General Fil: U.S. enlisting tribal and 'former' insurgent fighters by the hundreds daily

Above: A scout with the 1st Cavalry Division searches for signs of insurgent activity outside of Joint Security Station Luzon in the Abu Ghraib District of Baghdad on May 26. Said one company commander involved in the recruiting of 'former' insurgents: "The bulk of them have actively or passively supported al-Qaeda in the past. As they realized what al-Qaeda meant to do in Iraq, how they planned to rule, the fact they set up their own shadow government. A lot of these guys didn’t know what they were getting into when they started dealing with al-Qaida... They were promised numerous things by al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda never came through, so they want to fight back and make the area safe for their families... We don’t ever ask them if they were insurgents. We stay away from that question. That way we can develop a friendship with them and show them that we are actually going to work with them and can trust them."

The U.S. military is enlisting hundreds of fighters each day from tribal and insurgent groups in alliances aimed at countering al-Qaeda in Iraq, the top U.S. general in Baghdad said yesterday, calling it a "very positive development" but one that requires caution to ensure it works to promote security.

Maj Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., commander of Multinational Division Baghdad, said U.S. and Iraqi troops control nearly half of the capital's neighborhoods, but that hard fighting remains as operations continue to clear out insurgents from the rest of the city. Overall attack levels in Baghdad remain constant, he said, but casualties have fallen among Iraqi civilians and Iraqi security forces and risen for U.S. troops as their operations and numbers intensify.

In the Abu Ghraib region outside Baghdad, about 1,500 fighters have agreed to renounce violence against U.S. and Iraqi government forces, and join the Iraqi police. About 300 are signing up each day, said Fil, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division. A similar program is underway in the western Baghdad district of Ghazaliyah, he said.

Read the rest at the Washington Post

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