THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ
Resentment Is Festering in 'Little Falloujas'
By Patrick J. McDonnell and Suhail Ahmed, Special to The Times
BUHRIZ, Iraq — His Charlie Battery was dug in against as many as 50 insurgents, Capt. Matt Davenport remembers, and the volleys of rocket-propelled grenades and bursts of machine-gun fire were nonstop. At one point in the two-day firefight, he recalls, "there was an explosion every five seconds."
The battle was fierce enough that it could have occurred at the height of this spring's siege of Fallouja, a city that has become notorious worldwide as a hub of resistance to American and allied forces. But the fight came just a few weeks ago, in this agricultural town northeast of Baghdad.
There is only one Fallouja, but, unfortunately for U.S. forces and their allies, seething towns such as Buhriz dot Iraq's vast "Sunni Triangle." They are home to traditional tribal populations embittered by the U.S.-led forces in their country — and suspicious of an Iraqi government installed by foreigners.
Harnessing these "little Falloujas" back into the fold of civil Iraqi society is one of the great challenges facing the new government and its U.S. allies.
A cycle of violence, distrust and radicalization has festered for a year in Sunni Iraq and will not go away easily.
The U.S. strategy has followed a variant of the carrot-and-stick approach — crushing armed opposition but also offering millions in development funds to cooperative local governments....
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-town13jul13,1,2141152.story?coll=la-home-headlines
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