Word: iraq
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...Obeidi's band of citizen fighters and local watchmen, divisions of the U.S.-backed Awakening movement around Iraq, have been critical to the taming of the insurgent-infested areas since 2006. As a consequence, they have faced regular assassination attempts from militants aligned with al-Qaeda in Iraq, the umbrella organization for Sunni insurgents. Al-Obeidi said four of his men had been killed since the beginning of the year. And, just about a month after speaking with TIME, al-Obeidi himself was dead. On August 17, a suicide bomber walked up toward al-Obeidi and a team...
...Obeidi's death marked yet another blow dealt against the Sunni Awakening movement. Awakening fighters, many of whom once worked with the insurgency before switching sides, played a vital role in bringing Iraq's violence down to levels that leadership in Washington and Baghdad now consider low enough for significant U.S. troop withdrawals. But future prospects for the movement's members are growing dim as their insurgent rivals keep up a gruesome murder campaign and the Iraqi government maintains its distance...
...suicide bomber who unleashed the scene of carnage August 17 destroyed all chances of seeing such a future vision come to pass for al-Obeidi and the others who died. Those of the Awakening movement who live on there and elsewhere across Iraq are left to watch in growing apprehension as similar hopes fade. With reporting by Abigail Hauslohner/Baghdad
Anbar province was once one of the most violent and volatile regions of Iraq, accounting for hundreds of U.S. casualties. On Monday, however, the province - quieted by the U.S. military in alliance with Sunni tribal sheiks, the so-called Sunni Awakening or Sahwa movement - was turned back to Iraqi government rule...
...wanted it to be postponed but the decision had already been made by the government and we cannot change it," says Sheikh Mohammad Mahmood al Natah, the spokesperson for the Awakening Council. The hand-over, originally scheduled for June, took place on Monday, making Anbar the 11th of Iraq's 18 provinces, and the first Sunni region, to return to the central government's control. It's a measure of the growing security gains in the war-scarred country, but simmering intra-Sunni tensions in Anbar are bubbling...