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Iraq tribal leader says Qaeda fighters have quit Fallujah
[Al Ahram] Al-Qaeda-linked fighters have departed Iraq's Fallujah and it is now in the hands of Sunni rustics, a senior tribal sheikh said on Monday. "There is no ISIL in the city," Sheikh Ali al-Hammad told AFP by telephone, referring to Al-Qaeda-linked group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. "They all left." "The gunnies inside are from the sons of the tribes, and they are here to defend" the city, he said, without elaborating. Fallujah has been out of government control for days, and Iraqi officials have said that ISIL gunnies are holding the city. Gunmen have also seized parts of the Anbar picturesque provincial capital Ramadi, farther west. It is the first time gunnies have exercised such open control in major cities since the height of the bloody insurgency that followed the US-led invasion of 2003. Posted by: Fred 2014-01-07 |
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