Iraqi neighbours rise up against al-Qa'eda

Why don't we read this in American newspapers? Where is the reporting on the war by the major newspapers and media of the US? Why do we have to find it from blogs and foreign news sources?

"Awakening" movements across Iraq are helping to rid Sunni neighbourhoods of extremist influence, writes Colin Freeman, in the UK Telegraph.

Mr. Freeman reports from the war torn neighborhoods of Baghdad:

Khalil Mohammed Abbas, a haggard, chainsmoking ex-Iraqi army officer, has good reason to puff on every cigarette as if it were his last.

After helping his neighbours in Baghdad rise up against the al-Qa'eda thugs who have terrorised them, he lives in constant expectation that the threats text-messaged to his mobile phone may one day come real.

"They are from al-Qa'eda, and they tell me I am a mercenary," he says, reading out the latest missive to bleep into his inbox.

"They ask how I would feel if they kidnapped my wife and children and kill and rape them. But I am not worried about those bastards. I know they could kill me at any moment, but if we do not fight them we will all die anyway."

The man al-Qa'eda describe as a mercenary is indeed a hired gun of sorts, however - as a leader of the so-called Sunni Muslim "Awakening", he is one of around 500 residents in his neighbourhood paid by US forces to help drive al-Qa'eda from their midst.

Many of his comrades previously saw the Americans as their enemies, but their decision to change sides is not just for the money: after two years of al-Qa'eda violence, their hatred of the terrorist group outweighs any lingering dislike of the US "occupiers".

Mr Abbas, 42, is typical. He was one of hundreds of thousands of men left jobless after the Americans disbanded Saddam's Sunni-dominated armies five years ago, a move that drove many Sunnis into the embrace of the anti-US insurgency and its allies of convenience in al-Qa'eda.

But as the group slowly took over Mr Abbas's home neighbourhood, what first appealed to many as a movement to defend Sunni Muslims soon revealed itself as a brutal, bigoted cause.

At the end of the article is a telling comment:

The patrol heads back to base, where, the night before, one of Mr Abbas's informants had rung the incident room with reports of two men robbing people at gunpoint.

It was the first recorded robbery Capt Battjes could recall since arriving here back in June, and the fact that the muggers now felt safe to come out brought a wry smile to his face.

"It sounds terrible, but maybe this is a sign that things are getting back to normal," he said. "That's not terrorism, that's just Detroit-style crime."