IRAQ - Sunni Tribes Against Jihadis.

Shaikh Osama al-Jad'an, head of the influential Karabila tribe in Sunni-dominated western Iraq, has turned away from supporting Zarqawi and other foreign fighters. He was on Feb. 6 quoted as saying: "We realised that these foreign terrorists were hiding behind the veil of the noble Iraqi resistance. They claim to be striking at the US occupation, but the reality is they are killing innocent Iraqis in the markets, in mosques, in churches, and in our schools".

In Anbar, an insurgent hotbed which borders Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, US and Iraqi officials say they have a new ally against the al-Qaeda-inspired terrorists: local tribal leaders like Jad'an and home-grown Iraqi insurgents. US Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch recently told reporters at a press conference: "The local insurgents have become part of the solution and not part of the problem".

Until recently, many of the Sunni Arab tribes in Anbar and local insurgent leaders collaborated with Islamic extremists whose funding and manpower are said to come largely from abroad. They had a common goal: drive out the Americans. But Zarqawi's indiscriminate killing of innocent Iraqis has alienated many of his erstwhile Iraqi allies. His shadowy Qaeda is said to have assassinated four prominent Anbar shaikhs. And in January when hundreds of Anbar men turned up at an Iraqi Army recruiting depot in Ramadi, the provincial capital, a suicide bomber killed 70 would-be soldiers.

Zarqawi's brutal methods have stirred controversy beyond Iraq as well. When he declared an "all out war" on Shi'ites last September, his former mentor, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, publicly rebuked him and al-Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, warned him against alienating the Muslim masses. But Zarqawi appears to have done just that.

Last month, a poll of 1,150 Iraqis throughout Iraq, conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, the website World Public Opinion, and the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, revealed that just 7% of Iraqis approve of attacks on Iraqi government security forces. The same poll, which over-sampled Sunni Arabs, found that only 1% of Iraqis supported attacks on Iraqi civilians.

Mithal Alusi, a secular Sunni parliamentarian, says: "There is a change. After these attacks, and after the elections, we find the people are eager to be rid of the terrorists". Analysts say the participation of Sunni Arabs in the Dec. 15 elections, and the tripling of that sect's seats in parliament, has convinced local leaders like Jad'an that political participation can bear fruit, such as infrastructure, jobs, and an end to US military operations in their cities. Jad'an says: "We are caught in the middle between the terrorists coming to destroy us with their suicide belts, their TNT, and their car bombs, and the American Army which destroys our homes, takes our weapons, and does not allow us to defend ourselves against the terrorists".

It was that frustration which first pushed Anbar's elders to take a stand against outside terror groups, which set up camp there and turned Anbar's highways into rat lines for foreign fighters coming in from Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. US and Iraqi forces launched a series of offensives throughout the province last year. Caught in the crossfire, Anbar's residents began looking for a way out.

Muhammad al-Askari, an adviser to Iraq's Sunni Defence Minister Sa'doun al-Dulaymi, was on Feb. 6 quoted as saying: "A shaikh from the Samara tribe, which had suffered a lot from the military operations, came to see the minister of defence, and he said, 'Give me two weeks to get rid of the foreigners from our city'. The minister said, 'Take a month. If you get rid of the foreigners and the terrorists your city will avoid further problems'". Other tribal shaikhs followed suit.

About three months ago, Dulaymi, intent on exploiting the rift between the tribes and the foreign insurgents, convened a series of meetings with Anbar's tribal shaikhs, religious leaders, and local elders. US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad attended some of the meetings. Askari said the provincial leaders made a number of demands in return for their co-operation. They asked for weapons to fight the terrorists with, but the minister refused. Instead the minister agreed to step up recruitment of Anbar residents to the Iraqi security forces.

Askari said the minister told the gathered Anbar notables: "If you want to participate in attacking the terrorists, you have no choice but to send your sons to volunteer for the Army and give the Army information on the terrorists".

Those negotiations seem to have unsettled Zarqawi and his allies. But it remains difficult to gauge just how effective and how widespread the new wellspring of tribal support for the Iraqi government is. A report released last September by the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimates that 4 to 10% of the country's combatants are foreigners. However, the report points out that this element represents a virulent strain of the militancy responsible for the most violent attacks.

Local insurgents have pragmatic demands and are more willing to compromise than Zarqawi-led fighters, who view the struggle in Iraq as part of a global jihad. Anthony Cordesman, co-author of the CSIS report, says: "If you can get real progress here, then it's a lot easier to end the insurgency by having the insurgents join the government than by hunting them down". Other military analysts have pointed to a decrease in US casualties in Anbar to show that the strategy is working.

Still, many Sunni hardliners remain defiant, and downplay the apparent rifts between foreign elements and local insurgents. Shaikh Abdel Salaam al-Qubeisi, a leading member of the Association of Muslim Scholars (ASM), a hardline Sunni religious group which draws much of its support from Anbar, says: "These are just a few shaikhs who want to get political power by claiming to be fighting the terrorists, and to be speaking for the resistance. They are slaves in the pockets of the occupation. They have no weight in the streets".

Qubeisi scoffs at suggestions that Anbar's tribes are starting to turn against the insurgents. Last month's suicide attack on Sunnis in Ramadi was not the work of the "noble Arab resistance", he says, charging: "We know that 40,000 militants from Iran have to come to Iraq. I don't rule out that they did this to prevent Sunni Arabs from joining the Iraqi Army".

Sunni Arab politicians from Anbar warn that this measured progress could wither just as quickly as it blossomed if the country's Shi'ite and Kurdish leaders do not respond to key Sunni demands in negotiations to form a government.

IIP leader Tareq al-Hashimi has laid out a 10-point ultimatum for the US and Iraqi governments. He demands the release of political prisoners and the resignation of Iraq's controversial Shi'ite Interior Minister Bayan Jabr. He has threatened "a massive civilian uprising" if his demands were ignored.

Another top Sunni demand, with a direct impact on negotiations with tribal shaikhs in Anbar, is ending the stringent de-Ba'thification law, which prohibits ex-Ba'th Party members above a certain rank from holding government positions. On Feb. 2, the Ministry of Defence suddenly implemented a six-month-old order from the Iraqi De-Ba'thification Commission which demanded the dismissal of 18 Iraqi generals, colonels, and majors. Most were Sunnis from Anbar.

The secular Sunni politician Alusi says: At a time when the government is trying to bring the provincial leaders on board to fight the insurgency, the decision sends the wrong message, adding: "You're telling these shaikhs in Anbar that there's a place for their children in the new Iraq, but your actions say otherwise". And even if Zarqawi and his ilk can be defeated in Iraq, this is no guarantee that the rest will be smooth sailing for the US. The same poll which showed Iraqi disapproval of attacks on fellow Iraqis, also reported that 88% of Sunni Arabs and 41% of Shi'ites approved of attacks on US forces. It is a statistic which Shaikh Jed'an is well aware of, saying: "Iraq has its men, its honourable resistance, and we will drive out the Americans and liberate our country ourselves".