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It consists of a dozen commandeered homes fortified with concrete blast walls, razor wire and Bradley fighting vehicles — the only reminder of past domesticity being discarded children’s toys and broken furniture. Every window is sandbagged top to bottom. Holes have been punched in walls to create passages sheltered from sniper fire. The post has been targeted by suicide bombers, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, and the reinforced glass of the COP’s several observation posts has been cracked by umpteen bullets. In what was once a living room the US troops have amassed a fine collection of insurgent rifles, shells and mortars.

The 24 hours that The Times spent there was punctuated by the constant rattle of gunfire from across the city, regular explosions and the thump of mortars. US troops killed at least 11 insurgents in that short period after a Bradley was hit by an improvised explosive device (IED). An hour before we left another IED blew up beneath an Iraqi humvee 200 yards from the COP. “

It’s very hostile,” said First Lieutenant Matthew McGraw, the US platoon leader. “We get attacked every day.” But not all the fighting is between al-Qaeda and US or Iraqi troops.

Much of it is what the US military calls “red on red”. There are many factions battling for control in Ramadi — al-Qaeda, hardline nationalists, Islamic radicals, former Baathists and the tribal leaders — and that is the background to Sheikh Sittar’s unlikely alliance with the Americans. As one US officer put it, the sheikhs are only “pro-American in the sense that they are fighting the same enemy”.()

Sheikh Sittar is a wealthy man. He owns homes in Oman and Dubai and several luxury cars. He and the other tribal leaders unquestionably prospered under Saddam Hussein, as did Ramadi’s many Baathists. Few cities had more cause to lament the dictator’s downfall, US troops made matters worse with their insensitive early conduct and al-Qaeda skillfully exploited the people’s anger with its promise to expel the infidel.

As al-Qaeda’s fighters tightened their grip on Ramadi, they became increasingly repressive and challenged the tribal leaders’ power. Soon they were kidnapping and beheading innocent people as part of a campaign of extortion and intimidation.

Some sheikhs fled to Jordan and Syria. Sheikh Sittar’s father and three brothers were killed, his father during the holy month of Ramadan, and he says he has himself survived several kidnap attempts. This summer a fellow sheikh was ambushed and beheaded by al-Qaeda supporters, who piled insult on injury by keeping his body so it could not be buried immediately, as demanded by custom.

“We began to see what they were actually doing in Anbar province. They were not respecting us or honouring us in any way, said Sheikh Sittar, speaking through an interpreter.” Their tactics were not acceptable.”

During the late summer he began enlisting his fellow sheikhs in a movement called the Sahawat or Awakening, whose goal is to drive al-Qaeda from Anbar province.

The US military wooed the sheikhs over what one US officer described as “hundreds of cups of chai and thousands of cigarettes”. They agreed that their chosen instrument should be the police force, which was practically defunct thanks to al-Qaeda death threats against anyone who dared to sign up. In June there were only 35 recruits; in July Sheikh Sittar sent 300 members of his 30,000-strong Resha tribe for training.

Last month a record 409 new recruits were dispatched to the police academy in Jordan, and 1,300 are now signed up, many of them former Baathists. The US and Iraqi armies have armed and protected them against al-Qaeda attacks, and as fear of al-Qaeda has dissipated, so the process has accelerated.

The beauty of the police is that they serve — unlike the Iraqi army — in their own communities. They know exactly who the enemies are. “The Iraqi police are absolutely the most potent weapon we have right now because they are of the people, by the people and for the people,” says Colonel MacFarland.

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