Salvation Front

Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, head honcho of the Anbar Salvation Council, was killed earlier today by insurgents. Meanwhile, Jim Henley wonders:

I read a lot about how Sunni tribal leaders and insurgents have “turned against AQI,” and how we’re paying them to - er, supporting them with financing and logistics in their fight against AQI. But actual reporting on what they’re doing to fight AQI is scarce. Aside from pocketing our money and manning some checkpoints, what are they doing?

A good question. And given the dodgy state of American intelligence in that area, how do we even know what they're doing?

Comments

how do we know? hey, pal, general petraeus told us how much "things" had improved in anbar - do you really need more than that?

Posted by howard | September 13, 2007 10:53 AM

We paid them to quit attacking us. AQI barely exists.

Posted by Ed Marshall | September 13, 2007 10:53 AM

20 Americans died in Anbar in August. Probably in auto accidents.

Posted by bob h | September 13, 2007 10:56 AM

I was just listening to an interview with him Abu Risha the other day. He was in Jordan proclaiming himself the head of all the Sunna tribes in Iraq. His bio in the article says he is in construction and import-export, but he was more of a home remodeller before the war and "import-export" can only be a euphamism for his post-war piracy and smuggling career.

His audience was rather skeptical of him and he promised he wasn't hiding in Jordan and that he was going to show up in Anbar real soon and shoot up some terrorists. Then he remembered he had business in Dubai and couldn't make it. Guess he finally showed up.

Posted by Ed Marshall | September 13, 2007 11:15 AM

Actually, US intelligence is very much not dodgy. We have an impressive amount of info, on the Whos especially. Problem is, we just can't do shit with it--usually due to political reasons (they're our allies now, doncha know?).

Nevertheless, excellent question. It does seem rather amazing how long our media will run with a narrative before realizing there's no substance to the slogan.

Posted by bubba | September 13, 2007 11:22 AM

Hell, for that matter how do we know that they're not just handing the money over to al Qaeda as bribes to go away?

Posted by NonyNony | September 13, 2007 11:35 AM

c.f. 'warlords, Afghan'. Mark Lynch is all over this one.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | September 13, 2007 11:46 AM

Seems from the Petraeus hearings that we helped the Sunni Sheiks swing to our side by forcing the withdrawal of the (Shiite) National Police. Then we reopened a police training/recruitment center to which the sheiks sent their own boys. Petraeus insisted 'we are not arming' the sheiks. I would bet that we are arming ('supplying') their police, however. So that is pretty much like 'I did not have sex with that woman'.

Big question: Have we helped ourselves (and the Iraqis) by assisting a local anti-Shiite/anti-Baghdad group assume the right to police themselves? Simple answer: No.

Posted by JohnMcC | September 13, 2007 11:47 AM

I suggest that his death may have been the price of the meeting and photo op with the President.

Posted by dunnage | September 13, 2007 1:16 PM

Matt is a day late and a dollar short again.

I pointed to this whole issue a couple days ago in threads. It's all based on the article about AQI that was out a few days ago that pointed out that AQI is mostly a "myth", accounting for at BEST 8% of the insurgency, and another paper said they had seen tens of thousands in CASH given - and hundreds of thousands of dollars promised - to the Anbar sheiks to "fight AQI".

But, yeah, almost nobody has said anything about exactly what the body count of AQI has been since, what areas have they been cleaned out of, or anything concrete at all.

In other words, it's all bullshit.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 13, 2007 8:43 PM