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Iraqi Tribes Strike Back at Insurgents
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Hawijah leaders said they, too, wanted to create a militia to enforce their threats, but that U.S. military officials were opposed to the idea. For the time being, they said, they would intensify their cooperation with Iraqi military and police units.
Members of the Anbar militia said the group comprised about 100 people who have had relatives slain by al-Qaeda in Iraq. The group is led by Ahmed Ftaikhan, a former Iraqi intelligence officer from the now-disbanded Iraqi army who lives in Ramadi.
Fahdawi, the sheik from the Albu Fahd tribe, said the militia was forged in a series of secret meetings among tribal leaders, each of whom was asked to help form the group. Some contributed men, some money, Fahdawi said. U.S. military officers attended some of the meetings, he said, and helped "with "all kinds of financial support."
Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, denied that American forces were funding the militia.
"All military activity is conducted through the legitimate structures of the Iraqi government and security forces," he said in an e-mail. "We are working hard to ensure these structures function properly, and funding a program such as this would only undermine that process."
A fighter in Zarqawi's group, calling himself Abu Azzam, said the al-Anbar Revolutionaries "are collaborators and dogs for America. They kill the mujaheddin to get money from the American crusaders. They are cowards and we have killed a lot of them. . . . All the people here support us and our jihad against the Americans and their followers."
Fahdawi said, "I cannot say that all the people in Ramadi support us, but I can say 80 percent of them do."
Ilaf, the militia member and welder from Ramadi, said the group has had real success.
"We have killed a number of the Arabs, including Saudis, Egyptians, Syrians, Kuwaitis, Syrians and Jordanians," he said. "We were also able to foil an attack by Zarqawi's men who were trying to attack an oil pipeline outside Ramadi. We killed four Iraqis trying to plant the bomb under the pipeline."
Other Washington Post staff contributed to this report.
