Sunni

Psychological operations specialist Sgt. Joe Colabuno spent a year-and-a-half helping convince the Sunni residents of Fallujah to turn against local extremists by appealing to citizens' sense of civic pride, pumping up their love of the national soccer team, citing the Koran, and provoking jihadists to overreact. Colabuno also appealed to the Sunnis hatred and fear of Shi'ites, and of Shi'ite Iran.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's divided political leadership, in a rare show of unity, skewered a non-binding U.S. Senate resolution approved in Washington, D.C., last week that endorses the decentralization of Iraq through the establishment of semi-autonomous regions. Also on Sunday, the U.S. Embassy joined the Iraqi politicians - both Shiite and Sunni - in criticizing the resolution. The measure's advocacy of a relatively weak central government and strong Sunni Arab, Shiite and Kurdish regions has touched a nerve in the Iraqi political arena, stoking fears that the United States is planning to partition Iraq.

The US Senate has passed a bill, suggesting Iraq's partition into a federation of ethnically divided regions, urging Iraqi officials to agree.

CAIRO, Egypt -- An insurgent group that has claimed responsibility for the downing this week of a U.S. helicopter in Baghdad that killed five Americans from a North Carolina-based company posted a video Thursday on an Islamic Web site showing the wreckage and two bodies.

The 1-minute, 14-second video carried the logo of the 1920 Revolution Brigades, a known Sunni militant group. It showed wreckage of a helicopter with bricks scattered around it. The naked bodies of two men, one with gray hair and the other with dark hair, were seen near the wreckage.