LET A THOUSAND SATTARS FLOWER:

New loyalties give Baghdad reprieve (BBC, 10/06/07)

Car and truck bomb attacks on civilians have not stopped but the number has fallen significantly since the start of the surge and of the Baghdad security plan earlier this year.

Those explosions were nearly always the work of an unholy alliance of al-Qaeda in Iraq and former Saddam Hussein Baath Party loyalists who had lost their jobs and their entire livelihoods in the indiscriminate de-Baathification process that took place after the invasion.

But many of those Saddam loyalists who used to shoot and bomb Americans are now fighting alongside US troops against al Qaeda.

One of the sheikhs co-operating with the Americans, Abu Risha, was assassinated in an al-Qaeda bomb attack in September.

President Bush paid tribute to him as a brave man.

American troops helped the Iraqi armed forces guard mourners at his funeral in Ramadi in Anbar province, the district west of Baghdad that was once routinely described as "the heartland of the insurgency".

Ramadi sheiks unfazed by slaying: The Sunni tribal leaders say the attack that killed a friend won't affect their alliance with U.S. and Iraqi forces battling insurgents. (Tina Susman, 10/06/07, Los Angeles Times)

For a man with a death threat stored in his phone, [Sheik Raad Sabah] Alwani seemed remarkably unworried. His friend Sheik Abdul Sattar Rishawi was slain Sept. 13, the first day of Ramadan for Iraq's Sunnis, in a blast for which the militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility. Another close friend, police Lt. Col. Salam Mohammed Abbas, died Feb. 14 when a bomb sent a chunk of metal slicing through his skull.

Like his slain friends, Alwani is a prominent member of a movement started last year to ally tribal leaders with U.S. and Iraqi forces against the Sunni insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq.

But Alwani and other sheiks say the slayings of Abbas and Rishawi, who headed the pro-U.S. Anbar Salvation Council, were lucky hits by militants struggling to reclaim an area that has abandoned the insurgency.

"These people, they cannot affect the battle against terrorists," Alwani said of the killers.

The assertion appears to be holding up for the time being, at least in Ramadi and its surrounding areas. The region remains calm under a blanket of Iraqi police, who are impossible to miss in their cobalt blue, button-down shirts. Many of the officers say they feel safe enough to work without body armor. [...]

Sheik Awad Jedie Albu Quod lost his brother, who was slain as he sat on the front stoop of the family home. Militants drove by and shot him, Albu Quod said as he chain-smoked Gauloise cigarettes one recent evening after iftar, the breaking of the daylong Ramadan fast.

He said these tragedies, along with shared anger over Rishawi's death, had backfired on the insurgents, who had hoped to stoke violence by killing the high-profile sheik who had met with President Bush 10 days before his death.

"They thought when they killed Sattar, security would collapse, but now it is better than before," Albu Quod said.

Tribal leaders, police and Iraqi civilians have been galvanized to be more vigilant, he said. "We lost just one Sattar. We now have 1,000 Sattars."

Madrid remains the only effective action the Salafists have ever taken, a damning indictment of Spain.

MORE:
Iraq Shia leaders sign truce deal (BBC, 10/06/07)

Two of Iraq's most influential Shia leaders have signed a deal to try to end violence between their groups.

Radical cleric Moqtada Sadr and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq, have been locked in a bitter dispute for months.

The leaders have agreed to try to end further bloodshed, foster a spirit of good will and form joint committees throughout the country.

Jefferson and Adams couldn't reconcile until after their competing regimes had run their courses.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 6, 2007 8:41 AM