Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: L'Apocalisse è vicina!! Sunniti iracheni combattono per difendere gli sciiti da Zarqawi

Iraqi Sunnis Battle To Defend Shiites
Tribes Defy an Attempt by Zarqawi To Drive Residents From Western City
By Ellen Knickmeyer and Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 14, 2005; A01
BAGHDAD, Aug. 14 -- Rising up against insurgent leader Abu Musab 
Zarqawi, Iraqi Sunni Muslims in Ramadi fought with grenade launchers and 
automatic weapons Saturday to defend their Shiite neighbors against a 
bid to drive them from the western city, Sunni leaders and Shiite 
residents said. The fighting came as the U.S. military announced the 
deaths of six American soldiers.
Dozens of Sunni members of the Dulaimi tribe established cordons around 
Shiite homes, and Sunni men battled followers of Zarqawi, a Jordanian, 
for an hour Saturday morning. The clashes killed five of Zarqawi's 
guerrillas and two tribal fighters, residents and hospital workers said. 
Zarqawi loyalists pulled out of two contested neighborhoods in pickup 
trucks stripped of license plates, witnesses said.
The leaders of four of Iraq's Sunni tribes had rallied their fighters in 
response to warnings posted in mosques by followers of Zarqawi. The 
postings ordered Ramadi's roughly 3,000 Shiites to leave the city of 
more than 200,000 in the area called the Sunni Triangle. The order to 
leave within 48 hours came in retaliation for alleged expulsions by 
Shiite militias of Sunnis living in predominantly Shiite southern Iraq.
"We have had enough of his nonsense," said Sheik Ahmad Khanjar, leader 
of the Albu Ali clan, referring to Zarqawi. "We don't accept that a 
non-Iraqi should try to enforce his control over Iraqis, regardless of 
their sect -- whether Sunnis, Shiites, Arabs or Kurds.''
Iraqi Sunni tribal leaders and armed followers of Zarqawi have clashed 
before in the far west, and Sunnis and Shiites in western cities have 
sympathized with one another over what they have said are attempts by 
foreign fighters to spark open sectarian conflict. But Saturday's clash 
in Ramadi was one of the first times Sunni Arabs have been known to take 
up arms against insurgents specifically in defense of Shiites.
The dramatic show of unity in the western city came as Sunni and Shiite 
Arabs and ethnic Kurds in Baghdad continued negotiations over the 
country's constitution. They were trying to meet a Monday deadline but 
failing to resolve some key differences.
President Jalal Talabani, who has hosted days of closed-door talks among 
Iraq's factional and political leaders, said he remained hopeful the 
deadline could be met. "There will be no postponing of any issue," 
Talabani told reporters. "God willing, tomorrow the constitution will be 
ready."
Disputes over federalism -- particularly whether Shiites should be 
allowed to have a separate federal state in the south equivalent to the 
one the Kurds have established in the north -- remain the biggest 
obstacle. Sunni Arabs rigidly oppose the division, expressing fears that 
it would split Iraq and leave their minority stranded in the 
resource-poor center and west.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad sat with faction leaders throughout the 
day, pushing for completion by Monday, said a Sunni Arab constitutional 
delegate, Salih Mutlak.
The fighting in Ramadi suggested a potentially serious threat to 
Zarqawi's group, al Qaeda in Iraq, which is made up of Sunni extremists 
from inside and outside Iraq. The insurgency has increasingly targeted 
Shiite civilians along with U.S. and Iraqi forces, particularly with 
grisly suicide bombings that have killed scores of Shiites at a time. 
Zarqawi's followers see Shiites as rivals for power and as apostates 
within the broader Islamic faith.
Washington and the U.S.-backed Iraqi transitional government have worked 
to split mainstream Iraqi Sunnis from the radical foreign fighters, 
hoping to draw them away from the insurgency and into the political 
process that many rejected after the toppling of Saddam Hussein's 
Sunni-dominated government in 2003.
At midday Saturday, men with grenade launchers and AK-47s still could be 
seen in Ramadi's two contested neighborhoods, Sejarriyah and Tameem.
Masked men distributed leaflets that declared the city's tribes would 
fight "Zarqawi's attempt to turn Ramadi into a second Fallujah," 
referring to the nearby city that U.S. forces wrested from insurgent 
control in November. Statements posted on walls declared in the name of 
the Iraqi-led Mohammed's Army group that "Zarqawi has lost his 
direction" and strayed "from the line of true resistance against the 
occupation."
A grateful Shiite resident of Ramadi said he was not surprised at the 
threats by Zarqawi's followers or the defiance of them. "So many ties of 
friendship, marriage and compassion" bind Shiites and Sunnis in Ramadi, 
said Ali Hussein Lifta, a 50-year-old air-conditioning repairman and a 
resident of Tameem.
"We have become in fact part of the population here, and this we are 
going to convey to the rest of Iraq and to those who want to instill 
division between Sunnis and Shiites," Lifta said. "We are happy to know 
that the ties with the Sunnis have become so strong that the Zarqawis 
and their terrorism cannot affect them.''
Separately Saturday, Zarqawi's movement posted statements in Ramadi 
pledging to kill Sunni clerics in the west for urging Sunnis to take 
part in the country's next elections.
"We, al Qaeda in Iraq, announce that we will apply the religious 
punishment for apostasy upon whoever calls for creation of the 
constitution. You, preacher at the podium of prophecy, be a speaker of 
truth, doer of good and rallier for the rule of sharia," or Islamic law, 
the statement said.
Similar threats led the majority of Iraq's Sunni voters to boycott 
elections in January, weakening their position when the country's 
factions began crafting a constitution.
If the draft constitution is finished by Monday as scheduled, and Iraqis 
agree in an Oct. 15 vote to adopt it, Iraq will hold elections Dec. 15 
for its first full-term government since Hussein was toppled.
Missing the deadline would risk greatly aggravating political 
instability and violence that have claimed thousands of Iraqi and 
American lives since the elections.
Existing law requires the current government to dissolve if the deadline 
is not met, opening the way for the election of a new government, which 
would take another try at writing a constitution.
Around the country on Saturday, bombings and ambushes killed at least 12 
Iraqis and wounded more than a dozen, according to the Associated Press 
and the Reuters news agency.
Late Saturday, the military announced the deaths of five U.S. soldiers, 
three of whom were killed in a roadside bomb attack while on patrol 
Friday night in the northern town of Tuz. One soldier died when a 
roadside bomb detonated in Baghdad Saturday. Another was found dead from 
a gunshot wound in the Iraqi capital, according to an Army statement. On 
Sunday, one soldier was killed and three wounded by a roadside bombing 
in the western town of Ruteah.
Also in Baghdad, a U.S. Bradley Fighting Vehicle was left burning in the 
Sadr City district, Reuters reported. The U.S. military said the armored 
personnel carrier was set on fire by a roadside bomb, but there were no 
reports of American casualties. Local police said an Iraqi civilian was 
killed in the explosion.
Special correspondents Omar Fekeiki and Naseer Nouri contributed to this 
report.

 Tribes Defy an Attempt by Zarqawi To Drive Residents From Western City
Tra l'altro, Iraq The Model afferma
"Bill Roggio at the Fourth Rail has a very interesting post about Sunni 
tribes of Ramadi (actually the Dulaim tribe which is the largest) 
fighting Al-Qaeda terrorists to protect their Sheat neighbors.
Very encouraging indeed!"
http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/2005/08/bill-roggio-at-fourth-rail-has-very.html
La più grande tribù sunnita di Ramadi che combatte contro al-Qaeda con 
gli shiiti.
Direi che si sono proprio stufati delle cazzate di Zarkawi e soci.
Mirco