(AKI) - The tribes of Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, and surrounding villages, have rejected an offer by the clans of their province to create an alliance, along the lines of the Sunni tribal alliance in al-Anbar province, to combat al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to the al-Hayat newspaper. The daily says the tribal leaders of three Sunni towns - Biji, el-Doiur and Tikrit - accused the promoters of the initative of wanting to create splits among Iraqi Sunnis. At a meeting in Tikrit on Wednesday, the heads of the tribes asked supporters of the alliance, known as the Salahuddin Salvation Council, to rethink.
They repeated that within the tribal militias there will be no representatives of their cities. The decision may have been influenced by the threats and attacks against the Sunni tribal chiefs who have supported their initiative. Sheikh Ahmad Ibrahim al-Jiburi, who founded the Salahuddin Salvation Council in Biji, 200 kilometres north of Baghdad, was attacked by a group of gunmen several days after the council was created. His brother sheikh Khalil had his house attacked and four of his children kidnapped. To date only three tribes have adhered to the council; Tal-Shamr, Jibburi and Nahya al-Ilm.
The first groups to establish an alliance of tribal militias to force out al-Qaeda - accused of indiscriminate violence and resented because of the presence of foreign fighters - were tribal leaders in the violent majority Sunni province of al-Anbar to the west of Baghdad, until then considered a insurgent stronghold and recently the scene of numerous suicide bomb attacks. |