'The Operation Is On!' Iraq's Sunni Tribes Fight Al-Qaeda

[ECH1969]

Western Iraq's powerful sheikhs have launched an offensive against foreign Al-Qaeda extremists on their territory, they have said, in an important victory for the US-backed government.

"The operation is on!" said Sheikh Abdel Sattar Baziya, head of the Abu Risha clan and chair of the Anbar province tribal council. "The sons of Anbar's tribes today captured three Saudis, two Syrians and three Iraqi teenagers and turned them over to police," he told AFP Friday.

This is not the first time that Anbar province's Sunni tribes have pledged to turn over the Sunni insurgents in their midst, but US officers are privately delighted that they now seem to be making good on their promise. The supposed leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Muhajer, tacitly confirmed this Thursday in an Internet plea for Iraqi tribesmen to rejoin his forces in their battle with the "infidels".

Baziya told AFP that they had lost their patience with the "killing and corruption in the province which is unequalled in the rest of the world". Baziya gave a litany of Al-Qaeda crimes in Anbar, including robbing banks, driving out humanitarian organizations, killing journalists, preying on travelers and interrupting oil supplies.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060929/wl_mideast_afp/iraqusqaedatribes_060929141630

[DavidDvorkin]

1. Golly, everything's okay now!

And our troops can come home! Woo hoo!

Or maybe, just possibly, this won't really amount to anything. That could happen.

[0007]

2. Sounds like propaganda coming out of the White House to me.

[enigma000]

3. This seems to be on the up-and-up

al-Buzayi, met with PM al-Maliki a few days back. He claimed he could field 30,000 fighters. The people in Anbar have gotten tied of dealing with al-Qaeda. It was just a matter of time.........

[Teaser]

5. It's utter bullshit

the tribalists like to imagine they have more influence than they actually do. They've been promising this for months on end.

And they've delivered nothing to date. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

[0007]

6. cough cough.....Oh Hum, if you say so!

[Supersedeas]

12. Catapult ready.....Release.....

[pinniped]

13. It sure does.

in an important victory for the US-backed government.

BS

[Teaser]

4. Good news from Iraq thread for sept 29th!

These are such bullshit. I've seen this same thread posted two to three times weekly for the last 12 months.

[rocktivity]

7. Bush seems to have a hard time admitting that the Iraqi insurgency

is predominately Iraqi. I've never bought into the idea of foreign mercencaries streaming across the borders.

:headbang:
rocknation

[Maeve]

8. Yeah, but you're part of that "reality-based" community

Y'know, the ones Bushies don't listen to....:banghead:

[independentpiney]

9. If true, once they're done with the jihadists

they'll turn the guns back on U.S. troops. Only by then they'll have better organization, tactics and probably fresh weapons courtesy of the al-Bush clan.

[enigma000]

10. Who knows, by then it may just be Iraqi soldiers in Anbar

And if they want their share of the oil money from other oil-rich provinces, they really have no choice but to accept the central government.

[independentpiney]

11. Nice scenario, but I don't see it happening.

If they are serious they can neutralize the arab foreigners pretty quickly, within a year on the outside i'd think. I seriously doubt the Iraqis will have stood up that quickly, and a coup in the 'central' puppet goverment wouldn't surprise me either.