More good news from Iraq..
BAGHDAD (AFP) – Sunni militias which have played a key role in driving Al-Qaeda fighters from Baghdad began receiving pay cheques on Monday from a Shiite-led Iraqi government that has long eyed them with suspicion.
At an Iraqi army base in Baghdad's Ameriyah district, where more than 30 Sahwa members perished in fierce streetbattles with Al-Qaeda in the first half of 2007, dozens of men in neat brown uniforms lined up to receive their wages.
Mohammed Hamid, a smiling 26-year-old, said he hoped to get a full-time job in the army or the police. "I want to work for the security forces because of all the sectarian fighting that we had here. I want to help end it."
He also relies on the monthly paycheck -- 300 US dollars dispensed in Iraqi dinars -- to support his family, including a young son who suffers from kidney disease. "We have to do this. There is no other work."
Around 60 stations were open throughout the Iraqi capital to pay about 50,000 members of the US-allied so-called Awakening Councils, or Sahwas, which used to receive their monthly salaries in dollars from the US military.
"This is really a tremendously important day and a manifestation of the reconciliation process that is happening in Iraq," US Army Brigadier General Robin Swan said. "The real proof of the pudding is in the payday."
The Iraqi government has always been wary of the groups which formed in 2007 largely made up of fighters who once battled US and Iraqi forces, and its bid to bring them into the security forces could test Baghdad's fragile calm.
As the last of 290 Sahwa members received their cheques, their commander Mohammed Ibrahim said he hoped the government would continue to employ them.
"We have heard all these promises (from the government) and we want to believe them," he said. "It is in their interest to support us because we are the reason they got rid of Al-Qaeda."
The Sahwas are largely made up of former insurgents who once fought US and Iraqi forces, but over the last year they have paid a heavy price for the fragile calm that has gradually returned to Baghdad in recent months.
"We never thought we would be able to request normal jobs," said Bassam Fawzi, a 37-year-old veteran fighter. "We only fought because we wanted to rid our neighbourhood of terrorists and protect our people."
"They killed everyone -- Shiite, Sunni, Christian," he said of the Al-Qaeda gunmen who once ruled Ameriyah. "At that time we could not remove the trash from the streets because of all the roadside bombs."
But across town in the centuries-old Sunni district of Adhamiya the streets are still littered with garbage, and residents say despite the newfound security the government still neglects them.
"Look at the streets, the sewage, the garbage everywhere. We are sick of it," said Salman Khalil as he sat outside a fly-blown restaurant across the street from the soaring minarets of the famed Abu Hanifa Shrine.
There too the local Sahwa fighters have largely defeated Al-Qaeda and brought a new level of security to streets now bustling with shoppers.
"We brought security to the area and now they call us a militia," said Barakat al-Obeidi, 35, a local Sahwa member whose brother, a Sahwa commander, was killed by a suicide bomber in August.
"But even if they cut off our salaries we will continue to defend our city. We will do it for free. Our families live here so we have to protect them."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081110/wl_...qaedasahwa
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Iraqi Government wises up- Starts paying anti- AQ Sunnis
