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Associated Press Sees “Hundreds” Where Pictures Show Millions
At 10:01 UTC today the Associated Press tweeted that "hundreds" gather in central Baghdad to demand that American troops leave the country.
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Thirty eight minutes earlier CNN had already reported that "hundreds of thousands" are protesting in Baghdad against the U.S. troop presence in Iraq.
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When AP sent the misleading tweet the commander of the Iraqi Federal Police Forces Jaffar al-Batat had already announced that the number of demonstrators exceeds one million.
That number may well be correct. Reports said that the column of protesters was already eight kilometers long even while many were still arriving.
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Muqtada al-Sadr, who had called for the protests but is hardly a 'radical', demanded that the U.S. follow the decision of the Iraqi parliament and end its occupation. All U.S. bases in Iraq must be closed, all security agreements with the U.S. and with U.S. security companies must be ended and a schedule for the exit of all U.S. forces must be announced.
Meanwhile the U.S. is pulling strings and tries to carve a new Sunni state out of western Iraq.
Al-Sadr promised to temporarily halt the resistance against the U.S. occupation if the U.S. commits to leaving orderly.
Otherwise …
Laguerre
I think much will depend of if the Trump admin has anybody who understands the tribal structure of the region. I suspect Mcgurk was very good at this.
I did a little research to find a bit about tribal links to the Saudi’s.
Wikipedia has this…
“With the rise of the First Saudi State in the late 18th century, `Annizah were among the tribes that adopted a favorable attitude towards this new power, but took little active part in supporting it militarily, due to their geographical location. The royal family of Saudi Arabia Al Saud family are the from the ‘Annizah tribe,[4] with Al Saud having ancestry from Wa’il, the region’s native inhabitants as well as the migratory `Annizah. The Saud intermarried with their ‘Annizah rivals, al Shammar, along with other powerful tribes to solidify their dynasty. Ibn Saud sired dozens of children by his many wives. He had at most four wives at a time, divorcing many times, making sure to marry into many of the noble clans and tribes within his territory, including the chiefs of the Bani Khalid, Ajman, and Shammar tribes, as well as the Al ash-Sheikh. [5]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anazzah
I also ran onto a pdf on the tribes of Iraq from the US veiw (long link that wont post properly using HTML).
As I cannot post the link, some sections of it.
“Awakening Councils
As the Iraq war enters its sixth year, the role of the Iraqi Awakening Councils (which
consists largely of Sunni groups financed by the United States to fight Al-Qaeda and other
militants in the country) has become vital for the stability of Anbar province. The
Awakening Councils started in Anbar Province more than a year ago in late 2006, but
became stronger after the surge in spring 2007and now scores of groups have effectively
taken responsibility for law and order in their neighborhoods.8
The province was formerly
one of the most restive areas within the Sunni triangle.
Experts argue that the troop surge and new tactics of holding areas after insurgents
were expelled brought a measure of calm to parts of Baghdad and other areas of Iraq.
They also believe that one reason for the decline in attacks is that many former Sunni
fighters have turned against Al-Qaeda and are helping U.S. forces maintain security. In
reference to the creation of the Awakening Councils and Al-Qaeda mishaps, they assert
in a recent interview with Anthony Cordesman, an analyst with the Center for Strategic
and International Studies (CSIS) that:
We capitalized on a spontaneous tribal uprising against Al-Qaeda. That allowed us to
create the “Sons of Iraq,” a force that now has some 90,000 men, about three times the
size of our surge. Al-Qaeda helped us immeasurably. I think we have to give credit
to our enemy. They did so much damage to themselves in alienating tribal groups and
Sunnis, in driving former insurgents to work with U.S. troops, that oddly enough one
of our strongest allies in making this work was our enemy.9
The Shammar claim to be Iraq’s biggest tribal confederation, with more than 1.5
million people. Like other big confederations, it has tended to be unified only when
threatened from the outside, as in wartime. Shammar member tribes include the Toqa
(historically settled in central Iraq) and the Jarba (centered in the north). Shammar tribes
cover vast territories, from south of Baghdad to the Syrian border in the northwest. They
include Sunni and Shia groups and their reach extends from Yemen to the United Arab
Emirates.
The Anizah confederation is numerically believed to be the largest group of nomad
Arab tribes. They occupied a triangle of Syrian desert, near today’s Iraq-Syria border, to
the east bank of the Euphrates. The hereditary foes of the Anizah are believed to be the
Shammar. According to published reports, the history of nomadic Arabia has been
dominated for the last 150 years by the rivalry between the Anizah and Shammar
The Dulaym belong to a large group of tribes of Zubaydi origin and are connected
the Jannabiyin, Ubayd, and other confederations. They claim to have originally migrated
from Central Arabia. (Arab Tribes of the Baghdad Wilayat, issued by the Arab Bureau,
Baghdad, July 1918.) Many prominent Iraqis carry the last name “Dulaym,” signaling
they belong to this broad tribal confederation. Many Dulaymi tribes and leaders were
among the most important in supporting Hussein during his rule. Dulaym tribes reside
mostly in the western province of al-Anbar, around Ramadi. The Dulaym reportedly
orchestrated a failed coup attempt against Saddam Hussein in July 1992.
From wikipedia..
“Dulaim or Dulaimi or Al Duliam or Dulaym (Arabic: الدليم) is an Arab tribe, with over seven million members. The tribe’s history goes back to pre-Islamic times and members reside today in Iraq and neighboring countries such as Syria, Kuwait and Jordan.[2]
The Dulaims are the largest Sunni Arab tribe in Iraq, living on the Euphrates from a point just below Al Hillah and southern Baghdad to Fallujah, Ramadi, al-Qaim, Samarra and Mosul.[3]
Dulaim is the largest tribe in Anbar province, which formed the nucleus of the resistance\insurgency against U.S. forces in Iraq.
The events of the war and the bombing of Fallujah and targeting the Sunnis in Baghdad and Basra and many other reasons pushed the Sunni Dulaimi clans to carry weapons against Iraqi government and U.S. forces in Iraq.
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I suspect for the US, success or failure on their Sunni state will depend on how well they work the tribal angle.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jan 24 2020 18:14 utc | 47
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