RAMADI SHEIKH JOINS FIGHT AGAINST AL QAEDA

In keeping with yesterday's observation that Al Qaeda is now re-deploying out of Iraq comes a report in the London Times that the Sunni tribes of Ramadi are turning against the terrorists:

Sheikh Sittar and US commanders believe that the tide is turning in their favour. “Most of the people are now convinced that coalition forces are friends, and that the enemy is al-Qaeda,” the 35-year-old Sheikh claimed in his first face-to-face interview with a Western newspaper.

There is still a long, long way to go before peace comes:

It’s very hostile,” said First Lieutenant Matthew McGraw, the US platoon leader. “We get attacked every day.” But not all the fighting is between al-Qaeda and US or Iraqi troops.

But the tribes are supplying recruits to the re-organized local police, and the police are getting results:

Colonel MacFarland and his officers say that they are already seeing dividends. They claim to have killed 750 terrorists since June, that the number of foreign fighters has fallen from more than 1,000 to the “low hundreds” and that US and Iraqi forces now control 70 per cent of the city. They recently found the graves of 200 foreign fighters in a former park. When they recaptured Ramadi’s general hospital they found it occupied by only four wounded insurgents.

And note that these are American troops in Anbar Province, a sector where Americans represent the Coalition. But you're reading about it in a British newspaper. Why won't the American press cover the story? If you ask me, it's because their underlying ideological sympathies are with the terrorists.

Relipaundit adds: Obviously, WE ARE WINNING the real war and losing the media war. Sadly, the enemy merely has to win the media war to get the Democrat controlled Congress to effectively surrender, (by emasculating our intelligence efforts and by cutting off funding for the war in Iraq, and "redeploying" - 3 things their leadership has sworn to do).

More facts and figures which prove we are winning here from Gateway, who cites comments by General Caldwell - pictured.