Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha was not the first in Anbar to challenge Al Qaeda in Iraq’s hold upon the province, but he was the most successful at it. He proposed the Anbar Awakening in 2006, which eventually helped re-take the governorate away from the militants. It was a dramatic transformation for a place that the American forces had almost written off. Abu Risha had far more goals than that, but he wasn’t able to see them come to fruition as he was assassinated a year after he formed the Awakening. His brother, Ahmed Sattar al-Rishawi Abu Risha took over the movement after his brother’s death. He followed through with Abdul’s plans and transformed the movement into a political organization. To Ahmed Abu Risha the Awakening was an initiative that only Iraqis could have come up with, as only they had the ability to sway others away from the insurgency and transform Anbar.
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