Word: soi
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...Iraq (SOI), one of nearly 100,000 Sunnis recruited by the U.S. military to fight al-Qaeda. Saif Abdallah (not his real name) is paid about $300 a month, and works with a group of 20 others somewhere north of Baghdad. His job? "Some patrols, some checkpoints," he says with a familiar shrug. "The work is not hard." (See pictures of five years of U.S. troops in Iraq...
...Iraq have, like Abdallah, American blood on their hands. The U.S. military says it took great care during recruitment to try and prevent infiltration. According to Lieut. Colonel Jeffrey Kulmayer, chief of reconciliation and engagement for the Multi-National Corps-Iraq, "There is a screening process before they become SOI, and the [tribal] sheiks vouch for their...
...slipped through the screen or how he, a city dweller, got a tribal sheik to speak on his behalf. He hints that some money changed hands. "Everything is possible with dollars," he says with a laugh. He claims that at least five of the men in his SOI group had been foot soldiers for al-Qaeda. The U.S. soldiers with whom they have regular contact "don't know anything about us," he said...
...misled by some of the sheiks," says Hadi al-Ameri, who heads the Iraqi parliament's security committee. In some cases, he says, the sheiks were simply providing false names in order to extract more money from the U.S. military. (Al-Ameri says there are only 57,000 legitimate SOI; the U.S. military says there are nearly twice that number.) In private, other Iraqi officials worry that some tribal leaders have taken money from both the Americans as well as men like Abdallah...
...country's fragile security is also being tested by the increasingly frayed relationship and mutual suspicions harbored by the anti-insurgent, largely Sunni Sons of Iraq (SOI) groups and the predominantly Shi'ite government. The U.S. military transferred control of the SOIs to the central government in October. The government has been slow to fulfill its pledge to incorporate 20% of Baghdad's 54,000 SOIs into the armed forces, further frustrating anti-insurgent leaders who want more of their men given security jobs. At the same time, domestic politicking is set to intensify ahead of provincial polls slated...