Iraqi Awakening militias threaten strike

BAGHDAD, March 22 (UPI) -- Sunni militias working with the U.S. military in Iraq have threatened to strike unless payments of $10 a day for their fighters are resumed.

A telephone survey of the Sahwa or Awakening councils found many leaders angry, The Guardian reported, accusing the United States of using them for dangerous jobs and then leaving them in the lurch.

Abu Abdul-Aziz, the head of the council in Abu Ghraib, said 500 men have already left.

"We know the Americans are using us to do their dirty work and kill off the resistance for them and then we get nothing for it," he said. "The Americans got what they wanted. We purged al-Qaida for them and now people are saying why should we have any more deaths for the Americans. They have given us nothing."

The survey was done by GuardianFilms for Channel 4 News. It found that four of the 49 councils have abandoned fighting, two have suspended activities and 38 are threatening a walkout.

President George W. Bush, in a speech to mark the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, called the councils "the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden."