The fate of tens of thousands of US-led Sunni Arabs fighting al Qaeda in Iraq hangs in the balance as US and Iraqi leaders debate their future and as they are increasingly targeted by the Islamists.
Since last year around 73,000 Sunni Arabs, most of them former insurgents who fought against the Americans in the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein, have allied themselves with US troops to battle al Qaeda. What began as a small localised movement in the western Sunni province of Anbar in September 2006 has now spread across much of Iraq.
The new alliances between the former rebels and the US military have been credited with contributing significantly to the drastic reduction in violence over recent months. But the fate of these men who refuse to be called militias is uncertain. On one hand there is no clear signal from the Baghdad government about their future role, and on the other they increasingly face the fury of al Qaeda.
"These Sunni groups could turn into militias if there is no political agreement between the leaders," said Joost Hiltermann, Iraq expert with International Crisis Group. "There has to be agreement on all the key issues like revenue sharing and so on... or else these groups, whether absorbed into security forces or not, could start fighting especially once the American troops start withdrawing," he told AFP.
A shopowner in Baghdad's Adhamiyah district-a hardcore Sunni bastion that is experiencing a new calm thanks to these anti-Qaeda fighters-outlined the potential for conflict if the men were not rewarded. "We do not want to see them just working in the ministry of labour. Their place is in the military or police after what they have achieved," Abu Safaa, 38, said.
The US military currently pays the men around 300 dollars a month when they sign a contract that lays down their role in neighbourhood guardian forces, but in reality it means they often end up fighting al Qaeda insurgents.
A failure by the US or Iraqi authorities to provide long-term jobs for them would be seen as a breach of trust and could mean they rejoin the simmering insurgency, observers say.
The US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, said these Al-Sahwa (Awakening) groups or concerned local citizens (CLCs) were never envisioned as independent forces and did pose a challenge. "We have always felt that they have to link up to the government of Iraq," he said on Sunday. "That's got to happen or nothing good is coming down the line."
Crocker said the CLCs had to be merged into security forces "in a way that other elements of population and government are comfortable with." He said the US authorities planned to spend around 155 million dollars to help create new jobs and provide vocational training, and added that the Shiite-led Iraqi government had pledged to match this.
On Tuesday US military spokesman Major General Kevin Bergner said the CLCs were "providing local solutions to local problems" and that thousands of them were joining the Iraqi forces. But given Iraq's sectarian society, how much the Baghdad government can actually do in the years ahead remains to be seen. Shiite leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, whose party the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) heads Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government, has already called for more checks on these groups.
"We appreciate the honourable role played by the Awakening forces" but "we emphasise that arms must be in the hands of the government only," he said on Friday. Meanwhile al Qaeda is making them a prime target. On Tuesday two suicide bombers rammed a pick-up truck into another parked truck loaded with gas cylinders at a checkpoint manned by Iraqi soldiers and Awakening members in Baiji. At least 25 people were killed, many of them believed to be anti-Qaeda fighters.
The same day in Baquba a suicide bomber blew himself up in a funeral procession, killing the local head of a former Sunni insurgent group now allied to the US military. The groups themselves are now gearing up to demand their share of the pie.
"Those who are play down our achievements could not accomplish in years what we did in just days," said Abu Firas, one Awakening leader in Baghdad's Adhamiyah neighbourhood, a former insurgent stronghold. "We are not militias but we want this force to be recognised under the flag of Iraq."