Iraq Awakening and Independents National Alliance

The Iraq Awakening and Independents National Alliance (List 239) is an Iraqi political coalition formed to contest the Al Anbar governorate election, 2009. It obtained 8 out of 29 seats - the highest of any party list.

The party was formed out of the Awakening movements - Sunni tribal militias armed and financed by the United States Army to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Alliance was led by Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, Sheikh Amir Ali al-Sulaiman and Sheikh Hameed al-Hayyes. Abu Risha is the brother of Abdul Sattar Abu Risha who headed the Anbar Salvation Council, the first Awakening Movement to receive American backing.

Famous quotes containing the words awakening, national and/or alliance:

    Measure your health by your sympathy with morning and spring. If there is no response in you to the awakening of nature—if the prospect of an early morning walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of the first bluebird does not thrill you—know that the morning and spring of your life are past. Thus may you feel your pulse.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?
    Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)

    Let it be an alliance of two large, formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep identity which beneath these disparities unites them.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)