I want to kill you but not today
Will American co-operation with former insurgents last?
from The Economist
“QAEM has no room for terrorists,” read the billboards on the desert road to this remote town in Iraq's far north-west, near the Syrian border. In a dusty grid of houses beside a strip of farmland along the Euphrates valley, parents escort their children to school and people go shopping under the watchful eyes of American troops and Iraqi police. Peace, for the moment, prevails. It was very different two years ago. The Americans hail it as a fine example of progress at last.
Qaem was one of the first areas in Iraq to be overrun by a network proclaiming an allegiance to al-Qaeda—and one of the first to throw it out. Starting in 2005, militias run by the powerful Albu Mahal tribe teamed up with the Americans in a series of offensives that has turned a former al-Qaeda stronghold into one of the safer Sunni Arab areas in Iraq. Such “tribal awakenings” are now at the heart of American strategy. The idea is to isolate al-Qaeda and similar groups by building local alliances from the bottom up, rather than wait for the politicians in Baghdad to work out a national reconciliation plan.
But the Shia rulers in Baghdad feel threatened. As the model spreads across Iraq, they fear that creating new militias in a country already swamped with them is a recipe for civil war. This week they denounced the policy for “authorising groups to conduct security outside the government's knowledge and jurisdiction” and for “embracing terrorist elements”.
In the past few months, the movement has spread from its cradle in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, to other Sunni parts of the country. In the farm belt south of Baghdad, the Americans have enlisted 14,000 “concerned citizens” into “neighbourhood watch” programmes to spot infiltration by extremists. In Diyala province, north-east of Baghdad, some members of one of the biggest Sunni insurgent groups, the 1920 Revolution Brigades, now accompany the Americans as guides on patrols and point out al-Qaeda safe houses.
In some cases the Americans have sponsored alliances against al-Qaeda, providing ammunition and security co-ordination, and arranging contracts for tribal leaders to put their men on the payroll. Al-Qaeda has fought back, notably by assassinating a leading Sunni sheikh, Abd al-Sattar Abu Risha, who led the movement from Anbar's capital, Ramadi. But that has not badly disrupted the process.
(Continued here.)
from The Economist
“QAEM has no room for terrorists,” read the billboards on the desert road to this remote town in Iraq's far north-west, near the Syrian border. In a dusty grid of houses beside a strip of farmland along the Euphrates valley, parents escort their children to school and people go shopping under the watchful eyes of American troops and Iraqi police. Peace, for the moment, prevails. It was very different two years ago. The Americans hail it as a fine example of progress at last.
Qaem was one of the first areas in Iraq to be overrun by a network proclaiming an allegiance to al-Qaeda—and one of the first to throw it out. Starting in 2005, militias run by the powerful Albu Mahal tribe teamed up with the Americans in a series of offensives that has turned a former al-Qaeda stronghold into one of the safer Sunni Arab areas in Iraq. Such “tribal awakenings” are now at the heart of American strategy. The idea is to isolate al-Qaeda and similar groups by building local alliances from the bottom up, rather than wait for the politicians in Baghdad to work out a national reconciliation plan.
But the Shia rulers in Baghdad feel threatened. As the model spreads across Iraq, they fear that creating new militias in a country already swamped with them is a recipe for civil war. This week they denounced the policy for “authorising groups to conduct security outside the government's knowledge and jurisdiction” and for “embracing terrorist elements”.
In the past few months, the movement has spread from its cradle in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, to other Sunni parts of the country. In the farm belt south of Baghdad, the Americans have enlisted 14,000 “concerned citizens” into “neighbourhood watch” programmes to spot infiltration by extremists. In Diyala province, north-east of Baghdad, some members of one of the biggest Sunni insurgent groups, the 1920 Revolution Brigades, now accompany the Americans as guides on patrols and point out al-Qaeda safe houses.
In some cases the Americans have sponsored alliances against al-Qaeda, providing ammunition and security co-ordination, and arranging contracts for tribal leaders to put their men on the payroll. Al-Qaeda has fought back, notably by assassinating a leading Sunni sheikh, Abd al-Sattar Abu Risha, who led the movement from Anbar's capital, Ramadi. But that has not badly disrupted the process.
(Continued here.)
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