The killing of the leader, Fouad Ali Hussein al-Douri, a Sunni mosque imam who directed a group of about 65 guards in the Jihad neighborhood in western Baghdad, is the latest in a string of attacks on members of the so-called Awakening Councils. Relations between the Awakening Councils and the Shiite-led government have become increasingly strained.
Administration of the Awakening program, which is made up of almost 100,000 mostly Sunni men countrywide on the American military payroll, is expected to be handed over to the government starting Oct. 1.
About 54,000 Awakening patrol members in Baghdad will start reporting to the government that day. There are serious concerns that many might be arrested for previous links to the insurgency or denied long-promised jobs in the army and the police.
“I do not think I am interested in a job in the police or army anymore,” said a Jihad Guard member who gave his name as Mohammed. “Not like before. He’s gone. He was the tent that held us all together.”
Iraq’s Parliament, meanwhile, embroiled itself in the recent visit of a lawmaker to Israel to attend a conference on terrorism. Parliament voted to strip the lawmaker, Mithal al-Alousi, an independent Sunni Arab, of his immunity and recommended that he be prosecuted for “dealing with the enemy.”
Mr. Alousi, who was repeatedly heckled, appeared defiant. He said he had pressed his argument at the conference that an Israeli military strike on Iran over its nuclear program, which the Israelis have not ruled out, would cause “chaos and civil war” in Iraq.
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