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From Baghdad, CBS' Lara Logan was already reporting on the US military tactic of arming former insurgent fighters loyal to local sheikhs in order to pacify Sunni neighborhoods when news of the assassination of abu-Risha arrived. Logan was in the Amariyah section of Baghdad where Sheikh Khaled al-Obeidi, also from al-Anbar, saw his clan's gunmen, now called "volunteers," being armed by the USArmy's First Cavalry Division.
Logan showed us clips from a series of TV commercials abu-Risha had aired that recruited local Sunnis to the previously hated al-Anbar police force. As a consequence abu-Risha had become "a marked man" who "flaunted his elevated status with everyone" from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to Republican Presidential candidate John McCain. ABC's Terry McCarthy (no link) recalled that abu-Risha had "good reason" to find common cause with the United States: "His father and two brothers had been killed by extremists." The army had parked an M-1 tank outside the sheikh's house to protect him, McCarthy added, apparently to no avail.
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