Yet another positive story from Iraq that you won’t hear about in the lamestream media.

Hero of Anbar Would Stir a Revolt in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON — The leader of the tribal confederation that has fought to expel Al Qaeda from most of Iraq’s Anbar province is offering his men to help gin up a rebellion against Osama bin Laden’s organization along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

In an interview, Sheik Ahmad al-Rishawi told The New York Sun that in April he prepared a 47-page study on Afghanistan and its tribes for the deputy chief of mission at the American embassy in Kabul, Christopher Dell. When asked if he would send military advisers to Afghanistan to assist American troops fighting there, he said: “I have no problem with this; if they ask me, I will do it.”

The success of the Anbari tribal rebellion known as the awakening spurred Multinational Forces Iraq to try to emulate the model throughout Iraq, including with the predominately Shiite tribes in the south of the country. Today, the tribe-based militias formed to protect Anbaris from Al Qaeda are forming a political alliance poised to unseat the confessional Sunni parties currently in parliament in the provincial elections scheduled for the fall and the federal ones scheduled for 2009.

Hell yeah to this brave warrior who has helped defeat al Qaeda in Iraq. It is heartening to see a muslim leader who wants to live peacefully in this world.

Read the rest inThe New York Sun.

More great news from Iraq.  Ambassador Crocker  says that Al Qaeda in Iraq is close to defeat…Will The defeatist Democrats now apologize? doubt it.

Associated Press

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq said Saturday that al-Qaida’s network in the country has never been closer to defeat, and he praised Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for his moves to rein in Shiite and Sunni militant groups.

Ryan Crocker’s comments came as Iraqi forces have been conducting crackdowns on al-Qaida militants in the northern city of Mosul and on Shiite militiamen in the southern city of Basra. Thousands of Iraqi forces also moved into the Shiite militia stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad last week imposing control for the first time in years.

But truces with the powerful Mahdi Army militia that have calmed violence in Basra and paved the way for the Sadr City deployment have been strained in the past two days.

Supporters of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who heads the Mahdi Army, accused al-Maliki on Saturday of seeking to eliminate their movement and warned that “dark clouds” hang over the truce.

Al-Qaida fighters or other Sunni insurgents struck back in Mosul on Saturday. A roadside bomb in the city’s Sumer neighborhood hit an Iraqi army patrol, destroying a vehicle and killing four soldiers, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Good article today over at MNF, the official Operation Iraqi Freedom site, by Lance Cpl. Casey Jones talking about the ongoing transformation of Ramadi and the pursuit and dedication to normalcy in which was once a terrorist stronghold.

Marines Assist Ramadi progress

Two years ago, Ramadi’s police force was essentially wiped out by a strong insurgency that devastated almost every police station, leaving only a small number of officers on the job and a city considered by officials to be uncontrollable and nicknamed the “wild west.”

According to an NBC News article from September 2006, a secret report concluding that the United States military could not defeat the insurgents in al-Anbar province and al-Qaida was rapidly filling the political vacuity.

Almost a year ago, the tribal leaders of Ramadi formed the “Al Anbar Awakening Movement” and agreed to work more closely with coalition forces.

and now this:

According to Lance Cpl. Jonathan R. Chapman, rifleman with Company A, the Iraqi police are doing a remarkable job in the lead role.

“The Iraqi police are doing very well,” Chapman said. “They are excellent policemen. They’re all very tactically sound.”

The Iraqi police have taken giant steps over the past year in becoming more independent. This can mostly be attributed to the “al-Anbar Awakening” where tribal leaders supported the coalition forces’ efforts, and took a stand against al-Qaida in Iraq last year. Sheiks throughout the province encouraged tribal members to join the Iraqi police ranks and protect their streets, resulting in Ramadi’s Iraqi police recruitment to sky-rocket. Today, they are more than 9,000 Iraqi police serving in the province capital.

“The Iraqi policemen lead the patrols since we’re in an advisory, we just guide and assist them,” said 2nd Lt. Derek J. Herrera, a platoon commander with Company A. “Either their sergeant or lieutenant lead the patrols.”

Units throughout the city routinely conduct daily joint patrols, focusing on the community’s safety and the citizens concerns; a stark contrast from the kinetic activity and violence a year ago.

“We try to do joint patrols as often as we can, usually every day,” Herrera said; a different circumstance compared to past units in the city. “I’ve heard from friends and other cohorts, you couldn’t go on patrol in Ta’meem for more than five to 10 minutes without receiving fire. The way the Iraqi policemen describe it, Ta’meem used to be at the forefront of the insurgency. It was once referred to as “ambush alley.”

Today shows a more peaceful environment, where Iraqis and Marines patrol the neighborhoods, and receive positive response from the citizens.

“The locals are very friendly towards coalition forces and the (policemen) as well,” Herrera said. “They really appreciate what we do. We’ve never really had a negative reaction from anyone in Ta’meem. The kids run to us and beg for chocolate and the adults really appreciate our help.”

With the positive changes in the Ta’meem area and the progressive steps made by the Iraqi police officers, the station, like many others, is looking towards taking community safety to the next level and bring the city of Ramadi closer to a state of normalcy.

Interesting, I bet the democrats or their leftist allies never read reports like this, and even if they did, they’d conjur up an excuse to make these stories look illegitimate…dishonesty is the best policy for leftists.  Any rhetoric that promotes their agenda is acceptable even if that means lying to yourself and others.

Great post today from Bob Owens of Confederate Yankee:

Starting over a year ago with the discovery of a new kind of roadside bomb—EFPs or explosively-formed projectiles—American commanders in Iraq began believing that Iran was supplying weapons to militants in Iraq. That belief grew as more munitions were captured, including 34 unfired rockets captured on July 12, 2007 that were said to be of Iranian origin.

In recent weeks American forces have claimed to have captured even more Iranian weapons, including those that were new, apparently manufactured in 2008. In addition, Iraqi government forces are said to have captured a significant number of weapons of suspected Iranian manufacture during military options in and around Basra over the past month.

On top of the weaponry captured, recently-released information claims that Shiite militiamen were trained by Hezbollah in Iranian terrorist camps near Tehran, and that some of those militants have been captured, and have resided in U.S. military custody for several months providing valuable intelligence.

But if solid physical evidence of Iranian military interference has been captured, then why hasn’t that evidence been presented to independent experts for verification? Why hasn’t that material been presented to a skeptical world media, still unwilling to believe governmental claims at face value after Saddam Hussein’s WMDs turned out to be ghosts?
The answer is both simple and pragmatic:
Read on for the answer…

As we wait for the results of tonight’s primaries take your mind off things a bit and watch our boys doing what they do best…killing scumbag Jihadis.

I love the music compilation added.  Check it out:

hattip: ZIP

Couldn’t be more clear about Iran’s involvement in Iraq.

Hugh Hewitt interviewed major General Rick Lynch, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division yesterday. Just listen to what he has to say about Iran…

Here’s the Audio

or see the full transcript

You see, what we’re trying to do, Hugh, is to trace the rat line back where it came from. See, I’ve lost 147 soldiers under my command since I’ve been here in the last fourteen months. Many of those soldiers were killed by explosive foreign penetrators that are all traced back to Iran, or by Iranian rockets. So what we do, in everything that we do, for example, we found so many weapons caches over the course of the last month, and in those weapons caches we found Iranian rockets and Iranian mines.

So we’ve got detailed biometrics. We check for fingerprints, and we traced those back to where they started. We’re following the money back to Iran, we’re following the munitions back to Iran, and then looking for those people that are trained in Iran as well. So it’s a major piece of our operations, to block that Iranian influence.

Can we please get some oversight here in America?

Memri

The Iraqi government has permitted Iraqi security forces to dispatch security agents to mosques to monitor the Friday sermons.

The government has also issued an order preventing preachers without proper training to deliver sermons, with the aim of preventing incitement and the fanning of tensions in sermons.

Source: Alnajafnews.net, April 27, 2008