Rebels turn on Al-Qaeda

Abu Ghraib - The cars roared through west Baghdad, packed with masked gunmen hanging out of windows and brandishing Kalashnikovs: Meet the latest US allies in the war against al-Qaeda in Iraq.

As recently as six months ago many of the gunmen, who still wear the mismatched urban camouflage of street fighters, were planting roadside bombs, sniping at US soldiers and battling Iraqi forces.

But recently an alliance between US-led forces and Sunni tribes in the western province of Anbar has drawn in nationalist insurgents in Baghdad keen to claw back their neighbourhoods from al-Qaeda's Islamists.

The new force in Abu Ghraib includes not only members of prominent local tribes, but fighters from the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution (Rev20) and the Islamic Army, two Sunni insurgent groups established to fight US forces.

Both oppose the occupation, but in Anbar and some western Baghdad neighbourhoods they have a tacit ceasefire with US-led security forces while fighting to expel the Iraq franchise of Osama Bin Laden's jihadi network

Article from News24, Hat tip, Harrys Place