The factions turn on themselves.
Yesterday, there was the story of the governor of Diwaniyah (a key Badr militia figure) and the province's police chief, being killed in a bombing apparently carried out by a Mahdi affiliated group in an amplification of the IntraShia violence.
Today, a Sunni cleric Wathiq al Obedi, a key Sunni cleric who has endorsed working with the Americans, was targeted by a bombing on his home by Sunni militants.
The factions are now turning on themselves.
Reconciliation looked impossible enough when it was just three or four sided political negotiations between the Sunnis, Shia (SIIC, Sadr,) and Kurds, but as those factions fully splinter, there is no one left to bring to the table.
(Here's another story of a different attempted kidnap or assassination by Mahdi against an SIIC/US cooperating general. Plus it's got some good background on the Mahdi side of the intraShia battle.)
Today, a Sunni cleric Wathiq al Obedi, a key Sunni cleric who has endorsed working with the Americans, was targeted by a bombing on his home by Sunni militants.
The attack against Obeidi highlights a major hurdle for American forces to overcome if the strategy of arming Sunnis is to succeed. The death threat issued against the cleric this week, which was posted to the Web site of an umbrella group for Sunni insurgents, made clear that he was being targeted not only for opposing al-Qaeda in Iraq but for aiding the enemy.
The factions are now turning on themselves.
Reconciliation looked impossible enough when it was just three or four sided political negotiations between the Sunnis, Shia (SIIC, Sadr,) and Kurds, but as those factions fully splinter, there is no one left to bring to the table.
(Here's another story of a different attempted kidnap or assassination by Mahdi against an SIIC/US cooperating general. Plus it's got some good background on the Mahdi side of the intraShia battle.)
posted by mikevotes at
7:28 AM
2 Comments:
This looks to me like a direct result of trying to drive a wedge between insurgents and tribal leaders. Large sums of money involved too no doubt.
By
Anonymous, at 10:03 AM
Yeah. I really believe that the US strategy on the Sunnis is to stand up bribable leaders and equip them with militias.
Those militias would make them larger in any negotiations, and then, of course, they're easily known to be bribable.
By
mikevotes, at 11:04 AM
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