Sunnis revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq

AP reports that U.S. troops were battling Al Qaeda terrorists in the West Baghdad neighborhood of Amariyah, a Sunni neighborhood, after Sunni Arab residents challenged the militants and called for American help to end furious gunfire that kept students from final exams and forced people in the neighborhood to huddle indoors.

The fight reflects a trend that U.S. and Iraqi officials have been trumpeting recently to the west in Anbar province, once considered the heartland of the Sunni insurgency. Many Sunni tribes in the province have banded together to fight al-Qaida, claiming the terrorist group is more dangerous than American forces.

This story is obviously good news for the U.S. effort in Iraq. It will be interesting to see how the Los Angeles Times manages to spin it into bad news in the Friday morning edition.

Update 6/1/2007: The Los Angeles Times, finding itself not up to the challenge of portraying this story as bad news, simply chose to ignore it.