A Gunman shot dead an anti-al-Qaida group leader near a Sunni
mosque in western Baghdad, a well- informed police source said
Sunday.
"The leader of the Awakening council group in the al-Jamea
neighborhood, was gunned down by an armed man using a pistol with
muffler while leaving the Mulla Hweish mosque in the area after the
noon prayers on Saturday," the source told Xinhua on condition of
anonymity.
The victim is well-known in the neighborhood as "Colonel Rabie,
" the source said.
The Awakening councils, or al-Sahwa, are groups of local Sunni
neighborhood fighters, including some powerful anti-U.S.insurgent
groups, have turned their rifles toward the al-Qaida network to
provide security to their neighborhoods.
Rifts emerged between the two sides after the al-Qaida members
adopted a hardline Islam and exercised indiscriminate killings
against both Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.
However, on Saturday, both the Iraq's Defense Minister, Gen.
Abdul Qadir al-Obiedi and the Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani
said the Iraqi government will not tolerate the U.S.-backed Sunni
groups turning into a "third force" along with the army and the
police forces.
"We reject them (Awakening Councils fighters) turning into a
third military organization," Obiedi told a joint news conference
with Bolani.
"The only two forces are the ministries of defense and interior,
" he said.
For his art, Bolani said that his government plans to integrate
some 20 percent of the councils' fighters into the Iraqi security
forces, while the rest of them would be offered vocational training
for other civilian jobs.
The two minister's comments came a day after Iraqi most powerful
Shiite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim called for the Sunni fighters to
be under tight government control.
(Xinhua News Agency December 23, 2007)
