The vast desert area of Western Iraq, the Anbar province whose capital is Ramadi, has for a long time been the seat of al Qaida's power. But more and more that continues to be challenged, not just by US forces, who have always opposed them, but also by local residents and the tribal leaders.
And the tribes in the area continue to take the fight to the enemy.
The head of a tribal council in Iraq's western province of Anbar said on Sunday that tribesmen had killed 55 al Qaeda fighters in a battle on Saturday, but the U.S. military could not confirm the figures.
The death toll, if confirmed, would mark an unusually fierce clash with insurgents in a province where U.S. forces regularly battle foreign fighters they say are linked to al Qaeda and other Sunni insurgents.
The US supported the tribal operations with artillary and airstrikes, but the Iraqis had their own grudge to settle with al Qaida
"Al Qaeda burned homes and killed members of the tribe using small arms fire and mortars," the military said in a statement. It gave no casualty figures.
Sattar al-Buzayi, head of the Anbar Salvation Council, an umbrella group of tribes in Anbar, a vast Sunni province in the west of Iraq, said tribal fighters had raided an al Qaeda stronghold and killed 55 militants and arrested 25. He said nine tribal fighters were killed in the clash.
To counter the problems they are having here, al Qaida has its disinformation machine in full swing, and finding credulous US media outlets to propogate the propoganda
Big Media journalists often rely on sources that are unreliable. They don’t tell you the pressures these sources might be under from insurgents and terrorists. They refuse to tell you who their stringers are, so we can assess their motivations. They get quotes from doctors who seem to see only civilian deaths. If the military has been given insufficient time to respond to an allegation, these journalists don’t check with the military later, to verify that the story they’ve written is accurate. And sometimes, as here, their stories are completely at odds with numerous other accounts reported in other press outlets — and they seem to have no interest in finding out why.
Regardless, al Qaida is fighting for its life in Anbar. And while the false stories planted in the press may gain them some sympathy here in the US, they are being relentlessly hunted with bullets and steel.
