Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Salvation For All Iraq, Not Only Anbar!

I don’t know if the the Anbar Salvation Council has its hand with the events in Al Adhamiya neighborhood in Baghdad, but according to Ahmed Abdul Ghafoor al-Samarai, head of the Sunni Endowment, all Al Qaeda elements have been drawn out from the neighborhood, after two nights of fierce fighting. Al-Samarai is also calling upon shop owners and people from the neighborhood to persume their normal daily life! The Anbar Salvation Council is well known for their success in fighting Al Qaeda and dislodge its members out of the whole westeren province of Al Anbar - it remains a point of argument if this this victory fully credited to the council or is it shared based on logestic and military support and cooperation from American forces! Despite speculations in this regards! In addition, since April 2007, the council publicly announced strong desire to help out other provinces and cities to achieve the same goal. They requested that formally from Prime Minister Maliki on numerous occasions and times, however, no official reply from the Iraqi government was received. The reason maybe from Maliki’s part is the fear from transforming this group of tribal fighters into another sort of militias that would trigger further complication to the already complicated situation. I don't know, but maybe the Iraqi prime minister believes that each tribe should move within its boundaries and not anything else! I might be wrong! However, by observing the political scene in Iraq, one can see that the Anbar Salvation Council is acting faster than anyone can anticipate. This has been illustrated by the visit of a delegation of tribes from Al Anbar province to tribes from Al Qadisiyah province a couple of days ago. I hate to say it, but for non-iraqis, Al Anbar tribes are Sunni, and Al Qadisiyah tribes are Shiite.

I won't give the Anbar Salvation Council a bigger altitude but there are a number of points to be taken into the consideration: the Anbar Salvation Council is the only group in Iraq that calls loudly and clearly for perserving Iraq's unity, by forseeing federal state solution as a roadmap towards division - Others see it differently, such as the Kurds and Al Hakim's SIIC. In addition, they want Iraq to be ruled by one leader, they want a strong government that everyone stand behind, and put their trust and safety in their hand - for that reason maybe they vow to stand behind the current government in dealing with the violence that eating up every neighborhood, city and province. Above all, the Anbar Salvation Council realised their fatal mistake when they allowed "aliens" to Iraq's culture, heritage, social background and beliefs to take over control. There are who considered the council as being traitors to the cause of ressisting the occupier, because they used to fight the American occupier, and now they took another position, but that is what I consider the strength point of the council; they have the power and ability to take things into their hands. The US forces were not successful in combating them in the past, yet, the council succeeded to combat whom they see as the most dangerous element to their existence on the country of their ancestors.

2 comments:

Chelsea + Shiloh said...

As a non-Iraqi, it is often hard for me to follow all of the politics of your country (but I try :)

the http://last-of-iraqis.blogspot.com/ also spoke of this situation...

MixMax said...

Abbey, this is a very interesting post you referred to. I had a phonecall from a relative of mine who told me about the big finding in al Adhamiyah of 20 cars in a parking lot ready to be used for suicide attacks. I share Mohammed's skeptism and wondering about the whole stand of political and religious groups in Iraq generally, and like him I just hope that an awakenning council here and there match the description with action and not only some sort of a title.