Oct 05 2006
Iraqi Tribal Leaders Join Our Fight
Ed Morrissey notes another round of positive news coming from Iraq as
tribal leaders in the insurgent infested regions of Iraq have become our allies and our now purging their regions of Al Qaeda.
As tribal leaders from Iraq’s troubled Al Anbar province met last week with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, pledging their support to clean out Al Qaeda insurgents, it soon became clear that they were as good as their word.
That day, at a mosque in the town of Ramadi, armed tribesmen seized four men — two Iraqis and two non-Iraqi Arabs — whom the tribesmen believed to be Al Qaeda fighters. The men pleaded for their lives, “for the sake of Islam, and for the sake of the prophet,” according to a man who witnessed the incident during group prayers.
Their bodies were found a few hours later in a dumpster.
Abdul Jabber Hakkam, spokesman for a coalition of 11 tribes that have pledged to fight insurgents in Al Anbar, said that despite what apparently happened in Ramadi, the tribes’ plan was not to dispatch suspects on the spot. Instead, he hopes his fighters will arrest suspects and take them to court or shun them until they leave.
“People have done this with their own personal weapons,” he said. “Now each house that hosts a terrorist, they will force all the residents of the house outside, so they’re on the streets,” he said. When that is done, he predicted, the insurgents will “have no one to keep them, and they will withdraw.”
“We are not just targeting Al Qaeda, but terrorists in general, because people miss real stability and freedom,” Hakkam said.
My earlier post on the news is here. There is nothing more fierce than a people fighting to protect their land and their family. The insurgents are fighting for an ideology – the Iraqis are in a struggle for survival. There is no doubt which side is going to be more motivated. And the fact that the insurgents have been killing Muslims over Americans by a 100 to 1 is not being missed by the Iraqis. If the fight is against American imperialism then that is one thing. If the fighting is to force conscription to Al Qaeda that is another. The strategy in Iraq is clearly turning a corner with Iraqis banding together and Al Qaeda sending messages about their pending failure. How do I know it is turning a corner? Well clearly the events in Iraq have become so pronounced even our liberal media cannot ignore what is happening there.
Any group of people who have been subject to bombs and killings by outsiders will eventually rise up and say enough is enough.
Strata should resist the urge to imitate George Bush and clarify
when he says “insurgents have been killing Muslims ” at a hundred to one rate over Americans, he means the ten percent of Al Qaeda
and foreign insurgents who only compose 10 percent of “the
insurgents.”
Ken,
You can barely speak for yourself. Don’t even try to speak for me. I meant what I said. For every American killed nearly 100 Iraqis have died at the hands of the jihadists. I was not talking about the percentage of the Iraqi population which are insurgents. If you could process beyond elementary school math you would know that the insurgents number somewhere around 4,000 out of 25 million people (rough recollections on the numbers – the magnitudes are right). That is a lot more than 100:1.
You are fun to have around though!
You just don’t get it, Strata. I wasn’t talking about the number of
insurgents, either (but you are wayyyyy off there,which I
will show eventually.)
Chiefly, it is the Al Qaeda/foreign insurgents risk killing or
intentionally kill fellow Moslems ,the latter if Shia, or if they can take out Americans along with the admitted innocents. The Baathists and native Sunni nationalist insurgents (and some Shia) avoid targeting other Moslems except when they are openly collaborating
with the occupiers. They do not do suicides with the “let
Allah seperate the good Moslem from the bad American”
attitude.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5052138.stm
The best authorities on the subject, Iraqi intelligence
estimates 40,000 insurgents and 160,000 sympathizers.
As Woodward has shown, Bush initially ordered his cabinent
not to admit to any insurgency, so Bush Administation numbers
are inherently suspect, call it Westmoreland syndrome.
Yet this link depicts grudging increments of concessions
now amounting to 20,000. Go with the 40,000 as a modest
estimate, as even Iraqis have motives to go low.
AJ,
Good news and good post.
““We are not just targeting Al Qaeda, but terrorists in general, because people miss real stability and freedom,†Hakkam said.”
Thee are recognizing that all terrorists are enemy. No false distinctions here!