REGARDED as untouchable by the Sunni populace, Sheikh Naser Abdul Karim al-Miklif believed that he had no need for bodyguards.

Leader of the huge al-Bu Fahad tribe in Anbar province, the seat of the Sunni insurgency, he was revered by insurgents and local residents alike as a man faithful to the interests of his people. His position of power was unmatched.

Yet three weeks ago, driving alone through the centre of Ramadi in his maroon Mercedes after attending a tribal wake, the sheikh was killed, riddled with bullets by assassins who fired from two passing Opels.

Coming only days after a huge bomb killed more than 80 Sunni police recruits in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, his killing has sparked a tit-for-tat cycle between Iraqi resistance cells and those they see as responsible for the death of the sheikh — al-Qaeda.

“We aren’t talking about scattered incidents,” a Ramadi man, who is connected with the insurgency, said. “We are talking about many operations with the Mujahidin hunting down al-Qaeda, specific patrols tracking them and killing them in and around Ramadi.”

Local tribes and foreign fighters are vying for control in Sunni Triangle towns such as Taji and Samarra. In Ramadi tribal leaders say that the three dominant Iraqi insurgency groups, the 1920 Brigades, the Anuman Brigade and the Islamic Mujahidin Army, have formed a body known as the Advisory Council to expel or kill al-Qaeda members.

“It is true that al-Qaeda has become unwelcome in the city,” a leading Ramadi sheikh and relative of al-Miklif said. “But it won’t be an easy task to throw them out. They are well armed and funded. Five more of Sheikh al-Miklif’s aides have been killed since his death. Between five and ten people from both sides die each day.”

Al-Qaeda cells loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, their Jordanian leader, once had considerable support in Ramadi. US intelligence officers say that al-Zarqawi even picked his bodyguards from the city.

At the start of the insurgency, when Iraqi fighters were disorganised, al-Qaeda’s help in attacking coalition forces was welcomed. Yet, as the insurgency has progressed, the aims of the sides have diverged.

Al-Qaeda still insists that it is justifiable to kill any Iraqi linked to the Government, including local Sunni policemen, an ideology increasingly rejected by local residents who want a stronger Sunni representation in the security forces.

A similar rift opened during the elections last year, as Sunnis voted in large numbers, while al-Zarqawi, fixated by the notion of an Islamic caliphate, rejected the political process. Sheikh al-Miklif had become a central figure in the efforts to lead Anbar into the political process. Last autumn he played host to meetings with other tribal leaders and insurgency chiefs to arrange security measures for the referendum and election votes, occasions that passed peacefully in Ramadi.

With the apparent acquiescence of the insurgents, he also encouraged tribal leaders to commit recruits to the Ramadi police force.

The bomb on January 5 that tore apart a queue of recruits in Ramadi was claimed by al-Qaeda and condemned by Sheikh al-Miklif, whose tribe comprises 40 per cent of the provincial population.

“There is a hatred for Zarqawi in Ramadi now,” a resident said. “People are exhausted by what he has done. Six months ago he was still accepted, though not 100 per cent. Now we see him continue to target locals and their sons and kill our leaders, and we reject him totally.”

Residents of Ramadi say that the Iraqi insurgents in the city are not the hit-and-run fugitives that they were a year ago. Rather, they are involved with civil administration in a way similar to Hezbollah in Beirut, supplying neighbourhood security patrols, clearing the roads of bandits and organising petrol queues.

• Jill Carroll, the American journalist kidnapped in Iraq, last night appeared in a video aired on Kuwaiti television. “I am here. I am fine. Please just do whatever they want, give them whatever they want as quickly as possible,” she said.

Times Recommends

• Please help: maimed children of war want their lives back
• Cabal seizes diamond riches to buy power
• White House gatecrashers got to the president