WAR Iraqis, foreign fighters feuding

The country's nationalist traditions oppose the aims of the Al-Qaida foreigners.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
RAMADI, Iraq -- Deadly infighting has erupted within Iraq's insurgency as home-grown guerrilla groups, increasingly resentful of foreign-led extremists, try to assert control over the fragmented anti-American campaign, U.S. and Iraqi officials say.
Yet there is no evidence that the split here in the Sunni Arab heartland has weakened the uprising, diminished Iraqis' sense of insecurity or brought any relief to U.S. forces, the officials say.
Tit-for-tat killings between local insurgents and followers of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi have been reported across western Iraq in recent months, and some U.S. officials see the strife as a positive sign.
They have been working to drive a wedge between al-Zarqawi's foreign Arab volunteers and Iraqi-led militant groups, and to bring Sunnis who have backed the uprising into Iraq's political process.
"There's an opportunity to divide the ... insurgency, and we're starting to see breaks in that now," said Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Where they differ
Mowaffak Rubaie, the Iraqi government's national security adviser, said a growing body of intelligence indicated that Iraqi-led groups were turning against al-Zarqawi's faction, Al-Qaida in Iraq, over a divergence of basic aims.
He believes the shift reflects Iraqis' growing resentment of a foreign-led force whose fundamentalist religious goals and calls for sectarian war against Iraq's Shiite majority run counter to Iraqi nationalist traditions.
But U.S. military officials concede that the guerrillas' ability to strike anywhere at almost any time is largely undiminished.
They say the insurgency remains a stubborn, elusive and deadly collection of fighting groups that share the aim of ousting American forces.
Their attacks across Iraq averaged 75 per day in December, up from 52 a year earlier, driving the country's sectarian violence and contributing to a decline in its oil production. U.S. troops died at the same rate last year as in 2004, while most estimates of Iraqi civilian casualties rose.