Sheik Led Sunni Fight Against Al-Qaida

President Bush, center left, shakes hands with Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, an Iraqi tribal leader, during a meeting with tribal leaders at Al-Asad Airbase in Anbar province, Iraq, Monday, Sept. 3, 2007. The most prominent figure in a revolt of Sunni sheiks against al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Risha was killed Thursday Sept. 13, 2007, in an explosion near his home in Anbar province, Iraqi police said. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File) (Charles Dharapak - AP)

He was usually greeted with chants of support every time he showed up on the streets of Ramadi, the war-ravaged provincial capital 70 miles west of Baghdad.

"We owe Abu Risha and his people for giving us back our lives," said Saad Ibrahim, who runs a falafel eatery in Ramadi where he says al-Qaida fighters ruled supreme until driven out by men from Abu Risha's Anbar Awakening Council.

Little is known of Abu Risha's past before his anti-Qaida campaign. Many of Anbar's clans benefited from money from ousted leader Saddam Hussein.

The oldest of Abu Risha's three children is a 12-year-old boy called Saddam _ though that is not necessarily evidence of his politics. Thousands of parents named their newborns after the former dictator either out of admiration or to deflect the attention of regime informants.

Among Abu Risha's chief rivals in Anbar was Ali Hatem al-Suleiman, another leader in the Duleimi tribe.

"Clans that cooperated with the British nearly a century ago still live in shame," al-Suleiman told the AP by telephone Wednesday, referring to Britain's period of colonial rule in Iraq. "Only a mercenary would meet with Bush, who had no business coming to Anbar anyway."

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Associated Press correspondent Todd Pitman contributed to this report.