Amman: Sunni insurgents and tribal leaders said on Wednesday after a closed meeting they would keep fighting until they take over the Iraqi capital and bring down a US-imposed political order that brought Shiites to rule the country and marginalised them.
Several hundred tribal figures, representatives of Islamist insurgent groups, ex-army officers and former Baath party figures attended the meeting in the Jordanian capital.
Sunni cleric Abdul Malek Al Saadi, who praised the “mujahideen” (holy warriors) leading the revolt, said tribes were the backbone of a broad- based insurgency battling against Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki’s rule. He said these forces had now captured large parts of western and northern Iraq.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), the Al Qaida offshoot, is only a part of the uprising, the Sunni’s top religious figure said.
“This revolution is led by the sons of tribes who are leading it and Isil is a small part of it,” said Al Saadi, who led some of the mass peaceful protests in Iraq’s Sunni heartland in 2013 that called for an end to security abuses and perceived marginalisation and political exclusion.
Most Sunni figures said they were left with few alternatives but to fight Al Maliki who is now relying increasingly on Shiite militias such as Asaib Ahl Al Haq they say are funded and armed by Iran in his battle against the rebellious governorates.
A final statement, which described the situation in Iraq as worsening, urged the international community to support the aims of the rebels to save “Iraq and the region from an unknown future”. The conference which excluded Al Maliki’s few Sunni allies within the government said they would fight any attempt to revive government-backed Sunni militias known as the Sahwat (Awakening) that had succeeded with US support in repelling and defeating Al Qaida in Iraq.
Sahwat is a pejorative term among Islamists, who believe that the Americans pitted Sunnis against each other in Iraq, only to betray them later by handing power to a Shiite government.
Crucially, Isil fighters have now received support from Sunni tribes who once fought bitterly against them, a sign of widespread Sunni alienation from Baghdad since the end of US occupation.
“We are not ready to repeat that experience. Isil has not humiliated us and if it had not been for them we would not be here today raising our heads high,” said Shaikh Qasem Obaidi, a tribal leader sympathetic to Isil.
Another tribal leader said the eyes of insurgents were now focused on reaching the capital Baghdad.
“We will take over Baghdad and bring down the political regime in Baghdad in the coming weeks, God willing,” said Shaikh Fayez Al Shawoosh, spokesman for the insurgent led council of Iraqi tribal chiefs.
Representatives of the loose federation of Sunni armed groups and tribal fighters under the umbrella of Military Councils said they were not ready to fight Isil, many of whose leaders were drawn from Iraq’s top tribes.
They blame Al Maliki’s Shiite led militias for the death, imprisonment and disappearance of thousands of Sunnis.
Ex-army officers and loyalists of executed former dictator Saddam Hussain’s Baath party went as far as saying they shared with the Al Qaida offshoot common military goals even though they were ideologically wide apart.
“Now Isil is fighting and has scored victories and helped revolutionaries in achieving their goals so we are almost in harmony with them in achieving our goals,” senior Baath leader Abdul Samad Al Ghurairi, who attended the parley, told Reuters.
