Crushing Al-Qaeda

Bill Roggio - My direct experience in Iraq tells me that iraqis have been disgusted by al Qaeda's attacks on all sects of Iraqis. I've met a former Sunni insurgent commander of the Jaish Mohammed named General Mustaffa who now runs the Concerned Citizens group in Arab Jabour. His wife is Shia, his son's name is Ali, a Shia name, and he recruited Shia to be members of his local police force. He expressed disgust at both al Qaeda and the Mahdi Army's tactics, and railed against both Syria and Iran for their involvement in the insurgency.
I have run into this sentiment from several different across Iraq. In East Rashid, I met Sunnis who were horrified how al Qaeda ran out their Christian neighbors. In the mixed town of Haswa south of Baghdad, which sits along a sectarian fault line, Sunni and Shia banded together to fight both al Qaeda in Iraq and the Mahdi Army. In Anbar, US Army Captain Travis Patriquin is mourned as a martyr for his support of the tribes' fight against al Qaeda.
The Western media has over generalized and in many cases manufactured the "Sunni-Shia divide." In fact, this situation is what both al Qaeda and the Mahdi Army strived to create. They wanted Iraqis to be dependent on each group as the defenders of their sect, while it wants the U.S. public to conclude Iraq is in the middle of a sectarian civil war, a war we should not be involved with. More...