23 Mar 2007 14:21:33 GMT


AMMAN, March 23 2007 (Reuters) - Most insurgent groups and their tribal supporters in Iraq's restive Anbar province have refused to join a U.S.-backed alliance to fight al Qaeda which is viewed as a ploy to weaken the rebels, a tribal leader said on Friday.

Sheikh Majeed al-Gaood, a leader of the powerful Dulaimi tribe, said the latest American strategy in Anbar, the deadliest part of Iraq for U.S. forces, was to sow divisions among rebels waging a four-year-old insurgency.

"By pitting groups fighting the occupation against each other they think they can finally control Anbar, but it is still in open revolt against the Americans and their agents. Its people know the occupation targets everyone," Gaood told Reuters after arriving from Ramadi, the capital of Anbar.

"Their goal (the insurgents) is to expel the occupiers and their agents and not drive out the Mujahideen. We have no reservations against any group that has a jihadist agenda against the U.S. occupation."

The western Anbar province has been a hotbed for the insurgency. Since September there has been a mounting power struggle in the restive area between al Qaeda, which has non-Iraqi Arabs as its leaders, and fellow Sunni Iraqis.

Washington says this split in the Sunni community could defeat Islamist militants by creating an alliance between tribal leaders who have clout among traditionally-minded Arabs against followers of Osama bin Laden.

Echoing the views of mainstream Sunni tribes with influence in Anbar who frequent Jordan, Gaood accused the U.S military of using "mercenary" tribal sheikhs who are rejected by their community and "could only move with U.S. protection".

Gaood has ties with the former regime's army generals and officers who form the backbone of the Sunni insurgency. He denied any mainstream nationalist insurgent groups were in talks with the authorities to halt attacks.

"The resistance has one programme: expelling the Americans and fighting the militias and Iran's agents," Gaood said.

A senior Iraqi official said on Thursday the government was holding talks with some major insurgent groups that might be nearing a point where a number would join a fight to drive al Qaeda out of Iraq. The Sunni tribal leader said the spate of bombings and attacks in Anbar in recent weeks, including chlorine gas bombs that poisoned hundreds last Friday, were instigated by the Americans to "preoccupy the resistance in divisive internal battles that steer them away from fighting the occupation".

The U.S. military blamed al Qaeda for the attacks in the province and said they were part of an escalating power struggle with local Sunni tribesmen.