Word: sunni
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Sheik Hamid al-Hayess is not optimistic. A burly man with a thick black mustache and closely knitted brows, he is one of the founding members of the Anbar Awakening. The grouping of Sunni tribal sheiks in the once al-Qaeda-infested western province turned against the insurgents and sided with the U.S. military, providing the model for what became a nationwide campaign known as the Sahwa. But that model is in trouble. "The Sahwa has been infiltrated by al-Qaeda," he says somberly. "A civil war is coming...
...recent months, al-Qaeda in Iraq and its affiliates have been regrouping, recalibrating their targets and tactics; they have recruited disenfranchised members of the U.S.-allied Sahwa movement, planting them as sleeper agents among the mainly Sunni neighborhood patrolmen, who number about 94,000 nationwide, according to a highly placed source close to the insurgency. "Many of the Sahwa have returned after seeking forgiveness, but they are still Sahwa," the source tells TIME. "They wear the government's uniform, but they plant explosives and sticky bombs. The Sahwa is the biggest recruiting pool for al-Qaeda." (See the most dangerous...
...Hadba won 19 of the provincial council's 37 seats during elections in January, running on an anti-Kurdish platform in the still violent mixed but predominantly Sunni province. Its victory meant a realignment of power away from the minority Kurds who held disproportionate sway due to a Sunni electoral boycott in 2005. However, it has also set the stage for a showdown between the two groups. (See an analysis of Iraq's future...
...type of people whom Rasheed and Capt. Afar told me they were worried about - Sunni Nationalists, members of the former regime, officers in the Iraqi Army - also told me that they and the Peshmerga are unified. "We are one army," Col. Ali of east Mosul's 1st Brigade told me. "But," he added, in contradiction, "the Pesh is a militia...
...days after the meeting in Wana, I attended the transfer of control over the Sons of Iraq - which was definitely a militia - from the U.S. to the Government of Iraq. Many of the Sons of Iraq (SOI) were former Sunni fighters, drawn and brought into the fold after their alienation from the more radical elements of the insurgency. Their attending Major, Ibrahim Mohammed Abdullah, told me that "we are very happy that our good friends the Americans are leaving...