Iraqi Sunnis to ISIL, US Coalition: A Pox on Both your Houses

[unhappycamper]

http://www.juancole.com/2014/10/sunnis-coalition-houses.html

Sunni Muslim Militias Decide They Won’t Fight With IS – or The US Alliance

Iraqi Sunnis to ISIL, US Coalition: A Pox on Both your Houses
By contributors | Oct. 21, 2014
By Mustafa Habib | Baghdad | via Niqash.org

It is clear to both the current Iraqi government, to the US government and to international and local analysts and observers that it is going to take more than aerial bombardment to weed members of the Sunni Muslim extremist group, the Islamic State, out of Iraq.

In order to definitively defeat the Islamic State, or IS, group, they need moderate Sunni Muslims in Iraq to support their fight against IS – often because they are the ones living inside the cities controlled by the IS group.

Attempts were recently made to convince moderate Sunni Muslims, and their armed factions, to join the fight against the IS group during negotiations held in Amman, Jordan, and in Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. Unfortunately these negotiations were mostly unsuccessful.

A source at the US embassy in Baghdad told NIQASH that there had been secret negotiations taking place between various Sunni Muslim armed factions, via Arab and Iraqi Kurdish intermediaries, for the past three months. At the request of US diplomats and military personnel, officials from the Iraqi government have been meeting with the leaders of these groups in Erbil and Amman.

[bemildred]

1. I guess they have learned from the past. nt