Posted on 01/11/2006 7:16:20 PM PST by jmc1969
The story told by the two Iraqi guerrillas cut to the heart of the war that Iraqi and American officials now believe is raging inside the Iraqi insurgency.
A group of local fighters from the Islamic Army gathered for an open-air meeting on a street corner in Taji, a city north of Baghdad.
Across from the Iraqis stood the men from Al-Qaeda, mostly Arabs from outside Iraq. Some of them wore suicide belts. The men from the Islamic Army accused the Qaeda fighters of murdering their comrades.
"Al-Qaeda killed two people from our group," said an Islamic Army fighter who uses the nom de guerre Abu Lil and who claimed that he attended the meeting. "They repeatedly kill our people."
The encounter ended angrily. A few days later, the insurgents said, Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the Islamic Army fought a bloody battle on the outskirts of town.
The battle, which the insurgents said was fought on Oct. 23, was one of several clashes between Al Qaeda and local Iraqi guerrilla groups that have broken out in recent months across the Sunni Triangle.
American and Iraqi officials believe that the conflicts present them with one of the biggest opportunities since the insurgency burst upon Iraq nearly three years ago. They have begun talking with local insurgents, hoping to enlist them to cooperate against Al Qaeda, said Western diplomats, Iraqi officials and an insurgent leader.
According to an American and an Iraqi intelligence official, as well as Iraqi insurgents, clashes between Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia and Iraqi insurgent groups like the Islamic Army and Muhammad's Army have broken out in Ramadi, Husayba, Yusifiya, Dhuluiya and Karmah.
In town after town, Iraqis and Americans say, local Iraqi insurgents and tribal groups have begun trying to expel Al-Qaeda's fighters, and, in some cases, kill them.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The New York Slimes actually printed something POSITIVE about Iraq!!
The sky is falling!!!
:-) :-) :-) :-)
Lay down with dogs, get up with fleas!.
Were it not for your "insergency" there would be not terrorists in your country.
Matter of time....before they hunt down Zarqawi and kill him.
Iraq is for Iraqis.
Excellent.
FOR THE Al QUAIDA!
More like the NYSlimes revenue, stock prices, circulation, advertising income, etc. are falling, and they think that maybe if they print the occasional TRUE and FACTUAL article, they'll stop their own financial bleeding. Too little, too late.
Now thats a civil war I can cheer for. I hope they both lose!
While this would be wonderful news, it is also from the October time frame and was printed by the NY Slimes.
My trust factor is low.
We will know that they are really PO'd when they humiliate the Arab fighters with panties on their noggins.........
Liberating Iraq PING ... this is VERY interesting ...
"The tribes are fed up with Al Qaeda and they will not tolerate any more," said a senior Iraqi intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The intelligence official confirmed reports that a Sunni tribe in Samarra had tried and executed Qaeda members for their role in assassinating a local sheik.
"It was a beautiful mistake," the intelligence official said of the sheik's assassination by Al Qaeda. "Now the tribes will kill Al Qaeda. Now they have the courage."
An Attack's Repercussions
Samarra, north of Baghdad, had been infiltrated by Al Qaeda's fighters. In desperation, a local sheik, Hekmat Mumtaz al-Baz, traveled to Baghdad in September to meet with Iraq's defense minister and ask for help, said one of the sheik's aides, Waleed al-Samarrai. A few weeks after the visit, the sheik was shot dead by Qaeda gunmen in his yard.
The account was confirmed by a member of the tribe, and a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Baghdad. Mr. Samarrai spoke in an interview in Al Wasat Hospital in Baghdad, where his brother, Salim, the sheik's bodyguard, who was wounded in a fight with Al Qaeda, was convalescing.
The tribe was furious, and its members tracked down the three men who carried out the killing. Elders from the tribe held a trial in a local farmhouse and interrogated the men for days. They said they worked for a fighter from Saudi Arabia who bankrolled the attacks, Mr. Samarrai said.
The Samarrai brothers said Al Qaeda's appeal was based less on religion than on money. The Iraqis who killed the sheik were believed to have received $500 to $1,000 for the job, and the same amount for dozens of other similar killings, Waleed al-Samarrai said. He said local insurgents had changed allegiances, lured away by Al Qaeda's money.
Members of the tribe swept the town and arrested 17 people they suspected were associated with the sheik's killing. In one house raid, the tribe found men from Sudan, Morocco, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, a member of the tribe said.
Al Qaeda's fighters struck back during the tribe's offensive. A foreign Arab believed to be a Saudi dressed in a suicide belt blew himself up at the sheik's funeral, killing one guest and wounding two, said Salim al-Samarrai, who said he witnessed the attack.
As a lesson to all those associated with the sheik's death, the tribe staged a public killing. While the sheik's father watched, men with machine guns shot the three men who carried out the assassination, the Samarrai brothers said.
"Someone from outside the tribe should not tell us what to do," said Waleed al-Samarrai, standing next to Salim's hospital bed. "It is unacceptable for us."
Tactical Disputes
Disagreements over Al Qaeda's bloody tactics between local insurgents and Al Qaeda's fighters are as old as the war. Abu Lil, who fought in Taji in October, for example, claimed to have met with Qaeda fighters in late 2003. The militant group had just claimed responsibility for a double car bombing in Baghdad, and insurgents from the 20th Revolutionary Brigade, a nationalist group that Abu Lil belonged to at that time, were angry about the high civilian death toll.
Abu Lil, an elfin man with a cotton scarf tied around his head, talked in detail about the meeting as he sat on a couch in a house in Baghdad. The meeting was held in a farmhouse in Mosul, he said. About 25 men from Al Qaeda attended. Several appeared to be from Pakistan. Some spoke Arabic so poorly that they had to speak through a translator.
The discussion dragged on for seven hours, he said, but did not go well. The local insurgents demanded that the foreigners from Al Qaeda leave Iraq.
"They said, 'Jihad needs its victims,' " Abu Lil said. " 'Iraqis should be willing to pay the price.' "
"We said, 'It's very expensive.' "
The meeting ended abruptly, and Abu Lil and his associates walked out, feeling powerless and angry.
"I wished I had a nuclear bomb to attack them," he said. "We told them, 'You are not Iraqis. Who gave you the power to do this?' "
Is this a case of red-on-red? Any military want to help clue us in?
Its a case of the Iraqis expelling the non-Iraqis. So, yes the insurgency is splitting apart.
+
Thanks JMC. After re-reading it I came to that conclusion also, but I appreciate the help.
Maybe tgeir whole position is going to hell in Iraq and they want to be able to say, see? we printed it!
Before I get too excited the the Times is doing anyone a favor by reporting good news.... I think this falls somewhere in the backhanded compliment category.
nom de guerre
nom de guerre
nom de guerre
nom de guerre
October!!???
"Indeed, the best the Americans can hope for may be a grudging passivity from the Iraqi insurgents when the Americans zero in on Al Qaeda's forces."
self ping
Soooo, the predicted civil war is actually gonna be between Iraqi's and Al Qaeda....Hmmmm
Oh goody, goody. Let them kiil each other and give us a welcome change!
Its do or die in Iraq and Zarqawi knows it. He could still win this thing if Shia Islamic Leaders like Harkim and Sadr aren't willing to comprimise in talks and we see a civil war in the next couple months. If that happens al-Qaeda has a long term base in Iraq that would be far better then Afganistan. If we can push the Iraqi leaders to agree over the next four months al-Qaeda not only loses Iraq, but loses in the entire region.
I still maintain that Al Qaeda had no right to wage an unjust war in Iraq, especially with so few allies, such faulty intelligence, and without the blessing of the UN.
/sarcasm
Rival street gangs...just like in L.A.
Don't hold your breath...if Al Qaeda is rooted out, the Iraqi's will then just be more together to turn back to the US and say get out or we continue our fight with you next...be careful what you wish for...
Look at modern history in the middle east with us using a bad to fight a bad...think the man we uprooted in 2003...it just doesn't work in that part of the world, or frankly anywhere...bad begets bad begets bad and so on...
what you say?
not quite, nore like street gang (local Iraqi's) and MS-13 (al queda)
Would be nice if this showed up on the Front Page above the FOLD.
Iraq Pol Warns Against Constitution Change
The Shia's are happy with the Constitution....the Sunni's are not.
"How can you kill women and children?"
"Easy, I don't lead them as much!"
"How can you tell the ones that are VC?"
"The ones that run are VC. The ones who don't run are well disciplined VC!"
The Dmocratic National Committee are deeply saddened by the news.
Those were pro-military jokes from the Vietnam era.
And dayum funny ones too.
Need to turn down the sensitivity on your sensors...
Nam vet. Quite frankly I did not think highly of her jokes.
Ditto.
Too bad. Sunnis are the minority. Like American Democrats, they still haven't figured out they no longer run the show.
Thanks for the ping, Ernest.
P.M.m it is nice you have feelings. Please do NOT confuse them for facts. Your "realists" school in foreign policy was killed on 9-11-01. It has failed EVERY where it was tried. For EXAMPLE. Iran. Nicaragua. Cuba.
Eventually the realist choose thug is chased away and the Govt. that replaces it is virulently anti-American radical Govt. YOU read some recent History. It hasn't just failed there. Sorry they days when we could pick some local bully boy to "hold the wogs down for us" are never existed except in the Neo-Isolationist fantasy land.
Always amazes me the people who KNOW the least about the M.E. always posture as the great experts that "know" how the ME works. Get out of the way you failures while better men clean up the mess YOUR dogma created. Ignoring evil does NOT solve the problem. As the Clinton Years proved you cannot run from evil, evil follows you home.
That guy should drink free in any bar for the rest of his life on that story. I can just imagine how that response just exploded the Leftist Reuters twits pin brains
The encounter ended angrily. A few days later, the insurgents said, Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the Islamic Army fought a bloody battle on the outskirts of town.The battle, which the insurgents said was fought on Oct. 23, was one of several clashes between Al Qaeda and local Iraqi guerrilla groups that have broken out in recent months across the Sunni Triangle.
Maybe we are using the divide and conquer strategy?
"Matter of time....before they hunt down Zarqawi and kill him."
He is probably in France.
ping
Well, the NY Times tends to get 80% wrong most of the time. As long as we continue to stack up both groups like cordwood, I'm happy.
Of course this goes unmentioned in the MSM, but it seems to me that Iraq is as much of a “quagmire” for AQ as it is for us.
If they lose to the Great Satan, all of their support, money and prestige will dry up.
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