Abu Ghraib’s reality: Progress isn’t enough

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Troops from Company C, 1st Battalion, 21st Stryker Infantry Regiment push toward cover after hearing several bursts of automatic gunfire while on patrol in Abu Ghraib, Iraq. Violence in Abu Ghraib is slowly rising, and some fear the revival of an insurgency in the area.


Abu Ghraib’s reality: Progress isn’t enough
By Michael Gisick, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, March 2, 2008

ABU GHRAIB, Iraq — A modest but steady rise in attacks on U.S. forces over the past month here has left commanders convinced that, though al-Qaida in Iraq has been driven from the area, a significant Sunni resistance remains.

U.S. commanders warn that this resistance could gain appeal in an area where the average household earns just $45 a month and a deep-seated distrust of the Iraqi government has taken hold of the overwhelmingly Sunni population.

Moreover, a pair of recent bomb attacks — one of which killed four U.S. soldiers — occurred within a few hundred yards of checkpoints manned by Sons of Iraq, the U.S.-funded security groups, prompting concerns that insurgents either “got around the checkpoints or there was potential complicity,” said Lt. Col. Mario Diaz, commander of the infantry battalion based here.

“There’s a latent insurgency that is capable of rearing its head,” he said.

“I ask our (Sons of Iraq leaders) how long they are willing to wait to see progress at the political level, and some of them tell us the clock is ticking. Those outside the tent are constantly recruiting them to come back to the resistance.”


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=52992