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A Look at Iraqis Who Oppose al Qaeda

2:52 PM, Jan 23, 2008 • By BRIAN FAUGHNAN
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There's a wonderful piece in the Christian Science Monitor today about the decisionmaking process by which ordinary Iraqi communities decide to oppose al Qaeda. The article looks at one sheikh who led the effort to create a Concerned Local Citizens group to oppose the group:

Shortly before the pre-dawn US helicopter ride back to his village of Dulim last week, the beaming Sunni sheikh asserted, "People are so desperate to set up CLCs here, to protect their families. They need someone to be on their side. Absolutely this is a war against Al Qaeda. We are against them."

In Dulim, it took both time and reprisals by al Qaeda before a sufficient number of people joined the CLC to make it effective. After Al Qaeda murdered a local farmer who had the nerve to stand up to them, it seems the residents of finally got up the nerve to join the fight. The story of Dulim sounds like a microcosm of what has happened through most of Iraq in the last year.

Go and read the whole thing.

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