They're at it again

From a New York Times on-line article:
"A suicide bomber assassinated a key leader of American-backed militia forces in a Sunni stronghold of Baghdad on Monday morning, the latest attack on nationalist Sunnis who have recently allied themselves with American troops. That attack, and a second bomb that exploded minutes later, killed at least six and wounded another 26 in total, hospital officials said.
The killing of the militia leader, Col. Riyadh al-Samarrai, on the fringes of north Baghdad’s Adhamiyah district, was one of the most significant attacks so far on leaders of former Sunni insurgents who have banded into militias, known as Awakening groups, to fight extremist militants.
Colonel Samarrai was one of the leaders of the Sunni Awakening movement in Adhamiyah, and was also a close aide and a security adviser to the head of the Sunni Endowment, which oversees Iraq’s Sunni mosques and is one of the most powerful Sunni institutions in Iraq.
According to witnesses and Awakening officials, the assassin, who they said may have been known to Colonel Samarrai, waited patiently at the offices of the Sunni Endowment until his target emerged from a meeting. The killer then walked up, tried to embrace Colonel Samarrai, and pulled the trigger on his explosive vest or belt."

Rico says it's a bitch when your friends blow you up...

"Overall levels of violence have fallen significantly in Baghdad and in much of central and western Iraq in recent months. A principal reason is that thousands of Sunni militants who used to fight American forces have renounced their ties to insurgents and have been placed on the American military’s payroll in the Awakening groups.
Standing guard in onetime insurgent strongholds like Adhamiyah, they are organized into groups known as Awakening Councils or Concerned Local Citizens that are working hand-in-hand with American ground troops."
"Late last month, Osama bin Laden denounced the Awakening movement as a plot “hatched by the Zionist-Crusader alliance” to “steal the fruit of blessed jihad” in Iraq."

Rico says 'the fruit of blessed jihad' has started to spoil...
But if we have to pay these bastards to be our friends, so be it.