the Sunni Arab insurgent bastion of Anbar province.

In Ramadi, capital of Anbar, two suicide bombers killed 11 people when they targeted the house of Sattar al-Buzayi, a tribal leader who has led a government-backed effort to fight al Qaeda.

One suicide car bomb hit the blast walls outside his house, then a bomber blew up his truck near the house, witnesses said.