David D. Kirkpatrick
September 22, 2014
Despite Airstrikes, ISIS Appears to Hold Its Ground in Iraq
BAGHDAD — After six weeks of American airstrikes, the Iraqi government’s forces have scarcely budged Sunni extremists of the Islamic State from their hold on more than a quarter of the country, in part because many critical Sunni tribes remain on the sidelines.
Although the airstrikes appear to have stopped the extremists’ march toward Baghdad, the Islamic State is still dealing humiliating blows to the Iraq government forces. On Monday, the government acknowledged that it had lost control of the small, northern town of Sichar and lost contact with several hundred of its soldiers who had been trapped for several days at a camp north of the Islamic State stronghold of Falluja, in Anbar Province.
By midday, there were reports that hundreds of soldiers had been killed in battle or mass executions. Ali Bedairi, a lawmaker from the governing alliance, said more than 300 soldiers had died after the loss of the base, Camp Saqlawiya, although his count could not be confirmed.
“They did not have any food and they were starving for four days,” a soldier who said he was one of 200 who managed to escape said in a videotaped statement that he circulated online. “We drank salty water, we could not even run.”
Sunni Iraqi men, who took up arms alongside security forces to defend the town of Dhuluiyah from the Islamic State militant group, held a position last week. CreditAhmad Al-Rubaye/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Behind the government’s struggles on the battlefield is the absence or resistance of many of the Sunni Muslim tribes that all sides say will play the decisive role in the course of the fight — presenting a slow start for the centerpiece of President Obama’s plan to drive out the militants.
The Sunni tribes of Anbar and the northwest drove Qaeda-linked militants out of the area seven years ago with American military help, in what became known as the Sunni Awakening. But the tribes’ alienation from the subsequent authoritarian and Shiite-led government in Baghdad opened the door for the extremists of the Islamic State to return this year.
The foundation of the Obama administration’s plan to defeat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, is the installation of a new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, who has pledged to build a more responsive government and rebuild Sunni support. But, though at least some Sunni Arabs are fighting alongside the army in places like Haditha, influential Sunni sheikhs who helped lead the Awakening say they remain unconvinced.
“The Sunnis in Anbar and other provinces are facing oppression and discrimination by the government,” said Mohamed el-Bajjari, a tribal sheikh and spokesman for a coalition of tribes. “This government must be changed to form a technocratic government of nonsectarian secular people, or the battles and the anger of the Sunni people will continue.”
Sunni tribal leaders said they were already disappointed by Mr. Abadi, who has been hailed by President Obama as the face of a more inclusive government. They said that the military had not lived up to a pledge by the prime minister to discontinue shelling civilian areas in the battle against the Islamic State — an accusation that could not be confirmed. They also complained that the government had done nothing to reform abusive security forces, and that it continued to give a free hand to Iranian-backed Shiite militias whom Sunnis accuse of arbitrary killings.
“Hundreds of poor people are in prison without being convicted, and today we have the militias as well killing our people, while the military is bombing our cities with barrel bombs and random missiles,” Shiekh Bajjari said. “If we ever put down our weapons, the militias would come over and kill us all.”
“The Sunni tribes’ role here is almost nonexistent,” said Ali al-Jabouri, a local fighter. “There are many tribes in the villages near here but they were not serious about joining us to combat the Islamic State, and until now none of them have joined us.”
Other Sunni leaders, however, said that things would improve.
Wasfi al-Aasi, a Sunni Arab tribal leader who leads a pro-government council of sheikhs, said that the biggest tribes had signaled their support against Islamic State and that “we are in the process of establishing national guards in the main six provinces.”
“The next few days will bring good news,” he said. As for tribal leaders who expressed disappointment in the government, “They are all with the Islamic State.”
Iraqi government forces have managed to recapture a handful of strategic cities, usually with the help of American airstrikes as well as Iranian-backed Shiite militias, Sunni Arab tribal fighters, or the Kurdish militias in the north.
The army and some local Sunni tribal fighters captured the town of Barwana and much of Haditha, near a vital dam in the West. Shiite militias and American airstrikes helped the army take the towns of Amerli and Yusufia, as well as Adam, on an important road to the north. American airstrikes helped Kurdish fighters recapture the critical Mosul dam just days after it fell to Islamic State, at the start of the campaign.
But even with the backing of Western air power, the broad battle lines have remained roughly static, with the Sunni Arab-dominated areas in western Iraq still largely hostile territory for the government forces.
A week ago, for example, a force of about 800 soldiers found themselves stranded at Camp Saqlawiya in Anbar, cut off from the rest of the army behind Islamic State lines without food, water, fuel or, eventually, ammunition, according to soldiers who escaped. Finally, on Sunday, an army tank unit based in Ramadi, outside of Anbar, made its way through a road mined with improvised explosive devices to within 500 yards of the base, said a soldier in the group who gave his name as Abu Moussa.
Seeing the rescuers, the soldiers inside the base opened the gates and ran out, he said. But groups of Islamic State fighters suddenly poured out of neighboring buildings and surged forward in pick-up trucks with heavy-weapon mounts. At least two armed vehicles rigged with bombs made it into the base and exploded.
The tanks retreated, Abu Moussa said, crushing bodies of dead soldiers underneath them. “I have not seen such fire and blood for 10 years” in the military, he said. “It is a disaster.”
Islamic State, for its part, has kept up a public attitude of extreme confidence. Photographs and videos emerging from the cities it controls, including Falluja and Mosul, show its officials opening the school year with a puritanical Islamic curriculum, establishing Shariah courts, or even patrolling the streets in newly painted police cars labeled “the Islamic Police of the Islamic State of Iraq.”
Positioning itself as the leadership of the jihadi world, Islamic State’s spokesman issued a statement Monday dispensing advice across the region. It urged unity among the mujahedeen of Libya. It asked the Tunisians to step up their attacks and encouraged Yemenis to take revenge against the country’s Shiite factions.
The group also issued a pep talk for Egyptian militants waging guerrilla attacks against the soldiers and police of the military-backed government in Cairo, urging them to keep up the good work: “Rig the roads with explosives for them. Attack their bases. Raid their homes. Cut off their heads. Do not let them feel secure. Hunt them wherever they may be. Turn their worldly life into fear and fire.”
Responding to the military campaign against it, Islamic State’s new statement called for swift execution of any “nonbelieving” citizen of any country taking part in the military intervention in Iraq — “especially the spiteful and filthy French.”
To those foreign powers, the statement issued a warning: “It is you who started the transgression against us, and thus you deserve blame and you will pay a great price,” it said. “You will pay the price as you walk on your streets, turning right and left, fearing the Muslims.”
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