Wassit Sahwa councils hold constituent conference

WASSIT / IraqiNews.com: The Wassit provinces’ follow-up and coordination affairs bureau on Monday held a constituent conference for the Sahwa (Awakening) tribal fighters’ councils in the province, where 16 councils were announced. “Iraqi clans at present are working under the slogans of support for national reconciliation, renunciation of violence and sectarianism and cooperation for the reconstruction of Iraq,” Minister of State of Clans’ Affairs Muhammad Abbas al-Oraibi said in a speech before the conference, attended by IraqiNews.com. “The Sahwa councils in Wassit are independent ones that belong to no political, partisan or sectarian organization and represent the sons of Iraq,” said Oraibi. “These councils are not armed and only back all state institutions,” he added. The conference was attended by 500 tribal chiefs. Nineteen out of 27 members of the Wassit provincial council had rejected the formation of Sahwa councils in their province. Kut, the capital city of Wassit, lies 180 km southeast of Baghdad. The Sahwa councils were set up in a number of Iraqi provinces such as al-Anbar, Diala, Ninewa, and Salah al-Din with the aim of bolstering political and local tribal powers to fight armed groups, particularly al-Qaeda network, in those areas. These councils are usually led by tribal chiefs or notables in the provinces. Following the assassination of his father and six of his brothers by al-Qaeda Organization in Iraq in 2004, Sheikh Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha founded the Anbar Sahwa Council and chaired the Iraq Sahwa Congress, an alliance encompassing 42 clans that pledged to fight al-Qaeda members. The Sahwa fighters managed to flush out armed groups from a number of areas once considered strongholds of gunmen for years. Abu Risha, however, was killed in an improvised explosive device (IED) attack that targeted his house in al-Ramadi, capital of the predominantly Sunni Anbar. The attack also left his bodyguard and two other escorts killed and his nephew seriously wounded. AmR (S) 2