Irak: Sunnier på tværs, men ved at blive fornuftige

Sidste slag i propagandakrigen i Irak: den irakiske justitsminister kaster om sig med beskyldninger mod amerikanerne, og BBC bringer dem gladeligt videre:

Iraq's justice minister has accused the US of concealing information about deposed president Saddam Hussein that could be damaging to "many countries".

Abdel Hussein Shandal said it seemed there were "lots of secrets" that the Americans wanted to hide. ...

"There should be transparency and there should be frankness, but there are secrets that, if revealed, won't be in the interest of many countries," Mr Shandal said.

"Who was helping Saddam all those years?"

Selv om man ikke kan lade være med at undres over at det er USA der skal peges fingre af (svaret på mandens spørgsmål er nemt: Frankrig og Rusland/Sovjetunionen - se her), så er forklaringen imidlertid åbenlys, når bare man tilføjer nogle detaljer som BBC vælger IKKE at bringe: Hr Shandal er del af den samme folkegruppe (sunnitiske arabere - 15-20% af befolkningen) der står bag "modstanden" og før befrielsen i 2003 stod bag Saddams styre. Iflg WSBTV:

Abdel Hussein Shandal -- Sunni Arab, hold law degree. Served as president of
Baghdad's special-crimes and appellate courts during Hussein's rule.

Hr. Shandal agerer som medspiller i en kampagne sunni-araberne har kørt de sidste par måneder for at forøge deres indflydelse på den nye regering og grundlov så meget som overhovedet muligt. Deres problem er, at de valgte at prøve at bombe de irakiske valg i Januar sønder og sammen istedet for at deltage i dem. De fejlede miserabelt, og har en meget begrænset repræsentation i det irakiske parlament.

Deres eneste reelle forhandlingsobjekt er nu at de måske kan få de nationalistisk indstillede (som i "en irakisk nation domineret af et sunniarabisk mindretal") "oprørsgrupper" til at nedlægge våbnene (se feks her på bloggen). Noget sådant kræver imidlertid en anden ting: at de irakiske og amerikanske tropper ikke smadrer dem fuldstændigt før sunniaraberne har malket dem for alt de er værd i forhandlingerne.

Derfor en udtalelse som foroven: jo flere verbale angreb den amerikanske administration har at tage sig af, jo mindre overskud har den til at nedkæmpe "oprørsgrupperne" i Irak. Et andet forsøg kom tidligt i juni:

An influential Sunni association called for an end to a weeklong counterinsurgency offensive in Baghdad, saying it overwhelmingly targets members of their religious minority and has led to the detention of hundreds of people.

Mens de civile sunniarabere prøver at holde de irakiske og amerikanske styrker tilbage prøver "oprørsgrupperne" at genvinde den støtte de oprindelig havde i deres folkegruppe, indtil deres alliance med al-Qaeda-terroristerne og disses massemord på vilkårlige civile gjorde en del sunniarabere utilfredse.

"Oprørsgrupperne" er selv ret utilfredse med al-Qaeda-folkene efter disse deserterede fra deres stillinger i Fallujah i efteråret. Strategypage har mere:

Al Qaeda and Sunni Arab terrorists are seen battling each other in towns and
villages along the Syrian border. Closer to Baghdad, the terrorists are knocking each other off on a more personal level. Some tips, about where terrorists are hiding, are believed to have come from rival terrorist groups. The Sunni Arabs are under pressure from other Sunni Arab groups because of these continued al Qaeda attacks. The Sunni Arab terrorists are being told, by other Sunni Arab groups, that if al Qaeda is not stopped, the majority of the Sunni Arab community, in addition to the the 80 percent of the population representing the Kurds and Shia Arabs, will come after the Sunni Arab terrorist groups. That would be very bad for the Sunni Arab terrorists. But they are finding that al Qaeda does not care. The al Qaeda guys are on a mission from God, and are basically unreachable when it comes to discussing compromise.

Fra New York Times, under overskriften "Marines see signs Iraq rebels are battling foreign fighters:

Late Sunday night, American marines watching the skyline from their second-story perch in an abandoned house here saw a curious thing: in the distance, mortar and gunfire popped, but the volleys did not seem to be aimed at them.

In the dark, one spoke in hushed code words on a radio, and after a minute found the answer.

"Red on red," he said, using a military term for enemy-on-enemy fire.

Marines patrolling this desert region near the Syrian border have for months been seeing a strange new trend in the already complex Iraqi insurgency. Insurgents, they say, have been fighting each other in towns along the Euphrates from Husayba, on the border, to Qaim, farther west. The observations ... suggest that there may have been, as American commanders suggest, a split between Islamic militants and local rebels. ....

"There is a rift," said the official, who requested anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the talks he had held. "I'm certain that the nationalist Iraqi part of the insurgency is very much fed up with the Jihadists grabbing the headlines and carrying out the sort of violence that they don't want against innocent civilians."

The nationalist insurgent groups, "are giving a lot of signals implying that there should be a settlement with the Americans," while the Jihadists have a purely ideological agenda, he added. ...

"The thought was, "They're coming for us. But then we saw they were fighting each other," he recalled during a break in Monday's operation. "We were kind of wondering what happened. We were getting mortared twice a day, and then all of a sudden it stopped." ...

Capt. Chris Ieva, a fast-talking 31-year-old from North Brunswick, N.J., said he could tell whether an area was controlled by foreign insurgents or locals by whether families had cellphones or guns, which foreign fighters do not allow local residents to have for fear they would spy on them.

Gode nyheder.

Henrik