Main Sunni Group Vows No Deal With U.S.

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Main Sunni Group Vows No Deal With U.S.
Agence France-Presse | January 07, 2008

The Islamic Army, the main Sunni insurgent group in Iraq, is adamant it will not make common cause with the Sunni militias tackling al-Qaeda with U.S. support, and will instead fight the Americans "to the end."

"The Islamic Army has nothing to do with the Awakening councils," Ibrahim al-Shimmari, official spokesman of the Islamic Army in Iraq, told AFP in an email interview.

"No one can be a member of the Islamic Army and the Awakening at the same time. Our war is for self-defence and we are targeting those who attacked us."

The Islamic Army is branded a terrorist group by the U.S. military and has been implicated in a number of high-profile kidnappings and gruesume beheadings since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

French academic Jean-Pierre Filiu, an expert on the insurgency, says there are signs of cross-membership between the Awakening and the Islamic Army.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,159483,00.h...