Anbar Awakening

In September 2006, 30 tribes in the Anbar Province formed the “Anbar Awakening”, an alliance to fight Al Qaeda (AQI) militants.

After initially accepting al Qaeda in Iraq due to a shared anti-occupation and anti-Shiite agenda, Sunni Arabs chafed under AQI’s violently fanatic religious program.

AQI terrorized those who opposed it, eventually prompting Sunnis to partner with U.S. forces to rid their communities of AQI. The collaboration successfully tested in al-Anbar province – once Iraq’s most violent – was adopted in other AQI-plagued regions, contributing to a dramatic neutralization of the insurgency.

Not a uniform organization, the Awakening was composed of numerous local elements roused to action by a wide array of cultural, political, and economic considerations, while their Coalition counterparts similarly adopted a variety of methods to support them.

The Awakening coincided with the United States led coalition's surge of troops that instituted a counter insurgency strategy and largely ended the ongoing insurgency.