Or not.
From the Washington Post:
U.S. warplanes backed Sunni Arab tribal fighters on Tuesday in what tribal leaders called an unprecedented Sunni-led offensive to drive out Abu Musab Zarqawi’s forces.
Three days of ongoing fighting in towns near the Syrian border killed at least 61 people, at least 56 of them Tuesday, said Dr. Ali Rawi, emergency-room director at the hospital in the largest city near the fighting, Qaim, about 200 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Others appeared to be fighters of a rival tribe or civilians, he said.
Tuesday’s bombings and clashes in the towns of Husaybah and Karabilah marked some of the fiercest fighting yet in a growing rift between Zarqawi’s insurgents and some tribes of their Sunni Arab base.
The clashes came after insurgents kidnapped and killed 31 men belonging to the Albu Mahal tribe because they had joined the Iraqi security forces, said Sheikh Muhammed Mahallawi, one of the tribe’s leaders.
“We decided, either we force them out of the city or kill them,” with the support of U.S. bombardment, Mahallawi said.
Will the constitution pass muster in October? I can’t say for certain, but I’m beginning to think so—our own MSM defeatism and doomsday prophecizing notwithstanding.
Slow and steady as she goes, Iraq…
(h/t dchanson)
Neocon spin. How dare you print this as the truth???
I knew I shouldn’t have circumcised the title like that.
Hmmm.
It’s interesting that this is a repetitive pattern. The insurgents did the same exact thing in Najaf and in Fallujah, among others.
I think it’s the former Iraqi Baathists who are doing this and probably not the foreign fighters. Kidnapping, torture and murder were popular methods for controlling local populations during the Saddam days. It might be these people reverting to techniques they know, rather than any particular strategy on the part of the insurgents.
Hmmmm.
“I knew I shouldn’t have circumcised the title like that.”
No. You should probably leave titles uncircumcised since it’s less painful that way. But you could always circumcise it later if you’re really into that sort of thing.
A friend of mine from Spain told me civil war in Iraq is “guaranteed” as a result of “Bush’s war” and the United States’ foisting American-brand puppet democracy on a foreign culture suffering under the arbitrary borders of Western colonialism. Apparently this is common knowledge. So, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
People fighting back against those that murder and kidnap them? Nah, if that happened the legacy media here would have surely told us of it…
Imean, this has to be the first time that has ever happened, right?
Hmmmm.
Frankly I think it’s common knowledge that if a civil war does break out in Iraq it’ll be the Sunnis on the short end of it.
And very well deserved too.
From another story:
Sounds like some of the Sunnis are signing up with the U.S. Judging from the names, I have a feeling this has a lot to do with the other headlines we’ve been seeing:
This could mark a sea change in the Sunnni insurgency, if more tribes follow the Bumahl lead.
Sounds to me like the situation on the ground is fluid and nuanced, and a black-and-white view of the proceedings can’t in any way truly capture the nature of the conflict and BUSHOILFASCISTCOLONIALISTMURDERER.
The fact that the MSM has been predicting a civil war in Iraq from Day 1 is a certain guarantee that it won’t happen.
(pardon the repetitive redundancy. 
)
Gee, it’s starting to sound like the “freedom fighters” and “minute men” of Iraq are slipping in popularity. It’s almost as if the people of Iraq don’t want to be free of the Chimperors rein of Abu Ghaib style terror. Well, as Markos Zuniga would say, screw ‘em.
Hutwa bi hutwa, step by step…
Looks like we convinced the indigenous patriots to join us, as we did in Afghanistan. Yay!!