Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Iraq Media:

Howaiyja, Nov 29, (VOI)- Nearly 6,000 tribal Sunni Arabs from the city of Howaiyja joined a security pact with American forces on Wednesday in what U.S. officers described as a critical step in plugging the remaining escape routes for gunmen flushed from former strongholds, reported the Chicago Tribune newspaper.

“The new alliance - called the single largest volunteer mobilization since the war began - covers the “last gateway” for groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq seeking new havens in northern Iraq, U.S. military officials said,” the paper said.

“U.S. commanders have tried to build a ring around gunmen who fled military offensives launched earlier this year in the western Anbar province and later into Baghdad and surrounding areas. In many places, the U.S.-led battles were given key help from tribal militias — mainly Sunnis — that had turned against al-Qaeda and other groups,” it also said.

“Gunmen have sought new footholds in northern areas once loyal to Saddam Hussein’s Baath party as the U.S.-led gains have mounted across central regions. But their ability to strike near the capital remains,” it noted.

“The ceremony to pledge the 6,000 new fighters was presided over by a dozen sheiks — each draped in black robes trimmed with gold braiding — who signed the contract on behalf of tribesmen at a small U.S. outpost in north-central Iraq,” the U.S. newspaper highlighted.

“For about $275 a month — nearly the salary for the typical Iraqi policeman — the tribesmen will man about 200 security checkpoints beginning Dec. 7, supplementing hundreds of Iraqi forces already in the area.”

“About 77,000 Iraqis nationwide, mostly Sunnis, have broken with the gunmen and joined U.S.-backed self-defense groups,” it pointed out.
“Those groups have played a major role in the lull in violence: 648 Iraqi civilians have been killed or found dead in November to date, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press. This compares with 2,155 in May as the so-called “surge” of nearly 30,000 additional American troops gained momentum,” the paper said.

Village mayors and others who signed Wednesday’s agreement say about 200 militants have sought refuge in the area, about 30 miles southwest of Kirkuk on the edge of northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Howaiyja is a predominantly Sunni Arab cluster of villages which has long been an insurgent flashpoint.
“The recently arrived militants have waged a campaign of killing and intimidation to try to establish a new base,” the paper quoted Sheikh Khalaf Ali Issa, mayor of Zaab village, as saying.

“They killed 476 of my citizens, and I will not let them continue their killing,” Issa said.

With the help of the new Sunni allies, “the Howaiyja area will be an obstacle to militants, rather than a pathway for them,” said Maj. Sean Wilson, with the Army’s 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division. “They’re another set of eyes that we needed in this critical area.”

By defeating militants in Howaiyja, U.S. and Iraqi leaders hope to keep them away from Kirkuk, an ethnically diverse city that is also the hub of Iraq’s northern oil fields.

“They want to go north into Kirkuk and wreak havoc there, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to avoid,” Army Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, the top U.S. commander in northern Iraq, said.

“Howaiyja is the gateway through which all our communities — Kurdish, Turkomen, and Arab alike — can become unsafe,” said Abu Saif al-Jabouri, mayor of al-Multaqa village north of Kirkuk. “Do I love my neighbor in Howaiyja? That question no longer matters. I must work to help him, because his safety helps me.”
Howaiyja is located 50 km west of Kirkuk, which lies 250 km northeast of Baghdad.