ANBAR AWAKENING FOR EVERYONE!

It's not only the Sunnis in Anbar province who have gotten fed up with Al Qaeda's violent and extremist ways. It's also notable that prominent Muslim clerics are speaking out, something the wingnuts have claimed doesn't happen.

Gap opens between Al Qaeda and allies
A backlash builds over the network's tactics, including suicide attacks. Its leaders try to defuse the anger.
By Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
April 24, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Al Qaeda increasingly faces sharp criticism from once-loyal sympathizers who openly question its ideology and tactics, including attacks that kill innocent Muslims, according to U.S. intelligence officials, counter-terrorism experts and the group's own communications.

A litany of complaints target Osama bin Laden's network and its affiliates for their actions in Iraq and North Africa, emphasis on suicide bombings instead of political action and tepid support for, or outright antagonism toward, militant groups pressing the Palestinian cause.

Sayyed Imam Sharif, an Egyptian physician who once was a senior theologian for Al Qaeda, was one of Zawahiri's oldest associates. The author of violent manifestoes over the last two decades, Sharif did an about-face while incarcerated in Egypt. Several other prominent Muslim clerics and former militants have similarly condemned Al Qaeda.

Prominent Saudi cleric Salman Awdah sent an open letter to Bin Laden in September in which he condemned violence against innocents and said Al Qaeda was hurting Muslim charities by its purported ties to them.

"Brother Osama, how much blood has been spilled?" wrote Awdah, who is believed to be independent of the Saudi government. "How many innocents among children, elderly, the weak and women have been killed and made homeless in the name of Al Qaeda?"

"Who benefits from turning countries like Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon or Saudi Arabia into places where fear spreads and no one can feel safe?"