Sunnis make merry on US's dime

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WASHINGTON - For months, US President George W Bush and General David Petraeus have been touting the program of recruiting tens of thousands of Sunnis into US-financed "Awakening Councils" as a master stroke of Iraq strategy which has weakened al-Qaeda in Iraq and helped reduce sectarian conflict through "bottom-up reconciliation".

But the mainstream Sunni insurgents who have been fighting al-Qaeda appear to have outmaneuvered US strategists by using the councils to pursue their interests in weakening their most immediate enemy, reducing pressures from the US military and establishing new political bases, while continuing to mount attacks on US and Iraqi government forces.

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Nevertheless, by the end of 2007 it had become clear the Sahwa were dominated in many places by the Sunni insurgent groups, and US specialists were openly acknowledging it. The 1920 Revolution Brigades, a major Sunni armed resistance organization, is the primary element in the Sahwa in Diyala province as well as in parts of al-Anbar province. One commander of the Brigades, Abu Marouf, brought 13,000 of his fighters into the Sahwa in Anbar. His background as an insurgent commander is well known locally but has never been acknowledged by US officials.

Meanwhile, the 1920 Revolution Brigades also continues to wage war against US forces. In March 2007, it announced the creation of two separate military "corps", one of which, the "Iraqi Hamas", was clearly intended to continue military operations against the US in Diyala and other Sunni provinces.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JC05Ak02.html

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1. And don't miss this paragraph:

"Insurgents are still mounting about 700 improvised explosive device (IED) attacks every month, according to the latest statistics issued by the US command. Although they are not broken down by source, the vast majority are certainly carried out by the same Sunni insurgent organizations that fight al-Qaeda and have contributed tens of thousands of men to the Sahwa."