Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Fallujan Infighting?
From Iraq'd:
Let them fight each other first, then we can finish the job that should have been done several months ago.
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Karl Vick of The Washington Post has an excellent article today detailing emerging splits in Falluja between local insurgents and foreign terrorists. Fallujan leaders, in negotiations with the Allawi government and the U.S. to avoid a fresh attack on the city, took the step of voting 10-2 on the mujahideen council to effectively expel the foreigners (though the order appears to have been ignored). There are two reasons for the split, Vick reports: Fallujans have been subjected to weeks of U.S. air strikes that have killed dozens of civilians and don't want an all-out offensive, and they blame the Zarqawi network and other foreigners for bringing ruin to the city; and they're disgusted by the "stern brand of Islam" that the foreigners have imported--which violates "customs rooted in the town's more mystical religious tradition"--and the violence they use to enforce compliance. If the split is about something as fundamental as religion and local custom, expect it to deepen
Let them fight each other first, then we can finish the job that should have been done several months ago.
