US losing ground through tribal
allies By Ali al-Fadhily
RAMADI, Iraq - Attempts by the US military
to win over tribal collaborators in al-Anbar
province have won it more enemies instead.
The US has launched one of its biggest
military operations to date to regain control of
al-Anbar, to the west of Baghdad. It lost control
over the region more than a year ago.
The
province, which represents a third of the total
area of the country and is inhabited by roughly
2.5 million people, mostly
Sunni Muslims, has stood firm
against the US occupation of Iraq since March
2003.
Fallujah, the second-biggest city in
the province after the capital Ramadi, ignited
fierce resistance to US forces after they killed
17 unarmed demonstrators protesting in front of a
school occupied by the military in May 2003.
Resistance then spread to Khalidiya, 80
kilometers west of Baghdad, then Ramadi, 105km
west of Baghdad, and reaching Hit, Haditha and
then al-Qa'im on the Syrian border.
Massive US military operations brought
short-term victories, but also turned residents
more and more strongly against the occupation. The
province remains the most dangerous for occupation
forces, and attacks have continued to escalate.
This year US military authorities worked
to firm up a tribal coalition that they said would
oppose al-Qaeda terror groups.
Unnamed
officials in the administration of US President
George W Bush have made claims to reporters that
the move has reduced violence in Anbar, but
residents in the area think otherwise.
"It
started with the so-called campaign 'Awakening of
al-Anbar', then it developed into forming 'The
Revolutionary Force for Anbar Salvation'," said
Hamid Alwani, a prominent tribal leader in Ramadi.
"This was supposed to be a local fight between
al-Qaeda and the local people of al-Anbar, but in
fact we all realized the Americans meant us to
fight our brothers of the Iraqi resistance."
Alwani said "most tribal sheikhs opposed
the idea" and made it clear to US military
commanders that they would never be part of the US
plan. "It seems that the Americans have started to
realize their mistake now."
Few tribal
groups are backing US forces anymore.
Ali
Hatem Ali Suleiman, leader of the Dulaim
Confederation, a tribal organization in Anbar,
told reporters recently in his Baghdad office that
the Revolutionary Force for Anbar Salvation would
be dissolved because of increasing internal
dissatisfaction.
Opposition has grown
against one of the council leaders, Abdul Sattar
Abu Risha, whom Suleiman called a "traitor" who
"sells his beliefs, his religion and his people
for money".
Any Iraqi working with the US
military is now opposed by most people in the
province. "Sattar is well known as a former
criminal," a tribal leader in Anbar who asked to
be referred to as Hatam said. "The Americans are
now spoiling him like a favorite child."
A
well-respected leader in Fallujah said on
condition of anonymity, "Shi'ite leaders had their
doubts about him from the beginning, but the
desperate Americans thought he was the best
solution to their failure in Anbar."
Abu
Risha has been living in Amman, Jordan, for
several months. And there is growing doubt how
much influence he has.
"The Suleiman
family, who were called the princes of al-Dulaim
tribes, have no power in Iraq," Mohammad
al-Dulaimy, a historian from al-Anbar, said in
Ramadi. "They were assigned leaders by the British
occupation [during the 1920s], and everyone in
Iraq knows that."
Dulaimy added, "As soon
as the British left Iraq, those guys lost power
and went abroad. They then found a chance to
return under the American flag."
Others
see the promotion of Abu Risha as a failed attempt
by occupation forces to apply divide-and-rule
tactics in the province.
"I do not see
this working amidst the obvious division amongst
tribal leaders looking for power," said a
professor at the University of Anbar in Ramadi,
speaking on condition of anonymity. "People here
know each other, and they knew from the beginning
that those warlords would fight over power and
money one day."
But such co-opting has not
in any case lessened violence.
"All the
new militia did was increase tensions among the
local community," local cameraman Fowaz Abdulla
said. "Americans are getting killed by the day,
and these militias are just executing people just
like Shi'ite militias in Baghdad and the southern
parts of Iraq."
Police loyal to tribal
leaders in the Revolutionary Force for Anbar
Salvation have told reporters that the US military
provided them weapons, funding and other items
such as uniforms, body armor, pickup trucks and
helmets, and paid tribal fighters US$900 a month.
Ali al-Fadhily, Inter Press Service's
correspondent in Baghdad, works in close
collaboration with Dahr Jamail, IPS's US-based
specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively
in the region.
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