Iraq faces huge challenges dislodging ISIL in Anbar

BAGHDAD – The Associated Press

AFP Photo

Iraqi forces are on a westward push to retake Anbar, a sprawling Sunni-dominated desert province captured by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants in their offensive last year. But as the battles for Tikrit and Ramadi have shown, it will be a hard slog for a much-diminished Iraqi army - especially given Baghdad’s reticence to arm Sunni tribesmen and local fears of the Shiite militias backing government forces.

Earlier this month, Iraqi forces captured the northern Sunni-majority city of Tikrit from ISIL, but only with the backing from Iranian-trained and Iran-funded Shiite militias and U.S. airstrikes - methods that cannot work in Anbar province.

ISIL is estimated to hold at least 65 percent of the vast province at this point.

The past weeks of seesaw battles in Anbar, with progress in areas like Garma east of Fallujah, a stalemate in the biggest city of Ramadi and an Iraqi rout near Lake Tharthar, show that the army still needs help. But relying on erstwhile Shiite militia allies may not be palatable to locals.

“The Iraqi soldiers fighting in Anbar are not well-trained enough for this battle. Many of the soldiers are there for the money, but the (Shiite militias), they are believers in this fight,” said an Iraqi brigadier general involved in the Anbar campaign. “There isn’t yet a clear plan to liberate Anbar because of the political and tribal disputes.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists, he said some tribes might be supportive but others were with ISIL. He also lamented how soldiers would throw down their weapons and flee when hard-pressed.

On April 24, government reports of advances in Anbar were belied by an ISIL attack on a water control system on a canal north of Islamic State-occupied Fallujah that killed a division commander and at least a dozen soldiers.

In the past few years, Iraq’s army has been hollowed out by corrupt commanders siphoning off salaries and equipment and not training soldiers to do much more than man checkpoints.
A force that once numbered in the hundreds of thousands is now estimated by U.S. officials to be around 125,000 at best and probably a lot less, once all the so-called “ghost-soldiers” - non-existent names on the payroll - are purged.

Shiite leaders and parliamentarians insisting that Anbar can only be retaken with the help of the militias.
The army has had some victories around Baghdad and in the eastern Diyala province with the help of Shiite militias. But if they were used in Anbar, it would only further alienate the Sunni population in the province, where the Islamic State group has been entrenched since January 2014.

Dhari al-Rishawi, a Sunni tribal leader in Anbar who helped form the Sunni militias known as Sahwa or Awakening Councils, which with the U.S. military drove al-Qaeda out of the province in 2006, said people are terrified that the army will be bringing the Shiite militias.

“We know that if the militias are involved, there will be Iranian advisers and that would be a disaster because in this region there is a lot of sensitivity over Iranian interference,” al-Rishawi told The Associated Press. 
“The tribes of Anbar are ready to fight the Islamic State and eject them but on the condition that the state arms them.”

Plans to create a National Guard with Sunni fighters have stalled because the Shiite-dominated government suspects many of supporting the Islamic State group and refuses to arm them.

 Under the former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the Sunni Awakening force was dismantled after the U.S. pulled out in 2011, further alienating the local population.