SEPT. 22, 2014
Weeks of U.S. Strikes Fail to Dislodge ISIS in Iraq
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and OMAR AL-JAWOSHY
BAGHDAD -- After six weeks of American airstrikes, the Iraqi government's forces have scarcely budged the 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 Iraqi Army. On Monday, the government acknowledged that it had lost control of the small town of Sichar and lost contact with several hundred of its soldiers who had been besieged for nearly a week 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 there 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. The prime minister ordered the arrest of the responsible officers, although a military spokesman put the death toll at just 40 and said 68 were missing.
"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."
Behind the government's struggles on the battlefield is the absence or resistance of many of the Sunni Muslim tribes that officials in Baghdad and Washington hope will play the decisive role in the course of the fight -- a slow start for the centerpiece of President Obama's plan to drive out the militants.
The Sunni tribes of Anbar and other areas 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. [1]
"The Sunnis in Anbar and other provinces are facing oppression and discrimination by the government," said Mohamed el-Bajjari, a sheikh in Anbar who is a 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, whom Mr. Obama has hailed as the face of a more inclusive government. They said 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 American official involved in the effort, speaking on the condition of anonymity according to diplomatic protocol, said some governors had asked for renewed airstrikes to stop new Islamic State advances.)
"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," Sheikh Bajjari said. "If we ever put down our weapons, the militias would come over and kill us all."
In Dhuluiya, a town famous here as where the mostly Sunni Jabouri tribe has held out during a three-month siege by the Islamic State's forces, local fighters said their Sunni neighbors had abandoned them.
"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."
In some places, the Iraqi Army has turned over captured territory to the police, who quickly lose control back to the Islamic State. Other Sunni leaders, however, insisted that things would improve.
Wasfi al-Aasi, a Sunni Arab tribal leader who leads a pro-government council of sheikhs in Baghdad, said the biggest tribes had signaled their support against the Islamic State and were establishing "national guard" units in six provinces. "The next few days will bring good news," he said.
He said the tribal leaders who expressed disappointment in the government were "all with the Islamic State."
The American official acknowledged that many of the Sunni sheikhs were slow to trust the new government. "They have been disenfranchised, and they have been lied to" under the previous one, the official said. "They want to be part of the solution, they want to be included, but it is going to take some time."
The Islamic State is projecting extreme confidence. Photographs and videos 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."
The Islamic State's spokesman issued a statement Monday dispensing specific advice to fellow jihadis in Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and Egypt. "Rig the roads with explosives for them. Attack their bases. Raid their homes. Cut off their heads," the statement told Egyptian militants attacking the police and soldiers. "Turn their worldly life into fear and fire."
The statement called for swift execution of any "nonbelieving" citizen whose country took part in the military intervention in Iraq, "especially the spiteful and filthy French."
And it warned those foreign powers of terrorist attacks: "You will pay the price as you walk on your streets, turning right and left, fearing the Muslims."
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 pesh merga [2] in the north.
Sunni tribes have fought alongside the Iraqi Army in only one place: Fighters from three tribes helped the army retake the towns of Barwana and Haditha, near a vital dam in the west. "It shows what they can do, and what they want to do," the official said.
Shiite militias helped the army take the towns of Amerli, Yusufia and Adam, all on strategic roadways. And Kurdish fighters and a specialized army unit recaptured the critical Mosul Dam just days after it fell to the Islamic State, at the start of the campaign. (American airstrikes played a big role in each case.)
But even with the backing of Western air power, the broad battle lines have remained roughly static.
"It doesn't look like anyone is moving at all," said Michael Stephens, a researcher based in Doha, Qatar, at the Royal United Services Institute who recently returned from Iraq. "People have basically just dug trenches."
For the Sunni tribes, he said, "it does not seem like there has been a lot of traction with the political solution put forward."
The Sunni Arab-dominated areas are still largely hostile territory.
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 Anbar, made its way through a road mined with explosives 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 opened the gates and ran out, he said. But groups of Islamic State fighters suddenly poured out of neighboring buildings and surged forward in armored vehicles 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."
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/world/middleeast/tarnishing-a-reputation-as-storied-warriors.html