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TARMIYAH, Iraq (AFP/Reuters) – Five family members of a local chief of an anti-Qaeda militia were gunned down in their homes in Tarmiyah, north of the Iraqi capital on Tuesday, with the children also beheaded, police said.
“The wife, a daughter of 22 and three boys of between 12 and 16 were shot dead, with the assassins also beheading the last three,” said Colonel Tawfiq al-Janaabi, police chief of Tarmiyah, 45 kilometres (28 miles) from Baghdad.
He said the local chief of the Al-Sahwa militia (Awakening Council), identified as Abu Ali, was on duty at a checkpoint at the time of the attack.
Sunni Muslim Awakening Councils are fighting
al-Qaeda in several Iraqi provinces [EPA]
The Sahwa, made up of Sunni Arab tribes, switched allegiances to join American and Iraqi forces in fighting insurgents in 2006 and 2007, leading to a dramatic fall in violence.
Iraq anti Al-Qaeda militias fearful as U.S. troops quit towns
REVENGE KILLING FOR DEATHS OF AL-QAEDA LEADERS?
BAGHDAD, Iraq (MSNBC) – Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced the killings of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri at a news conference and showed photographs of their bloody corpses. U.S. military officials later confirmed the deaths, which Vice President Joe Biden called a “potentially devastating blow” to al-Qaida in Iraq.
“The death of these terrorists is potentially the most significant blow to al-Qaida in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency,” Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said in a statement.
Al-Qaida in Iraq has remained a dangerous force as the U.S. prepares to withdraw most of its troops.
“The Sahwa, made up of Sunni Arab tribes, switched allegiances to join American and Iraqi forces in fighting insurgents in 2006 and 2007…“
This is, of course, the standard U.S. propaganda version. In fact, tribal leaders in mainly Sunni areas were fighting against what the American propagandists variously called “foreign fighters”/Al Qa`eda/whatever virtually from the beginning. They started appealing to the Americans for assistance in this struggle starting in 2004, and the Americans snubbed them completely until the brilliant self-promoter David Petraeus got the amazing idea of paying them to fight the so-called “insurgents”. Of course, they do not, never have, and never will have any allegiance to the Americans or Iraqi allies of the occupation, but if the Americans want to believe otherwise, let them.