Word: anbar
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...MacFarland says, describing the scene at Sittar's compound when he arrived for a formal meeting with the sheik shortly after assuming command in the area. Among Sittar's guests that day were local police officials who often fail to turn up for meetings called by the governor of Anbar Province, Maamoun Sami Rashid al-Awani. And there were other prominent local leaders sometimes difficult to corral. "I go down and see to the governor about once a week, and it's just me and the governor," says MacFarland, who views Sittar's ability to fill a room...
...MacFarland says his pact with Sittar is bringing gains in Ramadi, which remains the latest insurgent stronghold in Anbar Province. But, helped by U.S. forces, local police for the first time in recent memory are taking to the streets, where they fight and sometimes even capture insurgents. Blocks once overrun by al-Qaeda fighters are gradually becoming safer, if only a little. To be sure, Ramadi is still a dangerous place. Insurgents, working with other tribes loyal to them, control much of the territory. U.S. and Iraqi forces come under attack frequently and often suffer casualties. MacFarland is seeing enough...
...reach, but forging alliances with tribes to achieve it brings its own risks. For hundreds of years, tribal sheiks in western Iraq have skillfully played politics with powers who've arrived in their region. The campaign the United States is waging now in the sandy expanses of Anbar Province probably looks similar to the struggles waged there in the past by the British and the Turks in the eyes of at least some of the tribesmen who surround Sittar. And the United States may be doing itself more harm than good in long run in Iraq by throwing...
...Sittar himself embodies the kind of difficult issues MacFarland and other U.S. commanders face in co-opting tribes in their efforts to wage war in Anbar Province. Until this summer, little distinguished Sittar from dozens of other sheiks in and around Ramadi except his reputation as a ringleader of successful highway bandits. After the fall of Saddam Hussein, Sittar is said to have made a fortune by nabbing cars moving along the unguarded roads of Anbar Province. As the insurgency began to take shape in Anbar Province in 2003, Sittar extended help to al-Qaeda in Iraq, then...
...fight unfolds, shows some early signs of success. Despite bursts of fighting in Ramadi almost daily, schools are opening, and Iraqi police are circulating on their own in neighborhoods that were previously no-go areas. The end game is far from certain in Ramadi and other violent towns in Anbar Province like Hit and Haditha. But the plan already in motion there now means any additional combat troops President Bush may order to Iraq would be better put to use in Baghdad, which everyone agrees must be stabilized for anything else to work in Iraq...