The New York Times Agency May 2010

(NYT3) RAMADI, Iraq -- Dec. 22, 2007 -- IRAQ-SUNNIS -- An Iraqi man in Ramadi, Iraq in December 2007. In Ramadi, improved security has allowed greater movement since American troops helped local sheiks and tribes set up police stations this spring. The Awakening movement, an almost exclusively Sunni Arab force recruited to fight Sunni Islamic extremists like al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, has become a great success story after its spread from Sunni tribes in Anbar Province to become an ad-hoc armed force of 65,000 to 80,000 across the country in less than a year. A linchpin of the American strategy to pacify Iraq, the movement has been widely credited with turning around the violence-scarred areas where the Sunni insurgency has been based. (Michael Kamber/The New York Times)