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Weeks Of Combat In Iraq Show Shiite Militias Have Few Offensive Capabilities

Weeks Of Combat In Iraq Show Shiite Militias Have Few Offensive Capabilities

By Mitchell Prothero, McClatchy Foreign Staff

IRBIL, Iraq — The sectarian Shiite militias that the government in Baghdad has dispatched to fill the void created by the collapse of the Iraqi army are proving ill-equipped for offensive operations intended to reverse gains by the radical Islamic State, Iraqi soldiers, and military experts studying the current military situation have concluded.

The inadequacy of the militias to turn the tide was demonstrated again on Wednesday six miles south of Tikrit, the central Iraqi city that Islamic State fighters seized June 11 and that Iraqi forces and Shiite fighters have been trying to reclaim for more than two weeks.

Local residents and Iraqi media reported that the Iraqi military backed by militias attempted to push through the town of Awja toward Tikrit but were beaten back by heavy machine-gun and mortar fire from Islamic State positions.

“It was a big battle and the Iraqi army and the Iranian militias have gone,” said one local resident, whose reference to the Shiite militias as Iranians is common, if inaccurate, in heavily Sunni regions of Iraq. “They withdrew to a base south of Awja.” The resident declined to be identified for security reasons.

A Twitter account associated with the Islamic State posted photographs of what it said was the aftermath of the fighting, including images of burning armored vehicles and at least one destroyed pickup truck emblazoned with the logo of SWAT, a highly trained Iraqi army special forces unit. The photographs were consistent with descriptions of the fighting, the units present, and the location of the battle, though their authenticity could not be confirmed.

The apparent defeat underscored a growing sense that the Iraqi security forces have misplaced their hopes that the Shiite militias would prove decisive in the fight against the Islamic State. While the militias are given credit for stopping the Islamic State’s advance on cities such as Samarra, home of a major Shiite religious shrine, and Baghdad, they’ve proved ineffective in retaking ground. Their casualties apparently have been high.

“Without (the militias) we would have been gone a long time ago,” said Ahmad Hussam, an infantryman fighting on the critical western approaches to Baghdad near Abu Ghraib, one of the last majority Sunni areas still in government hands, who was interviewed while on leave in Baghdad. “But they have taken many lost on their side because of a shortage in training and experience.”

He added that many volunteers — summoned by Iraq’s senior Shiite cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to support the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — had arrived at the front lines without weapons or food. “We have to help them just to stay alive,” he said.

Aymenn al-Tamimi, who studies militant groups in Iraq for the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum, said the past few weeks have disproved the common wisdom that the Shiite militias would be a fearsome force because of their experience fighting U.S. forces during the American occupation of Iraq and, more recently, their role in helping defend the government of President Bashar Assad in Syria.

“These are supposed to be the guys who can scare ISIS and are skilled in urban warfare,” Tamimi said, referring to the Islamic State by the acronym for its previous name, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. “Well, I don’t see evidence of that.”

Andrew Exum, a former Pentagon adviser and expert on low-intensity conflicts, said that recent weeks suggest that the militias will require a firmer hand from Iranian commanders or officers from Lebanon’s Hezbollah, who reportedly led many of them during their presence in neighboring Syria. But whether Iran and Hezbollah are willing to commit that manpower is unclear, even as the Obama administration has said no U.S. ground troops will be committed to Iraq.

Pentagon officials are finalizing recommendations for what the United States should do to bolster Iraqi forces. An initial assessment found, among other conclusions, that Iraq’s forces lacked the offensive capabilities to decisively end the Islamic State’s threat to Baghdad.

“I think it’s clear that just as Iraq’s army benefited greatly from embedded U.S. advisers, Iraq’s Shiite militias benefited greatly from embedded Iranian and Hezbollah advisers,” said Exum, a former U.S. Army officer who has a doctorate in counterinsurgency studies from King’s College in London. “Too bad for the former that America is so reluctant to commit ground troops, and too bad for the latter that Iran and Hezbollah are so busy in Syria.”

Prothero is a McClatchy special correspondent.

AFP Photo/Ahmad al-Rubaye

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Iraqi Shiite Fighters Of Balad Provide Bulwark For Baghdad

Iraqi Shiite Fighters Of Balad Provide Bulwark For Baghdad

By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times

BALAD, Iraq — The Shiite militia commander, slight of build and decked out in green fatigues, views the checkpoint that he oversees as much more than an isolated outpost amid the endless palm groves of the Tigris River valley.

“We are the forward defensive line for Baghdad,” said the militiaman, who gave his name as Abu Ali, as he stood with comrades at a battered intersection where the charred remains of shops and a gas station attest to recent combat.

The town of Balad, about 50 miles north of the capital, has emerged as a key bulwark in the defense of Baghdad from Sunni Muslim insurgents allied with the Islamic State, an al-Qaida breakaway faction.

Just as it was during the U.S.-led occupation, when Balad hosted the largest American military base, Anaconda, the town is a vital supply, communications, and logistic hub on the highway from Iraq’s capital north toward Sunni strongholds such as Tikrit and Mosul, recently overrun by the Islamic State.

At Balad, the Sunni insurgent rampage down the Tigris has stalled against Iraq’s relentless sectarian calculus: Balad, like Baghdad, is overwhelmingly Shiite. Home to an illustrious and resplendent religious shrine, it is the first major Shiite bastion on the road south from Mosul.

Government posters in Baghdad that defiantly proclaim “They Shall Not Pass” have thus far been validated in this sprawling agricultural market town of perhaps 100,000 residents.

Sunni militants may someday find it possible to infiltrate Baghdad from other areas, or to activate dormant cells in Sunni neighborhoods of the capital. But storming through Balad from the north would surely prove costly for Sunni forces, even before they faced the daunting task of attacking Baghdad, where they would face massive Shiite resistance.

Indeed, the response here to the Shiite religious leadership’s call to arms demonstrates its ability to marshal masses of volunteers against takfiris, as al-Qaida-style Sunni militants are labeled derisively both here and in the Levant nations of Syria and Lebanon.
While government forces scattered in the face of Sunni militants in northern and western Iraq, enthusiastic Shiite militiamen — both novices and battle-hardened veterans of Syria and against the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq — have arrived here and at other frontline areas in large numbers.

In Balad, government forces who were initially routed appear to have reasserted some semblance of control of the critical Baghdad highway — dubbed Main Supply Route Tampa during the U.S.-led occupation and fortified at the time with blast walls, sand barriers, and concrete observation posts. The obstacles are now in the service of Iraqi forces, along with the Humvees and other heavy equipment left behind by the Americans.

Still, the situation is tenuous, the battlefield fluid. On Sunday, Sunni militants reportedly stormed into the nearby largely Sunni town of Duluiya, sparking fierce clashes.

Large stretches of the highway from Baghdad to Balad appear nearly abandoned, eerily absent of traffic and subject to deadly attacks. The few motorists tend to hit the accelerator between the many checkpoints. Adding to the sense of uncertainty is the fact that Islamic State activists have posted at least one video online of a fake government checkpoint actually manned by Sunni execution squads decked out as official Iraqi forces.

“They kill you if you are a Sunni working for the government,” said one policeman here, who, like others interviewed, did not want his name used because he was not authorized to speak publicly. “And of course if you are a Shiite they kill you no matter what.”

Stretches of scorched grass and burned palm trees mark the fierce battles of recent weeks. A number of U.S.-built concrete towers along the highway have been blown up by Sunni militants.

Much of the heavy lifting on the dispersed battle front here appears to be left to the thousands of Shiite militiamen who have answered the religious leaders’ fatwa to fight the Sunnis. The various militias’ multicolored flags are ubiquitous.

Abu Ali and his charges at the checkpoint adjacent to the main highway are members of the group Hezbollah Brigades, which once fought in Iraq against U.S. forces and is reportedly backed by Iran. (The group is separate from the Lebanon-based Shiite paramilitary and political organization also named Hezbollah.) The sundry militiamen in Balad unanimously exude a sense of bravado and confidence. Whether it is justified on the battlefield is hard to ascertain.

“We have all the help we need: planes, artillery, troops,” said one fervent militiaman, from a group called the Vanguard of the Khorasani, a reference to a Shiite site.

At a nearby checkpoint, a Chinese-made pickup truck played Shiite martial ballads. In the rear were several teenage fighters with green headbands, along with one who appeared to be in his 60s, seated in a white plastic chair with his AK-47. They waved at visiting journalists.

Some militiamen here say they have experience fighting in neighboring Syria, where thousands of Iraqi Shiites have battled alongside government forces against Sunni-led insurgents.

“In Iraq and Syria, it’s basically the same fight,” said a 30-year-old commander of the Hezbollah Brigades who uses the nom de guerre Abu Askar, as he stood outside an abandoned apartment building apparently used as a command post.

Abu Askar, who wore orange-tinted wraparound sunglasses, said he had fought in Syria for almost two years outside Damascus, Aleppo, and other locales. With the Islamic State having declared its “caliphate” across the borders of both nations, the two wars seem to be merging. And in Balad, the Iraqi conflict has the feel of a religious war.

“We’re getting new recruits all the time,” said Abu Askar, his young charges nodding in agreement.

Pickup trucks with militiamen came and went at the compound where Abu Askar and his fighters stood guard.

In daily operations, Shiite militiamen seek out Islamic State militants ensconced in nearby Sunni villages and in palm orchards along the Tigris and its network of irrigation canals. The fighters appear to distinguish little between al-Qaida-style militants and their allies — Sunni tribesmen and nationalists still angry that the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 upended Iraq’s balance of power in favor of the Shiite majority.

“Some people will tell you these are the (Sunni) tribes we are fighting against — that’s nonsense,” countered one federal police officer. “They’re all with al-Qaida.”

AFP Photo/Ahmad al-Rubaye

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In Iraq, Death Toll Rises Among Shiite Recruits Battling Insurgency

In Iraq, Death Toll Rises Among Shiite Recruits Battling Insurgency

By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times

NAJAF, Iraq — The unadorned wooden boxes arrive lashed to car roofs or secured in the beds of pickup trucks, a steady procession of mortal remains on a doleful final journey to this holy city.
Only days ago, they were enthusiastic Shiite Muslim recruits who answered the call of their clerics to fight a Sunni Arab insurgency. Now they are coming home lifeless and broken — the victims of bullets, bombs, and shells.

Each day brings the remains of dozens of young men honored as martyrs. First, they are given a ritual washing. A fleet of converted golf carts, painted black, stands by to shuttle their caskets to a farewell blessing at the majestic shrine of Imam Ali, an important figure in Shiite Islam. Finally, they are buried in the Valley of Peace, one of the largest cemeteries in the world.

Among the plain coffins that arrived Wednesday was one containing the remains of Anwar Jassem, 26, who last month joined Iraq’s most powerful Shiite militia, Asaib Ahl al Haq, or League of the Righteous.

“Anwar wanted to go to battle for Iraq, for his homeland,” said an uncle, explaining that the militiaman was felled by a sniper’s bullet a day earlier near Fallujah, a bastion of Sunni insurgents fighting to overthrow the Shiite-led government.

As Iraqi forces battle a Qaida breakaway faction and its allies, there has been no official word about casualties among pro-government forces. But the numbers are mounting daily in what by all accounts is a grueling guerrilla war against a well-armed and experienced adversary.

Iraqi state media tout the abundant deaths of “terrorists” in dispersed battle zones to the north and west of the capital. In Baghdad, the war seems far away, with the Ramadan fasting season proceeding at a torpid pace beneath the sweltering midsummer sun.

But here in Najaf, final resting place of the Shiite masses, the rising death toll is impossible to ignore.

The roster of the lost is largely composed of young men such as Jassem, idealistic and fervent volunteers who followed their religious leaders’ fatwa to enlist and soon found themselves thrown onto the front lines.

Facing them are seasoned and dug-in Sunni insurgents, among them skilled snipers, expert bomb makers and savvy street fighters. Many have extensive experience battling U.S. troops, Iraqi forces, and, in some cases, the neighboring Syrian army and its allies.

By contrast, many Shiite volunteers appear to have had little formal training, according to interviews here. They were rushed into battle as Iraqi army units disintegrated and the government scrambled to deflect an existential threat.

“They’re being thrown out there without training against experienced soldiers,” said an undertaker in this shrine city, where death is an industry and war means more business.

While proud of the young men’s courage, the undertaker also seemed appalled that so many were so ill-equipped. “They have no chance,” said the undertaker, who gave only his first name, Salim, for privacy reasons.

Distraught relatives from a sect long steeped in martyrdom are left to mourn their losses and try to comprehend what happened. Cell phone calls from military units daily convey news of loved ones’ deaths. The bodies soon follow, brought first to a military air base in Baghdad. Some coffins were wrapped in nylon to prevent blood from leaking.

“They called us and said he had been shot,” said Salah Jubayr, mourning his son, Ali Hussein, 24, killed the previous day in Ramadi, another Sunni insurgent stronghold in Anbar province, west of Baghdad. “He just volunteered 10 days ago.”

With little training, Ali Hussein was placed in a police unit in one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq. Ramadi was a hub of Sunni resistance to the U.S.-led occupation and of the subsequent rebellion against the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The ferocity of the resistance in Anbar was legendary among U.S. soldiers and Marines.

“He would call us and say there was fighting going on all the time,” said the distraught father, outfitted in a traditional tribal cloak and Arab headdress. “He wanted to volunteer even before the fatwa,” he added, referring to the edict last month from Shiite clerics urging young men to sign up at recruitment centers.

The grieving family was gathered at a site where bodies are washed and wrapped in white shrouds for burial, in accordance with Muslim custom. This washing establishment, subsidized by Muqtada Sadr, the Shiite cleric whose Mahdi Army once fought against U.S. troops, charges only about $20 for the service. The fees pay for the shroud, workers explained.

The number of body washings has doubled in the last month to about 60 a day, including many young men killed at the front, workers here said. This site is only one of many pre-burial washing spots.

“These are all soldiers who died doing their duty,” said Awad Moussawi, 52, who is among the staff of professional washers. “This is a necessary jihad. Islam will be victorious.”

The office held bundles of white shrouds and a cardboard box filled with plastic bottles of soapy water to be used in cleansing. Sand is preferred for washing if bodies are badly burned. Efforts are made to place severed body parts in their appropriate position, the washer said.

“I started doing this two years ago because I know I will receive a greater reward from God,” said Moussawi, who left his previous job as a perfume salesman.

Outside, the midday sun beat down relentlessly on the seemingly boundless horizons of the Valley of Peace. Domes adorned some graves, while others were marked with simple concrete headstones inscribed with Islamic texts and the names of the deceased. Stylized color posters here and there showed deceased young men come to life in various guises — in military uniforms, in suits and ties, T-shirts, and tribal robes.

AFP Photo / Ahmad al-Rubaye

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Al-Maliki Urges Iraq’s Neighbors To Join Fight Against Islamists

Al-Maliki Urges Iraq’s Neighbors To Join Fight Against Islamists

By Mitchell Prothero, McClatchy Foreign Staff

IRBIL, Iraq — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called Wednesday for support from neighboring countries in his government’s struggle against Islamist insurgents, saying the formation of an Islamic caliphate in much of Iraq and Syria threatens the entire region.

The declaration of the caliphate by the radical terrorist group Islamic State and the call by its leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, for Muslims the world over to join it in a holy war puts every nation in the region “within a red circle,” al-Maliki said.

The prime minister’s message appeared to be an appeal not just to Iraqi Sunni Muslims, some of whom have openly supported the Islamic State’s offensive in Iraq, but also to countries such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, which have openly opposed assistance to the Shiite Muslim-led Iraqi government.

He urged politicians in his own country to come together to pick a new government. On Tuesday, Iraq’s parliament failed to select a new speaker after Sunni Arab and Kurdish members stormed out a few minutes into the opening session. Al-Maliki described the failure to form a government as a “state of weakness.”

“God willing, in the next session we will overcome it with cooperation and agreement and openness,” he said. The parliament is scheduled to convene again next week.

Al-Maliki, a Shiite nationalist, has so far resisted rather broad calls to either form a national unity government quickly or step aside for a new leader, amid claims by allies and foes alike that his policies toward Iraq’s Sunni minority had led many of the country’s tribes to join the Islamic State rebellion.

Al-Maliki also addressed on Wednesday growing division with Iraq’s Kurds, whose Kurdistan Regional Government is largely autonomous but remains part of the country. As the Iraqi army collapsed last month before the Islamic State’s onslaught, the Kurds expanded their control to the disputed oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Kurdish President Massoud Barzani also has said he will hold a referendum on independence.

Al-Maliki noted that the Iraqi Constitution allows for a federal system but contains no provisions for such a move to independence. He angrily charged that the Kurds were “trying to take advantage of the situation” with their occupation of Kirkuk, and he described the situation as unresolved.

It was unlikely that al-Maliki’s call for support from his neighbors would be greeted positively. With the exception of Iran, which like Iraq is ruled by Shiites, and Syria, where the Shiite-linked Alawite sect holds sway, al-Maliki’s neighbors are ruled by Sunni monarchies, and they’ve bitterly opposed his leadership. Even Baghdadi’s Ramadan message, in which he singled out Sham — an Arabic geographic term that would include Lebanon and Jordan — and Egypt from the Arabian Peninsula as regimes that oppress Muslims, was unlikely to rally those countries to al-Maliki’s side.

AFP Photo/Ali al-Saadi

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