Sunni Iraqis Fear a Bloodbath of Reprisal After Possible U.S. Exit

By Patrick Cockburn, CounterPunch. Posted April 14, 2009.

But the US forces swiftly gave full backing and pay to the Awakening Councils, a move only grudgingly supported by the Iraqi security forces.

With US soldiers due to leave Baghdad and other cities on 30 June under a Status of Forces Agreement signed between Iraq and the US last year, many Sunni Arabs and Awakening Council members believe the government will move against them. Last October the government agreed to pay the Awakening Council members, but their salaries often arrive late and sometimes not at all.

The government has also been averse to giving the paramilitaries the influential jobs in the security services which they have demanded. Many Awakening Council leaders and members have been arrested over the past year. In Baghdad in March, assisted by US forces, they moved against the Sunni fighters in the al-Fadhil district, a commercial area in central Baghdad specializing in selling building supplies, timber and metal. Local Awakening Council members were arrested or dispersed.

The Awakening Councils in the past have threatened to become insurgents again. "Most of the Sunni people believe the government will never allow al-Sahwa to continue their work and their role is finished," said one Sunni resident of west Baghdad who did not want his name published. "The government is wrong if it thinks this because most of the al-Sahwa were in al-Qa'ida or in the Islamic Army of Iraq and it is easy for them to switch back."

But it may be difficult for the Awakening Council members to change allegiances once again. The Sunni community to which they belong has been seriously weakened. It makes up 20 per cent of the Iraqi population; the Shias make up 60 per cent. As a result of sectarian cleansing, Baghdad is now overwhelmingly Shia. Sunni who fled to Jordan and Syria have often not returned and, when they do, not to their old homes.

The Awakening Councils are also disunited. In some areas they are fighting the government but in others they want a share in state authority and patronage.

Al-Qa'ida remains strongest in largely Sunni Arab Mosul and in Baquba, the capital of the fruit-growing Diyala province north east of Baghdad. In Mosul it is even able to enforce its brand of Islamic puritanism by threatening to kill co-religionists if they celebrate or hold ceremonies commemorating the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed or Sha'ban, the month after Ramadan. The Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qa'ida umbrella organisation, has put out leaflets and made threats by text messages and phone calls to any Muslim who participates in these events. Even giving sweets to children has been targeted.

Such is the fear of al-Qa'ida in Mosul that nobody dares break these anonymous edicts or find out if there will be retribution. At the same time the backlash against al-Qa'ida which led to the original creation of the Awakening Movement in 2006 was sparked by al-Qa'ida trying to impose its fundamentalist ideology on an unwilling population.

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Patrick Cockburnis the author of 'The Occupation: War, resistance and daily life in Iraq', a finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award for best non-fiction book of 2006. His new book 'Muqtada! Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia revival and the struggle for Iraq' is published by Scribner.

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