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Iraq’s anti-al-Qaida Sunni militias see uncertain future English Xinhua

Friday, 12. 28. 2007  –  Category: Features, News

BAGHDAD, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) — Cursed by al-Qaida, praised by the United States and stirring up worries of the Iraqi government, the Sunni neighborhood guards have played a significant role in the security improvement, which, however, could be marred in the future by mistrust.

The grass-roots armed force originated in the western Anbar province, where tribal men formed the Awakening Council militia and took up arms against the al-Qaida terror group. The lead was swiftly followed in Baghdad and some other provinces in central and northern Iraq.

The U.S. military in Iraq says what it dubs as Concerned Local Citizens (CLC) made a remarkable contribution in the campaign against al-Qaida. There are about 300 CLC groups with some 70,000 members in Iraq.

Some of the CLCs are former insurgents and have been engaged in attacks on the coalition forces along with the terror group.

"Our goal was always to drive off the U.S. occupiers from our country, but we and al-Qaida have different goals. We want to liberate our country … while al-Qaida wants to establish their own extremist Islamic State in Iraq," said Ahmad Hameed, 35, a member of a local Awakening Council-style group in the Ghazaliyah neighborhood of Baghdad.

"We decided to fight the al-Qaida militants because they started to assassinate fighters and leaders from the resistance groups. They tend to kill indiscriminately." said Hameed at the checkpoint at the neighborhood entrance with a pistol on the hip and an assault rifle in his hand.

Sa’ad al-Rawi, 27, accused al-Qaida terrorists of luring young Iraqis, even children, into planting bombs and killing them later when they refused to obey any longer.

"We saw al-Qaida doing terrible things. They were killing and displacing Sunnis, Shiites and Christians. We could not leave our houses and were afraid of snipers. Therefore we decided to fight them," said Rawi.

The middle-class East Ghazaliyah area houses about 5,000 residents. One of the two highways surrounding it leads to the Baghdad Airport and used to be the most dangerous road in the world for the U.S. troops.

Once a ghost town with bodies dumped in the streets, the neighborhood now is seeing a recovering as shops are open and people begin venturing out, with CLCs manning the checkpoints and searching vehicles seriously. The Iraqi security forces, who are predominately Shiites, guard only at the outer checkpoints.

Deeply frustrated by the failure of national reconciliation and slow buildup of a capable Iraqi security force, the U.S. seems pleased to jump at the windfall of the showdown to relieve the strained troops and is encouraging the growth of the CLCs by means like paying.

Omer Adnan, who dropped out of college last year to take care of his family following his father’s death in a car bombing, said he had just signed a new three-month CLC contract with the Americans but he complained that the pay of 350 U.S. dollars per month is not enough to support his family.

The cooperation between the Sunnis and the U.S. and the Shiites,however, exists with deeply-rooted distrust. The Shiite-led government is greatly concerned that it could lose control of the armed Sunnis. Meanwhile, the Sunnis have little, if any, confidence in an immediate real peace with the Americans and the Shiites.

Mahir Abbas, a CLC member, blamed the current chaotic situationon the struggle between the U.S. and Iran for control of Iraq. He said both sides had "penetrated" al-Qaida to use that force as a tool to deal with the Sunni insurgency.

Abbas said he believes, after the al-Qaida threat is neutralized, "some of our fighters will fight the Americans again as long as they are foreign forces on the soil."

"You can’t ask them not to do so. This will happen everywhere in the world even the Americans themselves will fight occupiers ontheir lands if it happens," he said.

Hameed, a former fighter of the Sunni insurgent group — the 1920th Revolution Brigades, also voiced his mistrust of the Americans.

"We also don’t trust the Americans, they only want to ease our deadly attacks against their troops. They are happy with the current security lull, but I am sure they in turn do not trust us," he said, adding, "You see they don’t provide weapons and ammunition for us."

Sitting at a checkpoint made of sandbags, the guards were dressed in Khaki uniform and a hat with a badge of the Iraqi flag on their left arms and another with the neighborhood’s initials E.G. on right arms.

They were carrying their own AK-47 assault rifles and some U.S.-made equipment such as multi-purpose bayonets and body armors which they bought from the Bab al-Sharji market in central Baghdad.

A CLC member, who named himself Sabah, said the U.S. weapons found their way to the market through those who work with the U.S.troops or Iraqi security troops equipped by the Americans.

The U.S. is asking the Iraqi government to capitalize on the recent security gains to advance the reconciliation process. To make sure the CLCs would not wind up to be the replacement of al-Qaida, Washington is urging the Iraqi government to create more civil jobs for them and absorb them into the security force.

Though the Iraq government is reluctant to see a legitimate Sunni armed force, it plans to take roughly a quarter of the CLCs into the security troops and is working along with Washington toward providing vocational training to them and creating more jobs.

On the policies, a CLC member said on condition of anonymity that "as for me and most of the CLC members I know, we would not join the security forces unless we feel safe to work with them. Some others would like to take the American training for new civil job in the future."

Coupled with their long-term concern is the daily threat to their lives. The CLCs are facing a spate of attacks by al-Qaida for their breakaway and cooperation with the Americans.

"Almost every day we are attacked by sniper shots from far away.I believe they are from the al-Khadraa district," the anonymous CLC member said, pointing to the neighborhood to the south.

As a further illustration of the entrenched sectarian hostilityin the war-torn country, Hameed said he fears that if the Awakening Council cause fails, they would fall prey to the security forces.

"The people in the neighborhood will not be able to protect us because all the men who are ready to hold weapons will flee or being liquidated by the Shiite militias," he said.

"My family always advise me to leave my job, but in fact this is the only way for me to bring them money to live, to medicate my old mother and send my children to schools."

Iraq’s anti-al-Qaida Sunni militias see uncertain future_English_Xinhua

Tags: Awakening Councils, Militia, Politics and Security