Is the tide turning, perhaps?

[Captain Liger 0]

There's an overwhelming opportunity here for us to really get things going in the direction we want. Will we take advantage here and play the two against one another or royally f it up?

Link

Sunni fighters take on Qaeda in Baghdad

by Ammar Karim

2 hours, 24 minutes ago

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Sunni tribal fighters, American troops and nationalist insurgents were all in action against Al-Qaeda's Islamist militants in vicious street battles in west Baghdad on Friday.

Sunni militants, who would once have sympathised with Al-Qaeda's war against US and Iraqi government troops, have instead this week been shooting it out with the Islamist extremists in the lawless Amiriyah neighbourhood.

US and Iraqi government security forces have also piled into the fight.

"Planned security operations in cooperation with Iraqi security forces were conducted today based on intelligence gained from local leaders and citizens of the area," said US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Scott Bleichwehl.

These official units also have a shadowy new ally in the battle, according to the commander of a Sunni tribal militia.

"We dispatched around 50 of our secret police from Anbar to Amiriyah, and started to hit Al-Qaeda there. We killed a lot of them," Sheikh Hamid al-Hais, the head of the Anbar Salvation Council, said in a telephone interview.

"A similar operation will be launched in Al-Ghazaliyah against Al-Qaeda today. We have sufficient information on places they are in, and we will punish them," he said, adding that his forces were fighting in plain clothes.

The Salvation Council is the armed wing of an alliance of Sunni sheikhs from the western Anbar province, where they have funnelled tribal gunmen into the Iraqi security forces in order to fight Al-Qaeda extremists.

Many of these Sunni militants are former insurgents once hostile to the US military and Baghdad's Shiite-led government but, angered by Al-Qaeda's attacks on civilians and tribal leaders, they have now changed sides.

US commanders see this as one of the most positive recent developments in Iraq, which is in the grip of vicious series of overlapping civil conflicts, and hope now to persuade former insurgent groups to join a peace process.

Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, the number two US officer in Iraq, told reporters on Thursday that about four-fifths of the militants currently fighting American forces were thought to be ready to end their campaigns.

"So we want to reach back to them," he said. "And we're talking about ceasefires and maybe signing some things that say they won't conduct operations against the government of Iraq or against coalition forces."

Amiriyah, however, was still far from peaceful as the political shifts played themselves out in the form of bloody street battles. Iraqi security officials said fighting had decreased since Thursday, but was continuing.

"A curfew has been in effect in Amiriyah for about 10 days from 8:00 pm to 6:00 am. The curfew was set by the Iraqi security forces to disrupt the enemy's ability to reinforce the area," said US Lieutenant Colonel John Reynolds.

Residents said the curfew had not prevented fighting from erupting.

"Yesterday morning, heavy fighting started in the main streets of Amiriyah using lots of different kinds of weapons between Islamic Army and 1920 Brigades on one hand and the Islamic State on the other," said resident Raed Mohammed.

The Islamic Army and the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution are nationalist insurgent groups run by former supporters of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime, while the Islamic State of Iraq is an Al-Qaeda-led Islamist alliance.

"We want the Iraqi government to save us and to kill those criminals. We can't leave our homes to get the injured and dead to the hospitals. I saw bodies in the streets," Mohammed, a civil servant, told AFP by telephone.

Amiriyah was once one of Sunni west Baghdad's most upscale districts, where streets of generous detached homes are lined by palm trees and bougainvilleas, but in the past year has been one of the city's fiercest battlefields.

Businessman Abdel Aziz al-Issawi said the area was currently in a state of siege. "There's no electricity, no water, just fear and the cries of children."

In the southwest corner of the capital, Sunni and Shiite tensions played out with a mortar attack on a popular market place at nightfall that killed 12 people and wounded 40, a doctor at Baghdad's Yarmuk hospital said.

Mortar duels between rival neighbourhoods are common in the restive capital and one person was killed and three wounded in a similar bombardment of the north Baghdad suburb of Saba al-Bur on Friday.

In nearby Khadra, a roadside bomb killed on person and wounded two others, security officials said.

Last month, 1,951 civilians were killed in violence, 30 percent more than in April and close to the death toll for March, officials said, citing figures collated by the defence, interior and health ministries.

[TexasTiger 13,005]

There's an overwhelming opportunity here for us to really get things going in the direction we want. Will we take advantage here and play the two against one another or royally f it up?

Link

Sunni fighters take on Qaeda in Baghdad

by Ammar Karim

2 hours, 24 minutes ago

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Sunni tribal fighters, American troops and nationalist insurgents were all in action against Al-Qaeda's Islamist militants in vicious street battles in west Baghdad on Friday.

Sunni militants, who would once have sympathised with Al-Qaeda's war against US and Iraqi government troops, have instead this week been shooting it out with the Islamist extremists in the lawless Amiriyah neighbourhood.

US and Iraqi government security forces have also piled into the fight.

"Planned security operations in cooperation with Iraqi security forces were conducted today based on intelligence gained from local leaders and citizens of the area," said US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Scott Bleichwehl.

These official units also have a shadowy new ally in the battle, according to the commander of a Sunni tribal militia.

"We dispatched around 50 of our secret police from Anbar to Amiriyah, and started to hit Al-Qaeda there. We killed a lot of them," Sheikh Hamid al-Hais, the head of the Anbar Salvation Council, said in a telephone interview.

"A similar operation will be launched in Al-Ghazaliyah against Al-Qaeda today. We have sufficient information on places they are in, and we will punish them," he said, adding that his forces were fighting in plain clothes.

The Salvation Council is the armed wing of an alliance of Sunni sheikhs from the western Anbar province, where they have funnelled tribal gunmen into the Iraqi security forces in order to fight Al-Qaeda extremists.

Many of these Sunni militants are former insurgents once hostile to the US military and Baghdad's Shiite-led government but, angered by Al-Qaeda's attacks on civilians and tribal leaders, they have now changed sides.

US commanders see this as one of the most positive recent developments in Iraq, which is in the grip of vicious series of overlapping civil conflicts, and hope now to persuade former insurgent groups to join a peace process.

Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, the number two US officer in Iraq, told reporters on Thursday that about four-fifths of the militants currently fighting American forces were thought to be ready to end their campaigns.

"So we want to reach back to them," he said. "And we're talking about ceasefires and maybe signing some things that say they won't conduct operations against the government of Iraq or against coalition forces."

Amiriyah, however, was still far from peaceful as the political shifts played themselves out in the form of bloody street battles. Iraqi security officials said fighting had decreased since Thursday, but was continuing.

"A curfew has been in effect in Amiriyah for about 10 days from 8:00 pm to 6:00 am. The curfew was set by the Iraqi security forces to disrupt the enemy's ability to reinforce the area," said US Lieutenant Colonel John Reynolds.

Residents said the curfew had not prevented fighting from erupting.

"Yesterday morning, heavy fighting started in the main streets of Amiriyah using lots of different kinds of weapons between Islamic Army and 1920 Brigades on one hand and the Islamic State on the other," said resident Raed Mohammed.

The Islamic Army and the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution are nationalist insurgent groups run by former supporters of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime, while the Islamic State of Iraq is an Al-Qaeda-led Islamist alliance.

"We want the Iraqi government to save us and to kill those criminals. We can't leave our homes to get the injured and dead to the hospitals. I saw bodies in the streets," Mohammed, a civil servant, told AFP by telephone.

Amiriyah was once one of Sunni west Baghdad's most upscale districts, where streets of generous detached homes are lined by palm trees and bougainvilleas, but in the past year has been one of the city's fiercest battlefields.

Businessman Abdel Aziz al-Issawi said the area was currently in a state of siege. "There's no electricity, no water, just fear and the cries of children."

In the southwest corner of the capital, Sunni and Shiite tensions played out with a mortar attack on a popular market place at nightfall that killed 12 people and wounded 40, a doctor at Baghdad's Yarmuk hospital said.

Mortar duels between rival neighbourhoods are common in the restive capital and one person was killed and three wounded in a similar bombardment of the north Baghdad suburb of Saba al-Bur on Friday.

In nearby Khadra, a roadside bomb killed on person and wounded two others, security officials said.

Last month, 1,951 civilians were killed in violence, 30 percent more than in April and close to the death toll for March, officials said, citing figures collated by the defence, interior and health ministries.

Any good news is welcome.

[Tiger in Spain 0]

Good news has been available prior to this. Not too many people wanted to report it or believe it.

It is refreshing to see some of the positives being reported.

[otterinbham 0]

Good news has been available prior to this. Not too many people wanted to report it or believe it.

It is refreshing to see some of the positives being reported.

Good news has always been available. On the tactical level, American forces have always dealt with this problem in a professional, often brilliant, manner. It's the political and strategic management of the entire affair that have led to this fiasco.

Hopefully this is a sign that things are changing. Let us hope, both for our position in the world and the Iraqi people.

[AUman43 5]

Like George, dream on! WHEN are people ever going to learn that you CANNOT occupy a country that doesn;t want you there???? Geeeeeeeez, one would have thought any idiot would have learned that in Vietnam!!! Muslims now have a rallying cry that the infidels are occupying a Muslim county and they are RIGHT! They didn't have that before George W. Bush! Is rational thought and reason gone by the wayside by reason of Republican insantity? I have no idea whether or not the insurgents or insane extremists Mulsims would stop their attacks on this country is we withdrew from Muslim lands or not but I can guarantee you this......they won't as long as we are there! If present policy continues, I can almost guarantee that this country will suffer an attack in the coming decade that will exceed the horror of 9/11 by leaps and bounds. (forecast by military experts of our own country) The bottom line that NOBODY wants to admit or accept is the FACT that our country's foriegn policy toward other nations has caused this situation and will contine to cause it....

[Tiger in Spain 0]

Like George, dream on! WHEN are people ever going to learn that you CANNOT occupy a country that doesn;t want you there???? Geeeeeeeez, one would have thought any idiot would have learned that in Vietnam!!! Muslims now have a rallying cry that the infidels are occupying a Muslim county and they are RIGHT! They didn't have that before George W. Bush! Is rational thought and reason gone by the wayside by reason of Republican insantity? I have no idea whether or not the insurgents or insane extremists Mulsims would stop their attacks on this country is we withdrew from Muslim lands or not but I can guarantee you this......they won't as long as we are there! If present policy continues, I can almost guarantee that this country will suffer an attack in the coming decade that will exceed the horror of 9/11 by leaps and bounds. (forecast by military experts of our own country) The bottom line that NOBODY wants to admit or accept is the FACT that our country's foriegn policy toward other nations has caused this situation and will contine to cause it....

Wow, someone must have gotten ahold of grandpas cough medicine!

I would argue that showing a yellow streak and pulling out before the job is done will more likely lead to another attack on US soil.

Where exactly is Muslim county? Between Pickens and Wilcox?

[AURaptor 1,126]

Like George, dream on! WHEN are people ever going to learn that you CANNOT occupy a country that doesn;t want you there???? Geeeeeeeez, one would have thought any idiot would have learned that in Vietnam!!! Muslims now have a rallying cry that the infidels are occupying a Muslim county and they are RIGHT! They didn't have that before George W. Bush! Is rational thought and reason gone by the wayside by reason of Republican insantity? I have no idea whether or not the insurgents or insane extremists Mulsims would stop their attacks on this country is we withdrew from Muslim lands or not but I can guarantee you this......they won't as long as we are there! If present policy continues, I can almost guarantee that this country will suffer an attack in the coming decade that will exceed the horror of 9/11 by leaps and bounds. (forecast by military experts of our own country) The bottom line that NOBODY wants to admit or accept is the FACT that our country's foriegn policy toward other nations has caused this situation and will contine to cause it....

Problem is, the Muslims want the whole WORLD to be under their control. We were attacked twice, in our own country, before we 'occupied' Iraq, so the specious reasons you give aren't valid. We're not the CAUSE of Islamic fundamentalism, but we ARE responding to it.

[quietfan 233]

I just can't buy into the concept of Islam as some sort of monolithic force bent on world domination by any means.

Shite vs. Sunni; now Sunni vs. Sunni; Hamas vs. Fatah in Gaza; Taliban vs. other warlords in Afghanistan even before US intervention; Iran vs. moderate states like Saudi Arabia/Kuwait/Egypt/Jordan; the 8-yr Iran-Iraq War in the '80's; Druze, Hezbollah, Kurd,Turk, etc.: The Muslim world is just as divided as the Western world--probably more so since most Western countries have given up military action as a means of settling their differences with each other. Even many of the successes of the Crusaders in 1000-1200 AD were possible because of divisions among the Muslim powers of the Middle East at the time.

Does Islam view itself as the one true religion with ambitions of converting the whole world? Yes, but so does Christianity. Do some Islamic sects support violence and terrorism as a means to their ends? Yes, but so do some Neo-Nazi Western groups who claim to be "Christian". And while it's true that historically Islam has been tolerant of the idea of "spreading the word" by military means, the same can be said of Christianity for much of its history (just ask the Aztecs, Incas, or Albegensians if you can find any).

Certainly there are some radical Islamic groups who want to dominate by force, but to picture Islam as some monolithic force bent on world conquest isn't realistic, IMO. I just can't see them conquering the world when they can't even live in peace with each other.

[CCTAU 3,342]

I just can't see them conquering the world when they can't even live in peace with each other.

THAT is the ONLY thing that has kept them form attempting to conquer the planet. The "Christians" you mentioned are from the PAST. The muslims we mention are killing any non-muslims NOW. Big difference. You live next door to them! I don't want too. I have NO FEAR of any Christians blowing themselves and ME up for God. I do however see muslims every day blowing themselves up for their allah. Smoke...fire. You and those like you will be the quiet capitulators who will only recognize the real problem when it's too late.