The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Osama warns Sunnis not to work with U.S.

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Tuesday, Jan 01, 2008
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Osama warns Sunnis not to work with U.S.

Ed Pilkington

Al-Qaeda leader releases recorded message

New York: Osama bin Laden has directed the fury of Al-Qaeda against a new target: Sunni Arab leaders in Iraq who have turned against insurgents backed by the terror group and are working with U.S. forces to end violence in key areas of the country.

In his fifth recorded message this year, Osama released an audiotape which warned Sunni Arabs who had joined local US-led security initiatives that they had “betrayed the nation and brought disgrace and shame to their people. They will suffer in life and the afterlife.”

The Al-Qaeda chief’s concentration on Sunni tribal leaders who dared to break ranks with the insurgency underlined the changing picture inside Iraq in recent weeks. The transformation is most defined in Anbar province in the west of the country where coalitions of Iraqis, supported with U.S. money and expertise and now numbering up to 70,000 fighters, have sharply reduced violence in the area.

The coalitions, known as “Awakening Councils” or “Concerned Local Citizens” groups, have been replicated in other regions, notably Baghdad. Osama specifically referred to the Anbar coalition, denouncing its former leader Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha who was blown up in September.

In a mirror image of Osama’s message, the top US military commander, General David Petraeus, gave an upbeat assessment of the security situation just hours earlier in which he claimed that violence had declined by 60% since June. He said the transfer of allegiance to the US and Iraqi government side by Sunni tribal chiefs was a cause of fear for Al-Qaeda which had begun to target those leaders. Al-Qaeda, he said, “attach enormous importance to these Concerned Local Citizens groups, these tribes that have turned against them, and to the general sense that Sunni Arab communities have rejected them more and more around Iraq. They are trying to counter this.”

Gen. Petraeus said the favourable security position would allow some US forces to return to the States during the coming year as responsibilities are gradually handed over to the Iraqi army. But he added that the improvements were fragile and could be reversed, pointing to the fact that violence remains high in the north of Iraq.

One factor behind the insurgency’s relative decline, Gen. Petraeus said, was that neighbouring countries had stemmed the flow of foreign fighters and funds that were responsible for suicide bombing. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

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