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Sunni offensive backed by american warplanes { August 30 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/30/AR2005083000735.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/30/AR2005083000735.html
U.S. Warplanes Back Unprecedented Sunni-Led Offensive
Fierce Fighting in Growing Rift Between Zarqawi Insurgents and Sunni Arab Tribes
By Ellen Knickmeyer and Omar Fekeiki
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 30, 2005; 11:45 AM
RAMADI, Iraq, Aug. 30 -- U.S. warplanes backed Sunni Arab tribal fighters on Tuesday in what tribal leaders called an unprecedented Sunni-led offensive to drive out Abu Musab Zarqawi's forces.
Three days of ongoing fighting in towns near the Syrian border killed at least 61 people, at least 56 of them Tuesday, said Dr. Ali Rawi, emergency-room director at the hospital in the largest city near the fighting, Qaim, about 200 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Forty-two of them wore the black training-suits and athletic shoes favored by Zarqawi's fighters, Rawi said.
Others appeared to be fighters of a rival tribe or civilians, he said.
Tuesday's bombings and clashes in the towns of Husaybah and Karabilah marked some of the fiercest fighting yet in a growing rift between Zarqawi's insurgents and some tribes of their Sunni Arab base.
The clashes came after insurgents kidnapped and killed 31 men belonging to the Albu Mahal tribe because they had joined the Iraqi security forces, said Sheikh Muhammed Mahallawi, one of the tribe's leaders.
"We decided, either we force them out of the city or kill them," with the support of U.S. bombardment, Mahallawi said.
His tribe also had asked local residents not to aid or house Zarqawi's fighters, he said. Some of the local people refused the request, in a show of support for Zarqawi, he said.
The U.S. military confirmed six dawn air strikes on two residences believed to house insurgents in and around Husaybah.
When survivors of that attack escaped and drove three miles to another residence in Karabilah, the U.S. aircraft bombed that house as well, dropping two bombs, a U.S. military statement said.
The military said it believed the precision-guided bombs killed several insurgents. It gave no word on civilian casualties.
Residents said one of the air strikes hit a Zarqawi weapons cache, setting off loud secondary explosions. Another targeted building was a former clinic that had been taken over by Zarqawi, residents said.
Zarqawi's group said in a statement posted in local mosques that it had lost 17 men.
The fighting, while localized, met the constantly stated U.S. aim of "driving a wedge" between foreign-led insurgents--Zarqawi is Jordanian--and their Sunni Arab base. Resentment of Zarqawi's fighters earlier this month sparked clashes in Ramadi, where Sunni Arab tribes rallied to block his forces in their stated aim of driving Shiite Arabs from the city.
An Iraqi Zarqawi commander said Monday that Zarqawi's forces had dropped that order so as to retain Ramadi as a base.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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