So coming back from chow just now, I ran into a buddy from RearD. We're talking about the missions we've been doing and he asks if we've run into the freedom fighters yet. "Freedom Fighters?" I reply (didn't know if this was now the new media term for the insurgents or what). So then he tells me the story: About three days ago the whole area of Ameria (Sunni neighborhood btw) rose up against Al Qaeda. About 300-450 residents took up arms and with the IA and IP fucking slaughtered the bastards. My buddy's Company has been working the area, and he said it is great. Day before yesterday they were taken by the fighters to two major weapons caches and someone on a block showed them the house of a sniper. Yesterday and today all they did was pull cordon and let the fighters work with the IA and IP and clear the neighborhood. Before they were recieving harressing fire multiple times a day, now they get to just sit back and let the Iraqis clean everything up. Hopefully this will not be an isolated incident.
I think what he meant was: The minute people over there get sick of insurgency, it will stop. I think he failed to connect the dots though as it seems they are sick of the insurgency and doing something about it. Iraqis FTW.
Great story, Ancalagon. We need to hear more of them. I want you guys out of there as much as anyone but this is the kind of help we're going to need to get it done right.
Yes, hopefully we will start to see more of this kind of thing. It is the only solution -- Iraqis taking the lead with our soldiers providing assistance.
I don't recall this being on the news or in the papers. Of course I wasn't working which means I didn't catch the news and the papers are piling up....
Now all we need is for the news reporters to REPORT this and keep reporting on this and maybe AQ will get the hint that the Iraqis want their country for themselves. Not for the US and not for AQ
Good news! Difficult to recognize, it's become so rare. Do you have any information on what kind of view, if any, these resident militias have for their political future? Do they support the current government?
This is the kind of story we need to hear, but the biased liberal press won't have it. If they would report this kind of news then there would be more support instead of it being so unpopular.
Yeah, good news. Just like the coalition of 30 tribes in Anbar province that have run AQ to ground there. There's more cooperation with the Sunnis in Ninevah and Salahaddin as well. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1624697,00.html
So it looks pretty likely that this is a gang war between Saddam's former people and al Qaeda in Iraq, not a popular uprising as the military's trying to spin to the public and the troops. Given the history of faked turning points in Iraq, "pretty likely" is probably even a conservative understatement.
Actually that gang war between the Sunni's and the Shi'a is a conflict that dates back over several centuries. The conflict was initially over who chose the king in ancient times, before Iraq became known as Iraq. It was a disagreement over how they would choose their king, whether or not it should be direct descendents from Mohammed that eventually erupted into violence when the Shi'a declared that kings should be only descendents from Mohammed.
Only Liet would spin that Sunnis fighting against Al Qaeda instead of actively aiding them would mean that things were getting worse in Iraq....
Are they really 'insurgents' if they are working with the US Army, IP, or IA? Also one has to wonder if the former Baathists and military turning on Al Queda at this point and working with the coalition has anything to do with the US pushing the government to bring them back into the government and military*... *only took four fucking years to reverse the idiotic decision of purging them all and disbanding the Army.
I don't know. I don't think anyone really knows until they've gotten rid of AQ, and we see what they do next. That's why I asked further upthread whether they professed any specific political allegiance.
It's happened before, but it was couple months ago, and two points don't make a pattern. Hopefully we'll get a third in a little while. Also each area that clears itself/uses IP and IA, is one less battlespace we have to worry about. Which means more troops for other places. No clue at all. But as I said to Liet, I personally don't think it is a coincidence that is occuring while the US is pushing..... 'Re-baathification' for lack of a better word.
True. Guess I'm just an optimist. Also, besides just getting rid of AQ, any positive contact between the Sunnis and the coalition is step in the right direction IMO.
Another source: Please note that this site is pretty much the leading Pro-U.S. Iraqi website there is, with the founders of the site having been invited to the White House for photo ops with the President and routinely dismissed as Bush propagandists--in other words, the chances that they're just making up this different account and are lying about their sources are pretty much nonexistent. We've known all along that there are multiple insurgencies in Iraq, fighting with each other as well as U.S. and Iraqi forces. Islamists and Saddam loyalists despise each other and are more than willing to catch civilians in the crossfire. Hell, this is exactly what anyone with even half a brain predicted before this war even started. This is just another aspect of the ongoing Iraqi civil war--it's not just Sunni v. Shiite, you know--with American troops caught in the middle, cleaning up the mess. It's certainly not good news, though it's hardly particularly bad news either on the Iraqi scale. It's just more of the same violence that's been plaguing Baghdad and environs every day for the last four years.
And my source, SPC Sutton whose been in Amiriyah says differently. Somehow considering he is there I trust his reporting on US action more than the unnamed sources of the author. Uh, actually, US troops are just sitting on the sidelines pulling cordon while the former loyalists and IP/IA take care of the situation. Not a bad place to be IMO!
