Hotel Bomber Kills Allied Sheiks

It was a major success, a coup even, for U.S. forces attempting to restore order to the al Qaeda stronghold in Al Anbar province. Then a strategic miscalculation on al Qaeda's part - the assassination of an influential sheik - turned many of Western Iraq's Sunni tribes against the terrorist organization. As support for al Qaeda dried-up, police recruits, given license to participate by their leaders, swamped the government enlistment rolls, all in all threatening to break al Qaeda's grip on Anbar.

But it seems that al Qaeda has responded to the defection of the sheiks as they attempted to meet in a hotel on the banks of the Tigris in Baghdad. Avoiding multiple layers of security, the suicide bomber entered the hotel lobby and detonated his device near a group of the assembled sheiks, killing four leaders and eight others, including body guards. The alliance between U.S. and tribal sheiks in Anbar has been a source of considerable hope that al Qaeda's brutal tactics and intimidation schemes may be turning ordinary Iraqis against the radicals, perhaps paving the way for dramatic shifts in other parts of Iraq.

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