|
 The Iraqi government is scrambling to reverse its biggest military
setback in nearly a year, the fall of Ramadi, capital of Anbar
province west of Baghdad. Prime Minister Haidar Abadi has vowed to
recapture it within days.
Ramadi's fall a week ago was swiftly followed by the fall of the
city of Palmyra in Syria, the two biggest gains by Islamic State
fighters since the United States began targeting them with air
strikes in both Iraq and Syria last year.
Islamic State controls swathes of territory in both countries, where
it has proclaimed a caliphate to rule over all Muslims according to
strict medieval precepts.
The simultaneous advances over the past week at opposite ends of the
group's territory have raised doubts about the U.S. strategy to bomb
the militants from the air but leave fighting on the ground to local
Iraqi and Syrian forces.
In Iraq, the regular military's failure to hold Ramadi has forced
the government to send Iran-backed Shi'ite paramilitaries to help
retake the city. Washington is worried this could enrage residents
in the overwhelmingly Sunni province and push them into the arms of
Islamic State.
 A spokesman for the Shi'ite militias, known as Hashid Shaabi, said
the codename for the new operation would be "Labaik ya Hussein", a
slogan in honor of a grandson of the Prophet Mohammed killed in the
7th Century battle that spawned the schism between Shi'ite and Sunni
Muslims.
"The Labaik Ya Hussein operation is led by the Hashid Shaabi in
cooperation and coordination with the armed forces there," Assadi
said at a televised news conference. "We believe that liberating
Ramadi will not take long."
ALIENATION
The militia fighters have performed better on the battlefield than
Iraq's own army, but their presence risks alienating the Sunni
residents of the area, especially if they emphasize sectarian aims.
Washington hopes Iraq's Shi'ite-led government can win the support
of Sunni tribal fighters, the tactic U.S. Marines used in Anbar to
defeat Islamic State's al Qaeda predecessors during the deadliest
phase of the 2003-2011 U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Any increase in sectarian rage plays into the hands of Islamic
State, which promotes itself as the only force capable of protecting
Sunnis from Shi'ite aggression, considers all Shi'ites to be
heretics who must repent or die, and seeks to provoke a wider
sectarian battle to hasten the apocalypse.
The Baghdad government has succeeded in persuading some Sunni tribal
leaders to accept help from the Shi'ite fighters, but mistrust runs
deep after years of sectarian war in which atrocities were committed
on both sides.
Iraqi government forces and the Shi'ite militia have been pushing
back towards Ramadi since Saturday in the Euphrates river valley
west of Baghdad.
President Barack Obama, who won office in 2008 on a campaign pledge
to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, has ruled out sending ground
forces to fight against Islamic State.
Instead, Iran has filled the vacuum, providing aid and leadership to
the Hashid Shaabi Shi'ite militia forces.
The commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the
main Iranian force backing its allies abroad, mocked Washington for
doing too little to aid Baghdad.
[to top of second column] |
"Obama has not done a damn thing so far to confront Daesh. Doesn't
that show that there is no will in America to confront it?" Qassem
Soleimani, said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
"How is it that America claims to be protecting the Iraqi
government, when a few kilometers away in Ramadi killings and war
crimes are taking place and they are doing nothing?" said the
Iranian general, who was spotted in recent weeks on the battlefield
helping to lead the Iraqi Shi'ite militia.
Soleimani's remarks came a day after U.S. Defense Secretary Ash
Carter infuriated Baghdad by saying the Iraqi army had abandoned
Ramadi because it lacked "the will to fight", remarks Iraqi Prime
Minister Abadi said showed Carter was misinformed.
In a move of apparent damage control after Carter's comments, Vice
President Joe Biden phoned Abadi on Monday to reassure him that
Washington still supported Baghdad.
Although Washington backs the government in Iraq, it is opposed to
Islamic State's other main enemy, the Syrian government of President
Bashar al-Assad, a position which makes forging a united alliance
against the militants difficult.
Assad, an Iranian ally, is fighting a range of mainly Sunni
insurgent groups in a four-year-old civil war that has killed more
than a quarter of a million people and made eight million homeless.
His government has lost ground in recent months to Islamic State and
other Sunni groups, including a local branch of al Qaeda and groups
that have Western and Arab support.
On Monday the Syrian air force pounded Palmyra, some 240 km (150
miles) northeast of the capital, in a bid to dislodge Islamic State
fighters who seized it last week. The city of 50,000 people is also
home to some of the world's oldest and best-preserved ancient Roman
ruins.
Islamic State boasts that its fighters carry out mass killings in
towns and cities that they seize, and dynamite and bulldoze ancient
monuments they consider evidence of paganism.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring
group says the fighters killed more than 200 people, including
children, after capturing the city.
Syria's government-run satellite television stations were
interrupted on Tuesday by what Damascus said was interference by its
foreign enemies.
(Reporting by Reuters correspondents in Baghdad, Isabel Coles in
Erbil and Sylvia Westall in Beirut; Writing by Peter Graff; editing
by Janet McBride)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
