They'll attack each other.
Intra-tribal, intra-Shiite and intra-Sunni clashes play out against a
backdrop of byzantine allegiances and arcane codes of conduct.
"We are in the land of the blood feuds," said Maj. Rick Williams, a
liaison to tribes in the area.
"It's very difficult to tell a tribal fight from a sectarian fight
because interests are pretty mixed. You can't just put up a fence."
From The Washington Post, 8/10/07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/09/AR2007080902412.html?hpid=topnews
'In the Land of the Blood Feuds'
South of Baghdad, U.S. Troops Navigate Fault Lines of Sect and Tribe
By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, August 10, 2007; Page A01
KHIDR, Iraq --
In the pre-dawn gloom, through weary villages shaded in gray, the
soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment,
searched for the enemy.
An aerial drone had spotted men burying weapons in a nearby Sunni
cemetery.
The soldiers walked along a thin ribbon of sandy road, flanked by tall
reeds and palm trees, until they reached this forlorn place covered
with crumbling gravestones.
Silence mocked the unit, for the men had vanished.
Soldiers pried open graves searching for the cache and 15 minutes
later found four guns and some ammunition.
Lt. Thomas Murphy, 32, wondered who the men had been.
Members of al-Qaeda in Iraq?
Loyalists of the former government?
Tribesmen?
"Here we have so many different enemies," he said.
On the unruly outer fringes of the Sunni area south of Baghdad known
as the Triangle of Death, American soldiers navigate more than a dozen
battle zones straddling the fault lines of sect and tribe.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq -- identified by President Bush and his generals as
the main U.S. enemy -- is just one of myriad armed groups competing
here for influence and authority.
This arid region nourished by the Euphrates River is a microcosm of
the many often-overlapping conflicts that have erupted across the new
Iraq.
"We're fighting in multiple directions," said Col. Michael Garrett,
commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne) of the 25th
Infantry Division.
In Garrett's office at Forward Operating Base Kalsu, near the
Triangle's southern edge, a large map of his brigade's theater of
operations hangs on the wall.
South of Kalsu, the land stretches toward the Shiite cities of
Musayyib and Karbala.
To the northwest, across the farmlands of Jurf al-Sakhr and Khidr,
Sunnis are in control.
And to the north is Iskandariyah, a volatile mixed-sect town of
factories and low-slung buildings.
"We are in the middle of it," Garrett said, indicating the center of
his area of operations, which is the size of Rhode Island.
"I'm not fighting one sect or the other. I'm fighting both. And not
only am I fighting both, but at certain points I have to put my forces
in between the Sunni and Shia groups to protect the populace."
Earlier in the day, a roadside bomb had exploded near a convoy of
Humvees close to Kalsu.
Shiite militias control one side of the road, Sunni insurgents the
other. To determine the enemy's identity, Garrett wanted to know what
type of bomb it was.
He learned it was an explosively formed penetrator, or EFP, a powerful
device that the U.S. military says is used mainly by Shiite militias.
"Shiites don't like to shoot. . . . They just EFP you," said Maj.
Craig Whiteside of Silver Spring, Md.
"The Sunnis use snipers, RPGs, mortars -- they'll attack you in every
possible way," he added, using the abbreviation for rocket-propelled
grenades.
Or they'll attack each other. Intra-tribal, intra-Shiite and
intra-Sunni clashes play out against a backdrop of byzantine
allegiances and arcane codes of conduct.
"We are in the land of the blood feuds," said Maj. Rick Williams, a
liaison to tribes in the area.
"It's very difficult to tell a tribal fight from a sectarian fight
because interests are pretty mixed. You can't just put up a fence."
__________________________________________________
A War We Just Might Win
By MICHAEL E. O'HANLON AND KENNETH M. POLLACK
Uh huh. What else ya got?
Harry
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