Baghdad: Iraqi forces are on a westward push to retake Al Anbar, a sprawling desert province captured by Daesh 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 tribesmen and local fears of the militias backing government forces.
Earlier this month, Iraqi forces captured the northern city of Tikrit from Daesh, but only with the backing from Iranian-trained and Iran-funded militias and US air strikes — methods that cannot work in Al Anbar province.
Daesh is estimated to hold at least 65 per cent of the vast province at this point.
The past weeks of see-saw battles in Al 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 militia allies may not be palatable to locals.
“The Iraqi soldiers fighting in Al Anbar are not well-trained enough for this battle. Many of the soldiers are there for the money, but the [militias], they are believers in this fight,” said an Iraqi brigadier general involved in the Al Anbar campaign. “There isn’t yet a clear plan to liberate Al Anbar because of the political and tribal disputes.”
Speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to journalists, he said some tribes might be supportive but others were with Daesh. He also lamented how soldiers would throw down their weapons and flee when hard-pressed.
On Friday, government reports of advances in Al Anbar were belied by a Daesh attack on a water control system on a canal north of Daesh-occupied Fallujah that killed a division commander and at least a dozen soldiers.
Corrupt commanders
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 US 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 are insisting that Al 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 the militias. But if they were used in Al Anbar, it would only further alienate the local population in the province, where Daesh has been entrenched since January 2014.
Dhari Al Rishawi, a tribal leader in Al Anbar who helped form the Sunni militias known as Sahwa or Awakening Councils, which with the US military drove Al Qaida out of the province in 2006, said people are terrified that the army will be bringing the Iran-backed 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 said. “The tribes of Al Anbar are ready to fight Daesh 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 government suspects many of supporting Daesh and refuses to arm them.
Under the former Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, the Sunni Awakening force was dismantled after the US pulled out in 2011, further alienating the local population.
Since taking over large parts of the province, Daesh hasn’t been idle.
“In one and a half years, [Daesh] has become embedded within the civil structure of many portions of Al Anbar province and they have killed a lot of people that oppose them and the government wasn’t able to do anything,” said Richard Brennan, an Iraq expert at the Rand Corporation. “The government has to convince those remaining that it’s worth the risk to oppose [Daesh].”
With Daesh in control of large parts of Ramadi as well as all of Fallujah — a city the US military only retook with difficulty in 2004 — the Iraqi troops have some incredibly difficult urban fighting ahead of them. Also, the US-led coalition would be unable to back the Iraqis with air power in dense urban combat.
So far, the bulk of the fighting has been done by the Iraqi special forces division, which continued to be trained and equipped by the Americans even after the US withdrawal, but they can’t be everywhere and the regular Iraqi army often hasn’t been able to hold on to its gains.
In some places, it is the militias that have played this role, but that wouldn’t agree with the disaffected people of Al Anbar.
“We are caught between the hammer of Daesh and the anvil of the militias and we don’t know where to go,” Al Rishawi said.
