Emboldened
as they mop up the last Islamic State forces in the city of Tikrit,
Iraqi military leaders are already vowing to follow up that operation
with a much more ambitious one: marching into the vast Sunni heartland
in western Iraq to root out some of the most significant militant strongholds.
Iraqi
and American officials say some progress in that region, Anbar
Province, will be necessary before a serious effort is mounted to retake
the northern city of Mosul from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
But
just how that can be accomplished is a source of concern. Despite
boasts by the Shiite militias that they were ready for Anbar, some Iraqi
and American officials say it would be disastrous for a mostly
Shiite-led force to begin assaulting towns in the Sunni-dominated area,
and are seeking to limit the militias’ involvement.
Anbar,
after all, was the heart of the Sunni sectarian uprising against the
American invasion and against the Shiite-dominated national government
that followed. It was Al Qaeda’s original incubator in Iraq, and it was among the first places to fall to the Islamic State’s incursion.
The
militants now hold more than half the province — including the city of
Falluja and large areas around the capital, Ramadi. And they are
ruthlessly trying to suppress a group of Sunni Arab tribes who are
resisting them with the help of the Iraqi Army and some Shiite militias.
Still,
Anbar tribal leaders who would be willing to work with the Iraqi
government are adamantly opposed to more militias in Anbar, and want
tribal forces to be armed and trained in their place.
One
obstacle is that the Shiite-led Iraqi government has proved reluctant
to arm the Sunni tribes more aggressively — as the Americans have tried
to persuade it to do and are expected to encourage again when Prime
Minister Haider al-Abadi visits Washington next Tuesday.
Mr.
Abadi has publicly conceded the importance of getting more Sunni forces
into the fight. On Friday, he met with political figures from Anbar
Province, including Ahmed Abu Risha, a tribal leader whose brother was
one of the critical leaders of the Sunni Awakening in Anbar Province, in which the tribes defeated Al Qaeda with American military help.
“Liberating Anbar Province will form an important gate to liberate the rest of the areas under the control of ISIS,” Mr. Abadi said.
Despite
his military commanders’ tight timeline to begin an Anbar operation —
some say it could start soon after Mr. Abadi’s return from Washington
this month — it is still unclear where the manpower for the mission
would come from.
Even with the use of large numbers of Shiite irregulars, along with Iranian military advisers, the conquest in Tikrit proved difficult, stalling for weeks until the advent of American airstrikes.
Relying
heavily on those forces in Anbar would outrage the Sunni population
there, American officials insist, and might further alienate people who
are still on the fence about whether the Islamic State or the Shiite
Iraqi government is the greater evil.
The
Iraqi Army commander in Tikrit, Lt. Gen. Abdul al-Wahab al-Saadi, head
of the counterterrorism force, said, “When I finish with Tikrit, I will
go to Anbar, because I promised those people I would.”
Still,
he conceded that it could not be with large numbers of Shiite
militiamen — even though he is quick to credit them as an important part
of recent Iraqi victories in Diyala and Salahuddin Provinces, including
Tikrit.
“They were responsible for liberating 10,000 square kilometers of territory,” he said, or about 3,900 square miles.
Replacing
them in Anbar, for the most part, will be local Sunni tribes. But
efforts to arm those tribes have moved slowly, as the Iraqi authorities
remain suspicious that some might end up fighting against the Iraqi
government or supporting the Islamic State.
There
are also disputes among the tribes over which ones should get weapons,
with some saying the American military and Iraqi authorities are backing
the wrong groups.
Sheikh
Abdul Razak, a Jordan-based leader of the large Dulaimi tribe from
Anbar Province, said that what he disparagingly calls “Baghdad sheikhs”
had joined the government and would let Iranian-backed Shiite militias
into Anbar to fight the Islamic State.
“It’s
clear the popular mobilization is the hand of Iran, and this is going
to be like ethnic cleansing of the Sunnis,” he said, referring to the
militias by their official name, the Popular Mobilization Forces.
Mr.
Razak even hired an American consultant, Jonathan S. Greenhill, to
lobby Congress on his behalf and promote his view that the American-led
coalition is picking the wrong partners in Anbar. Mr. Greenhill, of the
Greenhill Group in Arlington, Va., is a retired Central Intelligence
Agency officer whose biography lists him as former “chief of base in a
Near East war zone.”
“The
sheikh has deep support in Anbar and important valuable information on
the terrorists,” Mr. Greenhill said, adding that his client has been
unsuccessful in meeting with military officials from the coalition. “The
coalition is dealing with the wrong sheikhs, who do not enjoy
widespread Sunni support.”
Coalition
officials insist that the Iraqi government will decide which tribes to
arm and that any military aid to them must go through the government.
Despite Tikrit Loss, ISIS Still Holds Large Swaths of Iraq
A visual guide to the crisis in Iraq and Syria.
“This
is their show,” said one senior coalition official, speaking on the
condition of anonymity as a matter of official policy. But, the official
said, no one now seriously believes that Iranian-backed Shiite militias
will be part of any major offensive in Anbar.
Unlike
Anbar, the provinces of Salahuddin and Diyala, where the Shiite
militias have been most active, have mixed Shiite and Sunni areas. In
areas where Shiite militiamen were victorious, if there were populations
of Sunnis, there were also reports of human rights abuses by the irregulars.
Such
abuses — including extrajudicial killings of prisoners and looting by
militiamen — are also being reported to a lesser degree in and around
Tikrit, even though almost all of its population fled before the
heaviest fighting.
Prime
Minister Abadi publicly criticized the looting and ordered the militias
to be withdrawn from Tikrit on Saturday as a result, a move that was
widely praised by Sunni leaders.
On
Tuesday, Mr. Abadi went a step further, ordering that all the popular
mobilization forces be placed under the direct command of the prime
minister’s office. The collective popular mobilization had been led by
Hadi al-Ameri, a prominent Shiite politician and leader of the Badr
Organization and militia, who has close ties to Iran.
“He
tried his best to stop the looting in Tikrit, and we appreciate that,
but he couldn’t,” Hamid al-Mutlaq, a Sunni member of Parliament from
Anbar, said of the prime minister’s efforts. “The people of Anbar will
not let that happen there.”
Hikmat
Ayada, an adviser to Suhaib al-Rawi, the governor of Anbar, said
officials expected an offensive to start there as soon as the prime
minister returned from Washington. He said a final decision on starting
the offensive had already been made in a meeting hosted by the American
ambassador, Stuart E. Jones, the prime minister and other top Iraqi
officials late last month, even before Tikrit fell.
“This
will not be the same as in Salahuddin, in which the whole popular
mobilization took part,” Mr. Ayada said. “Even if we have a few members
of the popular mobilization, they are all under the leadership of the
tribes or the army.”
Mr.
Mutlaq and other Sunni leaders expressed doubt that the offensive would
begin soon, largely because the process of arming Sunni tribes had gone
so slowly. But he said the tribes were committed to ousting the Islamic
State from Anbar.
“In
the beginning, there were some people who supported ISIS in Anbar,” Mr.
Mutlaq said, noting that many Sunnis had been angry at the former prime
minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. “Now, no one welcomes ISIS. The people
of Anbar and Falluja are in a prison now, and they only want to get rid
of ISIS.”
