Tribal Leader: Iraqi rebels reject anti-Qaeda pact

Majeed al-Gaood

Most insurgent groups and their tribal supporters in Iraq's restive Anbar province have refused to join a U.S.-backed alliance to fight al Qaeda which is viewed as a ploy to weaken the rebels, a tribal leader said on Friday.

Sheikh Majeed al-Gaood, a leader of the powerful Dulaimi tribe, said the latest American strategy in Anbar, the deadliest part of Iraq for U.S. forces, was to sow divisions among rebels waging a four-year-old insurgency.

"By pitting groups fighting the occupation against each other they think they can finally control Anbar, but it is still in open revolt against the Americans and their agents. Its people know the occupation targets everyone," Gaood told Reuters after arriving from Ramadi, the capital of Anbar.

"Their goal (the insurgents) is to expel the occupiers and their agents and not drive out the Mujahideen. We have no reservations against any group that has a jihadist agenda against the U.S. occupation."

The western Anbar province has been a hotbed for the insurgency. Since September there has been a mounting power struggle in the restive area between al Qaeda, which has non-Iraqi Arabs as its leaders, and fellow Sunni Iraqis.

Read the rest at Reuters

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