Naval postgraduate school monterey, california thesis approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Figure 4.
 
Depiction of Tribal Affiliation in Iraq
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The decision of militia leaders to begin working with U.S. forces was based on 
two factors. The first was COL MacFarland’s efforts to engage them to provide their 
own security, in recognition of the failure of the strategy of relying upon newly trained 
and poorly armed Iraqi security forces, which had assumed the role of security-provider 
prematurely and in an area they are unfamiliar with. The second factor was a new 
willingness of Sunni tribes to ally with Coalition forces for the purpose of driving out al-
Qaeda forces after they killed scores of local Sunnis who refused to accept their hard-line 
puritanical ideology. The breaking point in this regard came when al Qaeda “killed a 
prominent sheik…and refused to let family members bury the body for four days, 
enraging Sunni tribesmen.”
109
108
John Pike, "Global Security.Org Maps of Iraq," Global Security, 
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/maps.htm (accessed January 4, 2008). 
109
Todd Pittman, “Sunni Sheiks Join Fight Vs. Insurgency,” Washington Post.com, 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/25/AR2007032500600.html (accessed 
November 10, 2007). 

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COL MacFarland’s initial success grew from engagement with the Anbar 
Salvation Council also known as the (Anbar Awakening), founded by Sheik Abdul Sittar 
al-Rishawi of the Albu Risha tribe in September 2006. Prior to 2006, Sittar was known 
for little more than as a “ringleader [for] successful highway bandits” who offered short-
lived support to al-Qaeda elements in efforts to defeat U.S. forces patrolling in Ramadi 
until he began to recognize the honest engagement COL MacFarland made with him in 
attempt to defeat al Qaeda terrorists wreaking havoc in the city of Ramadi. However, 
COL MacFarland recognized the importance of Sheik Sittar as soon as he met him in 
August 2006. When COL MacFarland met with Maamoun Sami Rashid al-Awani, the 
governor of Anbar province, on previous occasions it was always only the two of them.
However, meetings at Sheik Sittar’s compound would be filled to capacity with 
prominent local sheiks and local police officials who never showed up to meetings called 
by the governor of Anbar. The result of the initial engagement between MacFarland and 
Sittar was an agreement that “the U.S. would build and secure a series of police stations 
in Ramadi, where insurgents had run off the cops…In return, Sittar would send recruits, 
hundreds of them, to join local security forces, which MacFarland wants to see take the 
lead in the battle to regain control of the city.”
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There were immediate improvements 
to the local police force. In July 2006, police forces in Ramadi barely numbered 150. By 
November, nearly 500 had volunteered. This also led to the establishment of Emergency 
Response Units (ERU), which were overtly loyal to local sheiks and numbered over 
2,500 personnel. They were approved and paid by the Ministry of Interior and trained in 
either forty-five day police training courses in Jordan or seven courses on a military base 
in Ramadi. Since the Sunni community had always resented the Shia-dominated security 
forces that were deployed to the Anbar province by the Shia-dominated government, the 
use of local militias as security providers was a welcome change. According to U.S. 
Army platoon leader, First Lieutenant Nathan Strickland, “20 percent of the credit for the 
change in Ramadi could be taken by U.S. forces….the vast majority of the turnaround is 
due to the sheiks.”
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110
Kukis,