American military investigators are racing north from Baghdad to Nihabi, a small village near Taji, to look for the body of Abu Ayuub al Masri, the fearsome leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, a senior American intelligence official told Pajamas Media.
Al Masri had just been reported dead hours earlier, following a firefight with a band of Sunni irregulars. Those irregulars are a story of their own, as will be revealed below. . . .If he is dead, who killed him? Here media reporting appears confused, . . . . Most likely, our sources tell us, al Masri was felled by former insurgents who have come over to the American side. Those would be the Albu Issa, which have been subjected to an incredibly brutal campaign by AQI that has included the use of chlorine bombs in Amariyah, one official said. The Albu Issa tribe is allied with the Coalition are part of Sheikh Abdul Sattars Anbar Salvation Front, which unites 26 out of the 31 Anbar province tribes against al Qaeda.
The US is working with a number of former insurgent groups including 1920 Revolution Brigade to fight AQI in Anbar, the source adds. Bill Roggio has reported in the past that many of the Anbar Salvation Front members are former 1920 Revolution Brigade or Islamic Army of Iraq fighters who have now joined the Coalition to fight AQI as part of Sheikh Abdul Sattars amnesty program.
Nicely done.
A SUICIDE bomber in a stolen ambulance killed 14 Iraqis overnight in an attack on a police post in an area controlled by Sunni tribes opposed to al-Qaeda. Omar al-Alwani, a doctor at Ramadi Hospital, said five police, three children, three civilian women and three local men were killed in the attack in the Albu Alwan area of the western city. The police post had been set up in a converted house at the heart of a residential area that has become a target for al-Qaeda insurgents since local tribal leaders formed a movement to oppose them.