The growing divisions between Anbar's Sunnis is also being felt in Baghdad.

Sheikh Abdel Sattar Abu Risha of Ramadi has called on Sunnis to resist Al-Qaeda

Harith al-Dhari, head of the Association of Muslim Scholars, which supports Iraqis' rights to fight the Americans, referred to the tribes fighting Al-Qaeda in the province of Al-Anbar in western Iraq as "bandits".

"They are groups of bandits and thieves used by the government to fight against Al-Qaeda which is struggling against the American occupation," he said on 9 November.

This provoked a sharp response from Sheikh Abdel Sattar Abu Risha, a leading member of the Al-Awda grouping.

"If there is a bandit then it is you. If there is a killer it is also you," he said of al-Dhari.

"You go around the country raising funds for takfiris and death squads. You are a beggar for the takfiris," he said refering to Islamist fighters.

The former Baathist fighters of Al-Awda are believed to be relatively secular.

Many of their opponent's share Al-Qaeda's dream of founding a Sunni caliphate in Iraq which will then be the launchpad for attacks on Americans, Shias and Arab governments around the region.

A history of conflict

Local people point out that the root of the two groups' mutual antagonism is based not only on ideological differences but also in events that occured long before the March 2003 US-led invasion.

In 1996, Saddam Hussein's Baathist security forces scoured Anbar province looking for men who might be plotting against the government.

Dozens of young men were rounded up by the Iraqi army and police. Many belonged to the highly-conservative Wahhabi branch of Islam.

Several of those arrested were sent to prisons in Baghdad such as the Al-Hakmiyah in Al-Rusafa district and the Al-Rathwaniyah jail near Baghdad International Airport.

Sunni Iraqis fear what may happen if the US leaves and a Shia government takes over.

For more than six years they imprisoned men and their families and their tribes nursed bitter grudges against members of the Baath party in Anbar.

Then, in 2003, just a few months before the March 2003 invasion, Saddam ordered political and criminal prisoners released from prison.

Among those released were the imprisoned Wahhabists.

With Saddam gone and the country in chaos, the men and their families saw their chance to get even.

Furious at their years of imprisonment, ill-treatment and torture at the hands of the Baathists, the men and their families swore to take revenge.

With Iraq in chaos, they began assassinating the former Baathists who they believed had spied on the nascent Islamist movements and then given their names and addresses to Saddam Hussein's security forces.

The series of killings helped sow the seeds for the present conflict in Anbar province, and has convinced both sides that the latest round of fighting is no mere ideological conflict but rather a fight to the death that is likely to continue even after the US leaves Iraq.

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