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Campaign to push Islamic State from Anbar Province in Iraq intensifies

Efforts to rebuild Iraqi army
[additional-authors]
September 1, 2015

This article originally appeared on The Media Line.

One month after the Iraqi government announced a new initiative to take back Anbar province in western Iraq, analysts and diplomats say the campaign is beginning to take root and Iraqi troops have regained control of some important areas.

“There is a shift in momentum towards unifying Iraqis and trying to win back the trust of the Sunni fighters in Anbar province who are on the front lines,” Renad Mansour, an expert on Iraq at the Carnegie Middle East Center told The Media Line. “Ramadi hasn’t been won back yet, but some territory has been going back and forth.”

The Iraqi army said it had 10,000 troops ready to participate in the fight, along with members of the Popular Forces, a predominately Shi’ite militia, who has successfully battled Islamic State, which practices an extreme form of Sunni Islam. Currently, Islamic State still controls large parts of Anbar province, the largest in Iraq, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced by the fighting.

Iraqi analysts say that the popular tide has turned against Islamic State, after brutal killings, arrests and torture of thousands in Ramadi.

“All of the citizens of Iraq, even the Sunnis, are waiting for the end of the nightmare of Daesh,” Methaq al-Fayydh, an Iraqi journalist told The Media Line, using the Arabic name of Islamic State. “What happened in Mosul (the first city taken over by Islamic State) – the killings and displacement of Christians and Muslims (Shi’ites and Sunnis) and Yazidis alike, make people want to get rid of Daesh.”

The Iraqi government has been trying to rebuild its army which was decimated when Islamic State swept through Iraq and neighboring Syria. Tens of thousands of soldiers fled, and a small number even joined Islamic State.

Along with the military efforts, President Heidar Abadi is working to streamline government and cut back on corruption, to help in the fight against Islamic State.

“Both sides are connected,” Mansour said. “People need to see the government fighting corruption and that will strengthen it as well.”

There have been some successes already. Military officials said that the army has recaptured the desert area west of Samarra and is preparing to move down into Anbar province. At the same time, suicide bombers recently killed two Iraqi generals last month as they led forces against Islamic State.

The media arm of Islamic State also released a video showing four Shi’ite fighters, suspended by their hands and feet, being burned alive. “Now retribution has come, for today, we will attack them as they attacked us and punish them as they punished us,” a masked Islamic State member said in the video.

The international community has been hesitant to get too involved in the fighting in Iraq, after the US withdrew from Iraq in 2011, eight years after tens of thousands of US troops entered the country to overthrow long-time Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Almost 4500 US soldiers were killed during that time in Iraq, along with at least 150,000 Iraqis.

But many in Iraq called for more US involvement.

“The US must provide Iraqi forces with modern weapons,” al-Fayyadh said. “We also want them to increase air strikes targeting Islamic State.”

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