http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11662321.htm
Posted on Mon, May. 16, 2005
Marine-led campaign killed friends and foes, Iraqi leaders say
By Hannah Allam and Mohammed al Dulaimy
Knight Ridder Newspapers
BAGHDAD, Iraq - When foreign fighters poured into villages with jihad on their minds and weapons in their hands, some Iraqi tribesmen in western desert towns fought back.
They set up checkpoints to filter out the foreigners. They burned down suspected insurgent safe houses. They called their fellow tribesmen in Baghdad and other urban areas for backup.
And when they still couldn't uproot the terrorists streaming in from Syria, tribal leaders said, they took a most unusual step: They asked the Americans for help.
The U.S. military hails last week's Operation Matador as a success that killed more than 125 insurgents. But local tribesmen said it was a disaster for their communities and has made them leery of ever again assisting American or Iraqi forces.
The battle, which pitted some Iraqi tribes against each other, underscored the complex tribal politics that compound the religious and ethnic tensions plaguing Iraq.
In interviews, influential tribal leaders and many residents of the remote border towns said the 1,000 U.S. troops who swept into their territories in the weeklong campaign that ended over the weekend didn't distinguish between the Iraqis who supported the United States and the fighters battling it.
"The Americans were bombing whole villages and saying they were only after the foreigners," said Fasal al Goud, a former governor of Anbar province who said he asked U.S. forces for help on behalf of the tribes. "An AK-47 can't distinguish between a terrorist and a tribesman, so how could a missile or tank?"
Al Goud was the only tribal leader who spoke on the record. Two others reached by phone in western villages expressed similar views, but said they didn't want their names published because the foreign insurgents were still holding some of their tribesmen hostage.
Stephen Philion Assistant Professor, Dept. of Sociology St. Olaf College http://www.stolaf.edu/depts/sociology/People/faculty-staff/steve.html