Iran supreme leader spurns U.S. overture to fight Islamic State

Islamic State campaign tests Obama's commitment to Mideast allies Wed, Sep 17 09:45 AM EDT image By Jason Szep WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After about 15 hours of flying and five hours of meetings, sleep finally caught up with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Baghdad. It was 6:04 p.m. After sinking into his seat at the center of the cavernous interior of a C-17 military transport plane, he cradled his head in his palm, put his feet on a desk and shut his eyes. Visibly tired, too, were his retinue of aides as they took their seats, some clutching briefing papers with notes scribbled in the margin from meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and the government he had formed a day earlier on Sept. 9. Kerry’s exhaustion was understandable after nearly 24 hours of non-stop travel and meetings. America’s fatigue in the Middle East could be a different story: the Iraqis who met Kerry may wonder if his boss, President Barack Obama, has the energy or stomach for what lies ahead in a country he has spent most of his nearly six years in office trying to leave behind. The challenge is highlighted by a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Friday showing that while Americans support Obama's campaign of airstrikes against Islamic State militants, they have a low appetite for a long campaign against the group. Several important tests loom for the U.S. administration's nascent coalition to “degrade and defeat” the ultra-hardline Islamic State whose militants have seized a third of both Iraq and Syria, declared war on the West and beheaded two American journalists and one British aid worker. The complexity of eliminating Islamic State, which requires stabilizing Iraq, building up its armed forces and creating a western-backed rebel force in Syria, could take years, testing Obama's commitment and that of whoever succeeds him in 2017. "There’s a real general distrust among our regional allies about our commitment to this because we've been missing in action for the last three years," said David Schenker, a specialist on Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former Pentagon adviser on Syria during President George W. Bush’s administration. In Baghdad, Amman, Jeddah, Ankara, Cairo and Paris in the last week, Kerry laid plans for a U.S.-led coalition of regional and outside powers. It would hammer the black-clad fighters of Islamic State militarily, dry up its funding, eliminate its safe havens in Syria, block its ability to recruit fighters and try to extinguish its extremist ideology. Kerry, who will report on his trip to Obama and Congress this week, insists this is different from past U.S. operations in the region. "This is not the Gulf War of 1991," he told reporters in Paris on Monday. "And it's not the Iraq War of 2003 ... We're not building a military coalition for an invasion. We're building a military coalition together with all the other pieces for a transformation, as well as for the elimination of ISIL itself," he said, invoking an acronym for the Islamic State group. QUESTION OF COMMITMENT World powers meeting in Paris on Monday gave a symbolic boost to that effort, publicly backing military action to fight Islamic State militants in Iraq. France sent jets on a reconnaissance mission to Iraq, a step towards becoming the first ally to join the U.S.-led air campaign there and a senior U.S. official said some Arab countries had promised to take part. On Friday, Kerry will chair a meeting of the U.N. Security Council in New York, which will provide countries which quietly backed the U.S. coalition an opportunity to do so publicly. But questions remain over how far each will commit to a fight that U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Tuesday "will not be an easy or brief effort." A 45-page State Department document detailed offers of assistance from about 40 countries, but these are mostly humanitarian. Military commitments are rare and small. Albania, for instance, plans to provide 22 million rounds of AK-47 bullets, 15,000 hand grenades and 32,000 artillery shells to Kurdish forces in Iraq. U.S. fighter jets have conducted over 160 airstrikes on Islamic State positions in Iraq, resuming military action Obama and many Americans hoped were part of history when U.S. combat forces pulled out of the country in 2011. The most senior U.S. military officer, General Martin Dempsey, raised the possibility on Tuesday that American troops might need to take on a larger role in Iraq's ground war, though Obama also ruled out a combat mission. U.S. officials play down the prospect of imminent air attacks on the Islamist group's heartland in Syria and it remains unclear who, if anyone, would join them. The United States will present a legal case before going into Syria, U.S. officials say, justifying strikes largely on the basis of defending Iraq from militants who threaten its sovereignty and have taken shelter in neighboring Syria during its three-year-old civil war. "OVERALL COORDINATOR" Entering Syrian airspace would deepen a conflict that already cuts across sectarian lines. Islamic State is made up of Sunni militants fighting a Shi'ite-led government in Iraq and a government in Syria led by members of a Shi'ite offshoot sect. Briefing U.S. reporters in Paris, Kerry said there were "several discussions with foreign ministers" on how to defeat Islamic State inside Syria. He did not go into specifics, but he emphasized that it was not just about the airstrikes. Kerry and his advisers often describe the anti-Islamic State campaign as "holistic". The approach was set out in a six-paragraph communique issued on Sept. 11 and signed by 10 Arab countries - Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and six Gulf states including rich rivals Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Arab states agreed to eight main tasks: stopping the flow of foreign fighters, countering Islamic State financing, repudiating their ideology, ending impunity, providing humanitarian relief, reconstruction of Islamic State-hit areas, supporting states that face "acute" Islamic State threats, and, "as appropriate, joining in the many aspects of a coordinated military campaign." The United States specifically wanted the words "as appropriate," one senior State Department official said. "We wanted to be an overall coordinator of this effort," the official said. "So, ‘as appropriate’ means as part of an overall campaign plan, and as this continues to move forward." (This story adds dropped word "State" in 25th paragraph) (Reporting by Jason Szep; Editing by David Storey and Howard Goller) ======== U.S. general says cannot rule out larger ground role in Iraq Tue, Sep 16 19:00 PM EDT image 1 of 5 By Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The most senior U.S. military officer raised the possibility on Tuesday that American troops might need to take on a larger role in Iraq's ground war against Islamic State militants, but the White House stressed they would not deploy on a combat mission. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there was no intention now to place American military advisers on the ground in direct combat. U.S. assistance is taking other forms, including air strikes. Still, Dempsey outlined scenarios in which he might recommend having U.S. troops do more, potentially accompanying Iraqis during complicated offensives, such as a battle to retake the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State fighters. "It could very well be part of that particular mission - to provide close combat advising or accompanying for that mission," Dempsey said. Dempsey acknowledged that Obama's "stated policy is that we will not have U.S. ground forces in direct combat." "But he has told me as well to come back to him on a case-by-case basis," he said. Obama said last week he would lead an alliance to defeat Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, plunging the United States into a conflict in which nearly every country in the Middle East has a stake. But Obama also ruled out a combat mission, saying "we will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq." How exactly America's role might evolve in the open-ended conflict remains unclear, however. Responding to Dempsey's comments, the White House said Obama’s military advisers had to plan for many possibilities and that overall policy had not changed - that Obama would not deploy U.S. troops in a combat role in Iraq or Syria. White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters that Dempsey was "referring to a hypothetical scenario in which there might be a future situation where he might make a tactical recommendation to the president as it relates to ground troops." Dempsey's spokesman also issued a statement stressing that the four-star general's exchange in the Senate was not about "employing U.S. ground combat units in Iraq." Dempsey was testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, along with U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, as the Obama administration makes its case to Congress for broadening operations against the Sunni militants, which would include U.S. air strikes in Syria for the first time. NO "SHOCK AND AWE' IN SYRIA The U.S. military's Central Command is due to brief Obama on its plans on Wednesday. Hagel said those plans envision striking the militant group's safe havens in Syria to knock out infrastructure, logistics and command capabilities. Dempsey said the strikes would degrade the group's capabilities as broader efforts get under way, including training of more than 5,000 Syrian rebels. "This won't look like a 'shock and awe' campaign because that's simply not how (the Islamic State militants' group) is organized. But it will be a persistent and sustainable campaign," Dempsey told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Shock and awe" was a term popularly used to describe the initial air assault on Baghdad in the U.S. campaign to oust Saddam Hussein in 2003, and refers to use of overwhelming force to undermine an enemy's will to fight. Congress is expected to approve this week a request from Obama for authorization to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels, one part of his program. Still, Hagel acknowledged the number of Syrian fighters that could be trained over the course of the year would only put the opposition on a path to roll back Islamic State fighters. "Five thousand alone is not going to be able to turn the tide. We recognize that," Hagel said. The Senate hearing was repeatedly interrupted by anti-war protesters, shouting slogans such as, "There is no military solution." One protester was escorted out of the room while holding a sign that read: "More war = More extremism." Senator Angus King of Maine, expressing concern that the United States would be drawn into interminable fights against extremist groups around the world from Iraq to Syria to Africa, said: "This is geopolitical Wack-a-mole." (Additional reporting by Missy Ryan and Steve Holland; Editing by Bill Trott, Susan Heavey, Bernadette Baum and Ken Wills) ================ Satan and a Jewish Woman Give Birth to ISIS in an Iraqi TV Satire, http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/4491.htm #IRGC commander: #US base in Northern #Iraq no threat to #Iran #ISIL #ISIS http://bit.ly/1qTNyQL IRGC commander: US base in Northern Iraq no threat to Iran September 16, 2014 3:02 pm Iraq Crisis, News, Politics, Regional Affairs no comments Commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari TEHRAN (FNA)- Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari downplayed enemies’ war rhetoric against Tehran, and said the US military base in Northern Iraq is not considered a threat to Iran. “The US base (in Iraq’s Kurdistan region) is not a threat to us and we believe that we have left behind (the era of) the superpowers’ direct threats and no matter how thoughtless the enemies can be in foreseeing the future, we believe the issue with direct threat is over now,” Jafari said in a press conference in Tehran on Tuesday. He said that the US military base in Northern Iraq is meant to support the Iraqi Kurds who have been deployed in Erbil region. Also asked about Iran’s position on the United States’ possible airstrikes on ISIL or even government positions on Syrian soil and Damascus’s possible response, Jafari said, “We will certainly show political reaction, but we will not show any direct military action.” “The Islamic Republic of Iran’s policy is supporting Syria, and this action of the United States is bullying and is condemned,” he said, but he meantime underlined, “They will regret if they take such an action.” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei also warned on Monday that the US strike on Syria would be reciprocated by repenting response, although he said Iran would not be involved in such reciprocity. Also on Monday, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces General Hassan Firouzabadi warned the US and its allies to avoid exercising new plots in the region, saying that fighting and bombing the positions of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group could not be a pretext for violating the sovereignty of Syria and Iraq. “Military experts know that aerial bombardment is not the solution in the fight against terrorism and it can only be one in the chain of the military actions needed for a comprehensive fight against terrorism,” Firouzabadi said on Monday, implying the United States’ theatrical moves against terrorism. He said the experience gained in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq in the last few months showed that effective fight against terrorism should include a simultaneous use of a wide range of tactics and methods, and said, “The experienced Syrian army forces and the country’s popular forces as well as the Iraqi army and popular forces should have the main role in this campaign.” “Bombing the ISIL terrorists can no way be a permission for violating the sovereignty of the Syrian and Iraqi states,” Firouzabadi added. He stressed the necessity for the regional countries’ vigilance against the US plots, and expressed the hope that “those Muslim regional states that helped to the creation of the ISIL at the beginning of this game would relinquish this plot”. His comments came after NATO heads of state convened in the Welsh city of Newport on 4-5 September. US Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told foreign and defense ministers participating in the NATO summit that the US was forming a broad international coalition against ISIL. Ministers from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Turkey, Italy, Poland and Denmark met in Wales to hammer out a strategy for battling ISIL, but the policy was questioned by many regional officials and political leaders. Islamic State supporter warns of attacks against U.S.: SITE Tue, Sep 16 06:19 AM EDT image BEIRUT (Reuters) - A supporter of Islamic State militants has warned of attacks on the United States and its allies if they continue to carry out military action against the group that has seized large parts of Iraq and Syria, the SITE monitoring service said. The message on a well-known militant Islamist online forum is one of the few responses from supporters of Islamic State to Washington's announcement last week that it was prepared to extend airstrikes against the group into Syria. The posting on the Minbar Jihadi Media website condemned "intervention in the affairs of other peoples" and said it would trigger an equal response, SITE said late on Monday. "It will lead to an equal reaction of the same strength in targeting the American depth and also the nations allied to it and in all aspects," the message said in a translation from Arabic, according to SITE, which tracks militant forums. The United States has stepped up its military response to the hardline group, which has beheaded several Western hostages. On Sunday Islamic State released a video that it said showed the beheading of a British aid worker. U.S. President Barack Obama is calling for a coalition of Western and Middle Eastern countries to fight Islamic State. "I direct a sternly worded warning to each of those nations involved with America, or that are allied with it in their war against the Islamic Caliphate, that their local and international interests will be legitimate targets," the posting by a supporter referred to as "Amir al-Thul" said. The posting used religious language and said the author was speaking from a "blessed pulpit" but it was not clear what influence he had on the actions of Islamic State. The message called on the public in the United States and its allies to oppose government actions against the group. (Reporting by Sylvia Westall; Editing by Louise Ireland) ============ U.S. to Assad: Beware of interfering with U.S. air power in Syria Mon, Sep 15 19:02 PM EDT image By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Syrian military's air defenses would face retaliation if Syria attempted to respond to U.S. air strikes that are expected against Islamic State targets in Syria, senior U.S. officials said on Monday. President Barack Obama's authorization of the use of American air power against Islamic State's strongholds in Syria has raised the question of whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would respond in some way. Senior U.S. officials who briefed reporters said Assad should not interfere, that the United States has a good sense of where Syrian air defenses and command-and-control facilities are located. One official said if the Assad military were to demonstrate that it was a threat to the U.S. ability to operate in the area, it would put Syrian air defenses in the region at risk. The United States has stressed it will not coordinate with the Assad government in any way in its fight against Islamic State. Obama's position has long been that he would like to see Assad leave power, particularly after using chemical weapons against his own people last year. But air strikes against Islamic State in Syria could have the indirect effect of benefiting Assad because the extremists have been fighting the Syrian government during what is now a three-year civil war. Washington wants to train and equip Syrian rebels who are deemed to be moderate to hold territory cleared by U.S. air strikes. The U.S. military has conducted dozens of air strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq, but has yet to launch any in Syria as Obama works to solidify an anti-Islamic State coalition . The president will meet on Tuesday at the White House with retired Marine General John Allen, who is in charge of coordinating the activities of a coalition expected to include some Western allies and a number of Arab states. A senior U.S. official said some Arab states have agreed to join the United States in launching air strikes, but declined to identify them. (Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Bernard Orr) ========= Mon, Sep 15 19:43 PM EDT image 1 of 5 By Jason Szep and Mehrdad Balali PARIS/DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's supreme leader said on Monday he had personally rejected an offer from the United States for talks to fight Islamic State, an apparent blow to Washington's efforts to build a military coalition to fight militants in both Iraq and Syria. World powers meeting in Paris on Monday gave public backing to military action to fight Islamic State fighters in Iraq. France sent jets on a reconnaissance mission to Iraq, a step toward becoming the first ally to join the U.S.-led air campaign there. But Iran, the principal ally of Islamic State's main foes in both Iraq and Syria, was not invited to the Paris meeting. The countries that did attend - while supporting action in Iraq - made no mention at all of Syria, where U.S. diplomats face a far tougher task building an alliance for action. Washington has been trying to build a coalition to fight Islamic State since last week when President Barack Obama pledged to destroy the militant group on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border. That means plunging into two civil wars in which nearly every country in the Middle East already has a stake. And it also puts Washington on the same side as Tehran, its bitter enemy since the Islamic revolution of 1979. In a rare direct intervention into diplomacy, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Washington had reached out through the Iranian embassy in Baghdad, requesting a meeting to discuss cooperation against Islamic State. "I saw no point in cooperating with a country whose hands are dirty and intentions murky," the Iranian leader said in quotes carried on state news agency IRNA. He accused Washington of "lying" by saying it had excluded Iran from its coalition, saying it was Iran that had refused to participate. Khamenei said that some Iranian officials had welcomed the contacts, but he had personally vetoed them. Khamenei's intervention, including his statement that some Iranian officials welcomed the U.S. overture, was a rare public acknowledgment of division but also a reminder that powerful interests in Iran oppose a wider thaw. "HANDS ARE DIRTY" U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington was "not cooperating with Iran", but declined to be drawn on whether it had reached out through the embassy in Baghdad for talks. "I am not going to get into a back and forth," he said. "I don't think that's constructive, frankly." Islamic State fighters set off alarms across the Middle East since June when they swept across northern Iraq, seizing cities, slaughtering prisoners, proclaiming a caliphate to rule over all Muslims and ordering non-Sunnis to convert or die. IS fighters, known for beheading their enemies or captives, raised the stakes for the West by cutting off the heads of two Americans and a Briton in videos posted on the Internet which showed the prisoners bound in orange jumpsuits. French officials said they had hoped to invite Iran to Monday's conference but Arab countries had blocked the move. "We wanted a consensus among countries over Iran's attendance, but in the end it was more important to have certain Arab states than Iran," a French diplomat said. "This conference was like a mass. A big gathering where we listen to each other, but it's not where miracles happen," said another French diplomat. "It was a strong political message of support for Iraq and now we prepare to fight." Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said French aircraft would begin reconnaissance flights over Iraq. A French official said two Rafale fighters and a refueling aircraft had set off. "The throat-slitters of Daesh - that's what I'm calling them - tell the whole world 'Either you're with us or we kill you'. When one is faced with such a group there is no other attitude than to defend yourself," Fabius said at the end of the talks. Calling the decision regrettable, Iraq's Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said Baghdad had wanted Iran to attend. Iran sponsors the governments of both Iraq and Syria and has been at the center of defenses against Islamic State in both countries. The United States reached out to Iran last year when secret talks led to a preliminary deal on nuclear issues. Iran has occasionally played down its conflicts with the West since President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, was elected last year. "THROAT-SLITTERS" At Monday's international conference in Paris, the five U.N. Security Council permanent members, Turkey, European and Arab states and representatives of the EU, Arab League and United Nations all pledged to help Baghdad fight Islamic State. "All participants underscored the urgent need to remove Daesh from the regions in which it has established itself in Iraq," said a statement after the talks. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for the group which now calls itself Islamic State. "To that end, they committed to supporting the new Iraqi Government in its fight against Daesh, by any means necessary, including appropriate military assistance...." it said. Several Western and Arab officials said no concrete commitments were made and that talks on the different roles of those in the coalition would take place bilaterally and over the next 10 days at the United Nations General Assembly. Iraqi President Fouad Massoum told Monday's conference he hoped the Paris meeting would bring a "quick response". "Islamic State's doctrine is either you support us or kill us‎. It has committed massacres and genocidal crimes and ethnic purification," he told delegates. VOTE OF CONFIDENCE Monday's conference was an important vote of confidence for the new Iraqi government formed last week, led by a member of Iraq's Shi'ite majority, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, and also including minority Sunnis and Kurds in important jobs. Iraq's allies hope Abadi will prove a more consensual leader than his predecessor Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite whose policies alienated many Sunnis, and that the new government will win back support from Sunnis who had backed the Islamic State's revolt. The broad international goodwill toward Abadi shown at Monday's conference means Washington will probably face little diplomatic push back over plans for air strikes in Iraq. Syria, however, is a much trickier case. In a three-year civil war, Islamic State has emerged as one of the most powerful Sunni groups battling against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, a member of a Shi'ite-derived sect. Washington and its allies remain hostile to Assad, which means any bombing is likely to take place without permission of the Damascus government. Russia, which backs Assad, says bombing would be illegal without a resolution at the U.N. Security Council, where it has a veto. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Paris that Moscow was already providing military assistance to both Iraq and Syria, suggesting Western countries were guilty of a double standard by helping Assad's foes. "Terrorists can't be good or bad. We must be consistent and not involve our personal political projects, not prioritize them over the general goal of fighting terrorism." The United States resumed air strikes in Iraq in August for the first time since the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. troops. Obama's plans, announced last week, involve stronger military action in Iraq and extending the campaign to Syria. U.S. officials said several Arab countries had offered to join air strikes against Islamic State, but declined to name them. Ten Arab states committed last week to a military coalition without specifying what action they would take. Britain, Washington's main ally when it invaded Iraq in 2003, has yet to confirm it will take part in air strikes, despite the killing of British aid worker David Haines by Islamic State fighters this past week. France has said it is ready to take part in bombing missions in Iraq but is so far wary of action in Syria. (Additional reporting by John Irish, Marine Pennetier, Alexandria Sage and Nicholas Vinocur,; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Peter Millership) ========== Shiite Militias Pose Challenge for U.S. in Iraq By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICKSEPT. 16, 2014 Photo Fighters with Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a Shiite militia, and Kurdish pesh merga forces on patrol earlier this month in Tikrit, Iraq. Credit Youssef Boudlal/Reuters BAGHDAD — Militia justice is simple, the fighters explained. “We break into an area and kill the ones who are threatening people,” said one 18-year-old fighter with Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a Shiite militia that operates as a vigilante force around Baghdad. Another 18-year-old fighter agreed. “We receive orders and carry out attacks immediately,” he said, insisting that their militia commanders had been given authority by Iraqi security officials. That free hand has helped make Asaib Ahl al-Haq the largest and most formidable of the Iranian-backed Shiite militias that now dominate Baghdad. Once a leading killer of American troops, the militia is spearheading the fight against the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State, also known by the acronyms ISIS and ISIL. That means Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the United States military are now fighting on the same side, though each insists they will not work together. U.S. General Open to Ground Forces in Fight Against ISIS in Iraq SEPT. 16, 2014 Syrian Plane Shot Down as Attacks by Groups Intensify SEPT. 16, 2014 Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, chairman of a United Nations panel investigating human rights abuses in Syria. U.N. Investigators Cite Atrocities in SyriaSEPT. 16, 2014 But the power and autonomy of Asaib Ahl al-Haq and other Shiite militias also pose a central challenge to the creation of a more just and less sectarian Iraqi government. President Obama has said that the new American military offensive depends on such an inclusive Iraqi government, to undercut the appeal of the Sunni extremists and avoid American entanglement in a sectarian war. How ISIS Works With oil revenues, arms and organization, the jihadist group controls vast stretches of Syria and Iraq and aspires to statehood. Even while many Iraqi Shiites view the militias as their protectors, many in the Sunni minority say they fear the groups as agents of Iran, empowered by the Baghdad government to kill with impunity. After a decade of support from Iran and a new flood of recruits amid the Islamic State crisis, the Shiite militias are also now arguably more powerful than the Iraqi security forces, many here say, limiting the ability of any new government to rein them in.

“The militias have even bigger role now that they are said to be fighting ISIS” said Alla Maki, a Sunni lawmaker. “Who will control them? We have no real Iraqi Army. Under former Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, Asaib Ahl al-Haq was “encouraged to do dirty jobs like killing Sunnis, and they were allowed to operate freely,” Mr. Maki said. “Now the international community are all being inspired by the removal of Maliki personally, but the policy is still going on.”

The Asaib Ahl al-Haq fighters and the group’s official spokesman insisted that their vigilante attacks protect all Iraqis, Sunnis as well as Shiites. “We have been able to track the sleeper cells of ISIS and secure almost all of Baghdad — about 80 percent,” said Naeem al-Aboudi, a spokesman for Asaib Ahl al-Haq, in a gleaming, leather-paneled conference room at its heavily fortified headquarters in an elite neighborhood of the capital. In the current fight, he added, “the most dangerous areas in Iraq were assigned to Asaib Ahl al-Haq to lead the battle, because of the capability and professionalism of our fighters.” Asaib Ahl al-Haq was closely linked with Mr. Maliki, but Mr. Aboudi said it now sees itself as a “loyal opposition” to the new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, charged with assembling that more inclusive government. For starters, Mr. Aboudi said, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the other large Shiite militias are negotiating with Mr. Abadi over the choices for defense and interior ministers. On Tuesday, the opposition of the Shiite militias helped block a parliamentary vote on those nominees. Asked about complaints of discrimination and police abuse against Sunnis under the previous government, Mr. Aboudi said the whole question was backward: “I think Shiites are the real marginalized and persecuted community in Iraq. We have more problems as Shiites than the Sunnis, even though the election showed we are the majority.” So far, though, there is no sign of any official attempts to investigate even the most publicized allegations of extrajudicial killings of Sunnis by Asaib Ahl al-Haq. At the end of July, a report from the research and advocacy group Human Rights Watch said it had documented the killings of 109 Sunni men — 48 in March and April, and 61 between June 1 and July 9 — in the villages and towns around Baghdad. Witnesses, medical personnel and government officials blamed Shiite militias for all of them, and “in many cases witnesses identified the militia as Asaib Ahl al-Haq,” the report said. In one case, Human Rights Watch wrote, a man kidnapped by fighters who identified themselves as members of Asaib Ahl al-Haq was later released because he convinced them that he was a Shiite, not a Sunni. Photo Members of the Iraqi Shiite militia Kata’ib Hezbollah patrolling at the outskirts of Hibhib in northern Iraq last month. The militia is one of several supported by the Iranian government. Credit European Pressphoto Agency Human Rights Watch quoted a doctor in the Health Ministry: “Sunnis are a minority in Baghdad, but they’re the majority in our morgue.” But victims and witnesses said the security forces “seemed too scared of the militias” to act or investigate, said Erin Evers, the group’s researcher in Baghdad. A spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry said it saw no pattern of sectarian killings, suggesting that ordinary crime was wrongly attributed to sectarianism when the victims were Sunnis. The spokesman, Saad Maan, denied that Asaib Ahl al-Haq or other militias were formally allowed to operate freely in Baghdad, although he acknowledged that to defend against the Islamic State the government had called on the Shiite militias to form a new volunteer force. “

There are bad people in each group,” including Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Mr. Maan said. But he vowed that the situation would improve as Iraq strengthened its own police forces, especially with the new international support for the new prime minister, Mr. Abadi. “I think this is a turning point for Iraq,” Mr. Maan said.

Asaib Ahl al-Haq, usually translated as League of the Righteous, is considered the most formidable of Iraq’s three large Iranian-backed militias. The second is Kata’ib Hezbollah, which shares the Iranian patronage and ideology of the Lebanese group of the same name, but has no other known links to it. The third is the Badr Corps, led by Hadi al-Ameri, a lawmaker in the governing coalition who served as minister of transportation in Mr. Maliki’s government. Asaib Ahl al-Haq was created about 10 years ago, in the years after the American invasion, when its leader, Sheikh Qais al-Khazali, broke away from the forces loyal to the prominent Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. United States officials blame Asaib Ahl al-Haq for a long series of deadly attacks on American forces during their occupation of Iraq. In 2007, Sheikh Khazali led an attack in Falluja that killed five United States Marines, American officials say. He was captured and held for three years by American forces, then released in 2010. He was ultimately transferred to the Iraqi government and then released at the same time as his group released a British computer expert it had held hostage. But Iraqi and American officials denied any prisoner exchange. The group’s attacks continued even as the occupation was ending: In June 2011, for instance, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and other Iranian-backed militias killed 13 American soldiers in rocket attacks on their bases, and that November an Asaib Ahl al-Haq roadside bomb killed the last American to die before the withdrawal. But by January 2012, virtually as soon as the Americans were gone, Mr. Maliki had invited the group back into Iraqi politics as a counterbalance to the influence of other powerful Shiite militias. Many of the group’s leaders were soon reported to be returning from exile in Iran. Asaib Ahl al-Haq came to be known as the armed support for Mr. Maliki’s Shiite political faction. The group’s spokesman declined to disclose its size, but Asaib Ahl al-Haq’s numbers swelled vastly earlier this year when a prominent cleric urged Shiites to take up arms against the invading Sunni fighters. The group has been the leading force in critical fights like the recent battle for the town of Amerli, raising eyebrows among some American military personnel about the prospect of partnering with such enemies to fight the Islamic State. Underscoring the tensions in the de facto alliance, the Kata’ib Hezbollah militia said Monday that it would leave the battlefield if American troops join in the ground fight — an action that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday was a remote but real possibility as more American advisers became involved in Iraq. Continue reading the main story 3 Comments “We will not fight alongside the American troops under any kind of conditions whatsoever,” the militia said in a statement on its website, adding that its only contact with the Americans would be “if we fight each other.” Mr. Aboudi of Asaib Ahl al-Haq said his militia could accept American airstrikes or military attacks against specific targets, “under the supervision of the Iraqis.” But he does not trust the Americans either, he said, arguing that Washington’s ultimate goal was to divide Iraq and thus increase Israel’s relative strength. “America has been intervening in most of the Arab countries of the region,” he said, “and it never brings stability.”