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G.I.s Forge Sunni Tie in Bid to Squeeze Militants
This is by the guy that Michael Yon reports on from the NYT's. Registration rquired, so here's his entire articleCapt. Ben Richards had been battling insurgents from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia for three weeks when he received an unexpected visitor. Abu Ali walked into the Americans battle-scarred combat outpost with an unusual proposal: the community leader was worried about the insurgents, and wanted the soldiers help in taking them on. The April 7 meeting was the beginning of a new alliance and, American commanders hope, a portent of what is to come in the bitterly contested Diyala Province. Using his Iraqi partners to pick out the insurgents and uncover the bombs they had seeded along the cratered roads, Captain Richardss soldiers soon apprehended more than 100 militants, including several low-level emirs. The Iraqis called themselves the Local Committee; Captain Richards dubbed them the Kit Carson scouts. It is the only way that we can keep Al Qaeda out, said Captain Richards, who operates from a former Iraqi police station in the Buhritz sector of the city that still bears the sooty streaks from the day militants set it aflame last year. Posted by: Sherry 2007-07-06 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=192735 |