Advancing Iraq rebels seize northwest town in heavy battle
Sun, Jun 15 18:10 PM EDT
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By Ziad al-Sanjary and Ahmed Rasheed
MOSUL/BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Sunni insurgents seized a mainly ethnic Turkmen city in northwestern Iraq on Sunday after heavy fighting, solidifying their grip on the north after a lightning offensive that threatens to dismember Iraq.
Residents reached by telephone in the city of Tal Afar said it had fallen to the rebels from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant after a battle which saw heavy casualties on both sides.
"The city was overrun by militants. Severe fighting took place, and many people were killed. Shi'ite families have fled to the west and Sunni families have fled to the east," said a city official who asked not to be identified.
Tal Afar is a short drive west from Mosul, the north's main city, which the ISIL fighters seized last week at the start of a drive that has plunged the country into the worst crisis since U.S. troops withdrew.
Most of the inhabitants of Tal Afar are members of the Turkmen ethnic group, who speak a Turkic language. Turkey has expressed concern about their security.
The city had been defended by an unit of Iraq's security forces commanded by a Shi'ite major general, Abu Walid, whose men were among the few holdouts from the government's forces in the province around Mosul not to flee the rapid ISIL advance.
After sweeping through towns in the Tigris valley north of Baghdad, ISIL fighters appear to have halted their advance outside the capital, instead moving to tighten their grip on the north.
The Turkmen and other residents of Tal Afar are divided among Sunnis and Shi'ites in a part of Iraq with a complex ethnic and sectarian mixture. The city is just outside Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, whose own security forces have taken advantage of the collapse of government control to advance into the city of Kirkuk and rural areas with oil deposits.
ISIL fighters aim to establish a Caliphate on both sides of the Syria-Iraqi frontier based on strict medieval Sunni Muslim precepts. Their advance has been assisted by other Sunni Muslim armed groups.
The advance has alarmed Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite supporters in Iran as well as the United States, which helped bring Maliki to power after its 2003 invasion that toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein.
U.S. President Barack Obama has said he is reviewing military options, short of sending troops, to combat the insurgency, and Iran has held out the prospect of working with its longtime U.S. arch-enemy to help restore security in Iraq.
Washington said on Sunday it was beefing up security at its embassy in Baghdad and moving some staff out. (Full Story)
The vast mission is the largest and most expensive embassy ever built anywhere in the world, a vestige of the days when the United States had 170,000 troops in Iraq battling to put down a sectarian civil war that followed its invasion.
Iraq now faces the prospect of similarly vicious warfare, but this time with no U.S. forces on the ground to intervene. Its million-strong army, trained and armed by Washington at a cost of around $25 billion, has been plagued by corruption, poor morale and a perception it pursues Shi'ite sectarian interests.
"CRAZY FIGHTING"
Residents in Tal Afar said Shi'ite police and troops rocketed Sunni neighborhoods before the ISIL forces moved in and finally captured the city. A member of Maliki's security committee told Reuters government forces had attacked ISIL positions on the outskirts of the city with helicopters.
"The situation is disastrous in Tal Afar. There is crazy fighting and most families are trapped inside houses, they can’t leave town," a local official said on Sunday before the city was overrun. "If the fighting continues, a mass killing among civilians could result."
Shi'ites, who form the majority in Iraq and are based mainly in the south, have rallied to defend the country, with thousands of volunteers turning out to join the security forces after a mobilization call by the top Shi'ite cleric. Maliki's security forces and allied militias regained some territory on Saturday.
In Baghdad on Sunday, a suicide attacker detonated explosives in a vest he was wearing, killing at least nine people and wounding 20 in a crowded street in the center of the capital, police and medical sources said.
At least six people were killed, including three soldiers and three volunteers, when four mortars landed at a recruiting center in Khalis, one of the last big towns in government hands north of the capital, 50 km (30 miles) north of Baghdad.
Volunteers were being gathered by the army to join fighting to regain control of the nearby town of Udhaim.
ISIL fought as Al Qaeda's Iraq branch against U.S. forces during the years of American occupation in Iraq, but broke away from Al Qaeda after joining the civil war in Syria. It now says the group founded by Osama bin Laden is not extreme enough.
In years of fighting on both sides of the frontier, ISIL has gained a reputation for shocking brutality. It considers Shi'ites to be heretics deserving of death and sends bombers daily to kill hundreds of Iraqi civilians each month.
A series of pictures distributed on a purported ISIL Twitter account appeared to show gunmen from the Islamist group shooting dozens of men, unarmed and lying prone on the ground.
Captions accompanying the pictures said they showed hundreds of army deserters who were captured as they tried to flee the fighting. They were shown being transported in the back of truck and led to an open field where they were laid down in rows and shot by several masked gunmen. In several pictures, the black Islamist ISIL flag can be seen.
Most of the captured men were wearing civilian clothes, although one picture showed two men in military camouflage trousers, one of them half covered by a pair of ordinary trousers.
"This is the fate of the Shi'ites which Nuri brought to fight the Sunnis," a caption to one of the pictures reads. Others showed ISIL fighters apparently seizing facilities in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown, which they captured on Wednesday.
It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the pictures.
Across the border, a Syrian government air raid hit near ISIL's headquarters in the eastern city of Raqqa, Syrian activists said.
The only Syrian provincial capital in insurgent hands, Raqqa has been a major base for ISIL since the group evicted rival rebels, including al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, during infighting this year.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said warplanes targeted the governorate building, a large structure in the center of town, as well as two other buildings, including a sharia, or Islamic law, court.
The fighting in Iraq is by far the worst since U.S. troops pulled out in 2011. U.S. President Barack Obama has come under fire at home for failing to do more to bolster Baghdad.
While expressing support for Maliki's government, the United States has stressed the need for a political solution to the crisis. Maliki's opponents accuse him of sidelining Sunnis, which fueled resentment that fed the insurgency.
Secretary of State John Kerry told Iraq's foreign minister in a call on Saturday that U.S. assistance would only succeed if Iraqi leaders set aside their differences and forged the national unity needed to confront the insurgent threat.
The United States ordered an aircraft carrier moved into the Gulf on Saturday, readying it in case Washington decides to pursue a military option. (Full Story)
Oil prices have risen to the highest level this year over fears of the violence disrupting exports from the OPEC member.
(Additional reporting by Isabel Coles and David Sheppard in Arbil, Raheem Salman in Baghdad and Alexander Dziadosz in Beirut; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood and Sonya Hepinstall)
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Hayder al-Khoei @Hayder_alKhoei · 16m
Wth? RT @wgdunlop: Iraq air strike hits Kurdish convoy in Diyala, killing six peshmerga fighters http://bit.ly/1kVD3JZ @AFP
Kurdish officials say they won't give back territory to Maliki army "no matter how secure the rest of Iraq becomes"
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/kurdistan-remains-oasis-calm-amid-iraq-tumult/ …
Horrific pictures from pro-ISIS account of summary execution of Iraqi soldiers pic.twitter.com/lsgq3kckjH
Muqtada al Sadr reappears in public in #Iraq, and reactives his militia calling for military parades across the country #ISIS #Iran
I've seen this in #Baghdad today after an attack:
5 medics waiting behind 5 stretchers for casualties on a sidewalk in front of a hospital
#BREAKING Iraqi forces kill 279 militants in past 24 hours, spokesman says - @AFP: http://bit.ly/1qPZ4KJ
The pictures of the mass execution of the Iraqi soldiers in Tikrit which was claimed by ISIL, http://alplatformmedia.com/vb/showthread.php?t=50823 …
http://t.co/QRkte6DDoC
http://t.co/xDRTWeWmGw
Adviser to PM Nouri al-Maliki claims that there is a "relationship between Kurdistan's oil export and #ISIS – part of regional plot".
#Kurdistan ministry of communication says the region won't ban internet access to any social media or messaging app. pic.twitter.com/7HPP8dKGiZ
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Is IRAQ for just IRAQIS?
Are Iraqi rulers capable of seating Baghdad which can't even provide any justification of how their 20 Billion Dollars funded Army fled from North! How long you can fool us and loot our resources. Do you think you owe and in charge of billons+trillions of dollars of Oil & Degass?
Did Ayatollah's Allah checked that these will be situated in today's IRAQi border before injecting it deep inside Triassic rocks?
If not then its not just your resources.
the World sleeps in hunger, thirst and darkness and your ministers even failed to attend parliament as they busy in buying Dubai Skylines.
I am really jealous of this Short Sighted Slogan. Sistani's Fatwa to eradicate Fetna is not a call for just Iraqis. So the only option to rescue Baghdad is to Syrialyze it, then Victory is with us.
Before being emotional, let me tell you when Corrupt Installed Dictated Democracy Collapses, even 20 billion dollars worth of Army melt in few hours and at this time, only general public can safe this country, whether its IRAQ or PAKAFGH or Vietnam. I am adding last option to rescue Baghdad as Public Uprise as they are ultimate power , whether these poor are from Basra or Mosul or Ramadai, their oppressors are same rich rulers who are looting and exporting money to Dubai Amman and other foreign banks while these poor under whose feet trillions dollars worth of resources are flowing , are being kept in darkness , hunger and thirst, I can call them Imam's Army not IRAQI Army and please if I take a gun and want to enter from Kuwait or Turkey, don't deport me calling I am not Iraqi, not having visa, or not having E-or Zee Passport, Keep my eye retina in your recors, do my DNA , so that you know who are those , who come at end to rescue from total collapse.
======================
In defense of Baghdad, Iraq turns to Shi'ite militias
Reuters
By By Ned Parker and Raheem Salman 2 hours ago
By Ned Parker and Raheem Salman
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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Special Forces soldier watched as militia fighters from the group Asaib Ahl Haq reinforced his elite Iraqi military battalion north of Baghdad earlier this week.
Beyond their ranks, deployed between the Shiite cities of Dujail and Balad, was the army of Sunni militants.
He marveled at the group that had been trained by the Iranians. They were in the thousands and drove in a mix of military and civilian vehicles, organized by skill set: there was a sniper platoon and a special platoon for raiding houses.
“There were too many. I couldn’t count,” he said on Friday. “The weapons they have are better than the military’s.”
For several months, Asaib Ahl Haq and another Iranian-trained militia, Kata'ib Hezbollah, have been Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's secret weapon in his fight against Sunni militants who seized western Iraq’s largest cities Fallujah and Ramadi in January.
Maliki will be counting on them as never before in the coming days to lead an informal army of Shi'ite citizen volunteers in the defense of Baghdad. Sunni militants have made a rapid advance through northern Iraq this week, taking control of Iraq's second city Mosul and several others.
In March and April, Sunni fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and other groups, had pushed on to the rural edges of Baghdad. Watching his military struggle, Maliki called upon militia volunteers because of their experience in guerrilla war, according to two advisers to the prime minister.
The groups were put under a formal military command structure beneath commander in chief Maliki and called Sons of Iraq, the name given to Sunni tribal fighters who battled Al Qaeda-inspired groups with U.S. support in 2007 and 2008.
Asaib and Kata'ib Hezbollah, who have sent fighters to Syria to defend Shiite shrines and recognize Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei as their spiritual leader, memorialized their dead in the fighting around Baghdad at public funerals in Shiite neighborhoods like Hurriya and on Facebook pages.
There they also advertised phone numbers for recruiting new fighters to join the battle around the capital’s perimeter.
SECTARIAN CONFLICT
However, in their zeal to defeat al Qaeda, the groups also carried out raids in Sunni areas north, south and east of Baghdad that have left civilians dead – their bodies turned up days later in the morgue – in a repeat of the dark days of Iraq’s 2005-2008 sectarian war.
The worst of the excesses so far was in late March when security forces and militia members from Asaib Ahl Haq entered the town of Bohruz and killed at least 23 people following a takeover of the town by Sunni militants.
In April, medical sources said at least 50 unidentified bodies showed up at the morgue, many of them handcuffed and with bullet wounds to the head, trademarks of militia style killings. The corpses were found on the edges of the Shiite neighborhoods of Sadr City in eastern Baghdad and Shaola to the West.
Before the fall of Mosul this week, the activities of both Asaib and Kata'ib Hezbollah had been kept out of the open. Politicians and group members acknowledged the militias’ activities in private, but government spokesmen and Asaib and Kata'ib Hezbollah publicly denied their involvement in fighting.
Now, with Sunni armed groups pushing to break through Baghdad’s western, northern, southern and eastern edges, Asaib and Kata'ib Hezbollah are at the tip of the vanguard of informal volunteers. No one bothers to pretend any more that the fighters are not patrolling and battling in Baghdad’s hinterlands.
Amid rumors and allegations of Iranian advisers or units working in Iraq to defend Shi'ite territories, the likelihood is that any Iranian presence is tied to these groups, who have been nurtured and trained by Iraq's neighbor for years.
CALL TO ARMS
On Tuesday, Maliki vowed to arm volunteers to take back territory in Mosul. Iraq’s moderate Shiite religious and political leaders have joined the call. A representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country’s most influential Shiite cleric, who refrained from telling citizens to bear weapons during the previous civil war, issued a call to arms on Friday.
Now even Maliki’s Shiite rivals, who have positioned themselves as moderates in comparison to the prime minister, are sending volunteers to the front lines around Baghdad. Convoys of volunteers were racing through Baghdad on Saturday.
A senior member of Maliki’s Dawa party explained they had no other choice than to activate Shiite volunteer fighters, whether tribal or associated with the militias. He acknowledged the use of militias weakened the state’s authority, but he said he saw no other way to ensure Iraq’s survival.
On the streets of Sadr City, the Shiite slum in Baghdad, ordinary men, unattached to any militia, were stocking up weapons and asking those with military experience to train them.
“For the second day running I have been receiving people and neighbors asking me to help them maintain and clean their weapons for them,” said a former officer, named Mohammed Darraji. “The situation is similar to that during the fall of the regime (of Saddam). The young are so enthusiastic, and just waiting for orders to go and fight.”
One elite security officer with the interior ministry who had been stationed in Samarra, home to a Shiite shrine, praised the militia fighters who stood by him as he fought to drive back Sunni militants.
"I am very much for the partnership with Islamic resistance groups like Asaib Ahl Haq… Those groups are important and trained in the street fighting,” the officer said. “They did well in the fighting in Samarra. They are trained to fight alongside and back up the security forces.”
Countering such praise, Sunnis accuse the groups of having carried out executions of any Sunni they suspect of terrorism and warn the militias have gone on a rampage in the rural districts around Baghdad.
Shiite tribal figures, Maliki supporters, and Sunni politicians all confirm Asaib and Kata'ib Hezbollah have been active fighting around the so-called Baghdad Belt since the beginning of the year.
In southern Baghdad’s farm district of Madain, Reuters interviewed several families who counted 16 relatives assassinated in April either in drive by shootings or taken by men with security badges, only to have their bodies turn up days later at the morgue. Terrified, the families fled their homes. They believed at least 50 Sunnis had been killed in assassinations south of Baghdad since January.
Two of the men, whose sons were killed, met on a May afternoon with Reuters having returned to Madain to discuss how their eight relatives were taken by men with security badges on April 26 at 5:30 am, only to be found dead, dumped hours later on the outskirts of Sadr City in Baghdad.
“It was a black day, a dark day for us and just imagine if you have a son and you lose your son, what will stick in your head?” one of them said trembling. “ We raised them for years and then we lost them just like that.”
==========================
يقال ان بعض المسؤولين في العراق اخرجوا عوائلهم منها..صحيح هذا الخير! !؟
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113 Turkish workers return home from Iraq
ANKARA
Tens of thousands of local Turkmens left the northern Iraqi city of Tuzkhormatu, Doğan News Agency reported
Tens of thousands of local Turkmens left the northern Iraqi city of Tuzkhormatu, Doğan News Agency reported
Some 113 Turkish workers who were in the Iraqi city of Najaf returned Turkey on June 14, the Turkish foreign ministry said, informing that the Turkish Airlines continued its operations in the country’s main airports, Baghdad, Basra, Irbil, Najaf and Suleimaniye.
In its second statement late afternoon, the Foreign Ministry’s Iraq Crisis Desk stressed that the workers could return via a private aircraft rented by the company they were working for. The Ministry provided flight permissions for the company, it added.
There is no improvement in the security conditions and the clashes are rapidly spreading, the statement read, reiterated that earlier security and travel warnings were still valid.
Estimated number of Turks in Iraq except for Kurdistan Regional Government region is between 7,000 to 10,000.
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Iraqi Troops Dig in, Bolstering Baghdad's Defences
World | Agence France-Presse | Updated: June 14, 2014 21:16 IST
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Iraqi Troops Dig in, Bolstering Baghdad's Defences
Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters stand to attention in the grounds of their camp in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq on June 14, 2014
Baghdad: Soldiers armed with shovels are digging in just 25 kilometres (15 miles) north of Baghdad as others man new checkpoints, bolstering the Iraqi capital's defences against a militant assault.
A major militant offensive launched on Monday, spearheaded by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group but also involving supporters of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, has overrun a large chunk of northern and north-central Iraq.
The advance swept to within less than 100 kilometres (60 miles) of the capital, raising fears among residents that the city itself would be next, though militants have since been pushed back by security forces in areas farther north, making an assault on Baghdad appear less likely.
ISIL spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani has vowed its fighters would press on to Baghdad and Karbala, a city southwest of the capital that is considered one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.
Top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani on Friday urged Iraqis to take up arms against the Sunni militants.
Trucks carrying hundreds of volunteers were among a large number of vehicles passing through the key main checkpoint north of Baghdad, as security forces carried out spot checks.
The volunteers sang patriotic songs as they were driven to a nearby training centre.
Security forces performed poorly when the militant onslaught was unleashed, but they now appear to be recovering from the initial shock and have begun to regain ground.
They are regrouping despite scenes of disarray in the early days of the offensive, when soldiers shed their uniforms for civilian clothes and abandoned weapons and other equipment.
And they have retaken areas north of the capital that were among the closest militants got to Baghdad, officers said.
Bolstered by militiamen
Regular security forces are bolstered by militiamen in preparing to defend the capital.
"Our forces stand as one rank beside the army and the police," said Hussein al-Tamimi, a local leader of the Sahwa militia forces, which fought alongside American troops against militants in previous years. "Where are they?" he asked of the militants. "We are waiting for them and looking for them. We want them to come so we can finish them." Dhia Ali al-Tamimi, a local tribal leader, also spoke out in support of the security forces, telling AFP that "everyone must protect the land and the state". "Life is completely normal in our areas and attacks by these terrorists don't scare us," he said.Inside Baghdad itself, security forces have also set up new checkpoints, joining a slew of others. Brigadier General Saad Maan has told AFP that "we put in place a new plan to protect Baghdad". It "consists of intensifying the deployment of forces, and increasing intelligence efforts and the use of technology such as (observation) balloons and cameras and other equipment," Maan said. He also said coordination between the various security forces had been increased.
Ihsan al-Shammari, a politics professor at Baghdad University, said he does not expect the militants to reach Baghdad, and that "their end will be far from the capital". But if they did reach Baghdad, it would devolve into street-to-street fighting, Shammari added.Inside the capital, life is still relatively normal in the Kadhimiyah area, the city's northernmost area and home to a revered Shiite shrine visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year.
Kadhimiyah shop-owner Abu Khodr was defiant, saying that "standing up to terrorism is a national duty for everyone in the world, not just in Iraq". "We don't fear them at all," he said of the militants. "Do we fear the enemies of God?" A confident army Colonel Abduljabbar al-Assadi, inspecting the new defensive positions north of Baghdad, said: "Our forces are ready for any emergency." Assadi said the checkpoint had already been attacked twice. In one attack, his arm was broken. "Despite that, I refused to leave the checkpoint, and I will not abandon it," he said.For NDTV Updates, ======================= انزالات متتالیه لقوات النخبه العراقیه(قوات علي الاکبر) خلف خطوط الغزاه جحافل الفتح الشعبي تدخل تكريت بدون قتال والدواعش في مزابل التاريخ " #داعش" يرسم خريطة لدولته الإسلامية تشمل #الكويت نشر تنظيم دولة العراق والشام الإسلامية "داعش"، خريطة لتصور الدولة الإسلامية التي يسعى لإقامتها، وبدا لافتا أن التنظيم وضع الكويت ضمن دولته المرتقبة. وفي هذا الإطار، أجرى رئيس الوزراء الكويتي اتصالا هاتفيا برئيس الوزراء العراقي، نوري #المالكي، استعرض معه تطورات الأوضاع الأمنية. التفاصيل في الرابط التالي http://ara.tv/n75mn ============================================= Iraqiya TV reporting that leader of 1920s Revolution Brigades Saad al-Samarrai killed by ISF in Tikrit
yes Maliki has to go. But analysts do no good by analysing Iraq just through him. There's a bottom to top culture of corruption mistrust 1/2 For example, when fallujah was being attacked barely any attention was made to sunnis fleeing to Shiite kerbala for shelter Also frustrating is the amount of journos who have become sudden experts on #Iraq that are framing all kinds of bs In the end, innocent civilians will pay for this mess as no one is considering the national interest. Foreign interference, stepping up weapons in Syria, Iran involvement will only provide more ignition to the fire. #IraqView translation Iranian forces enter Kurdistan Region - BasNews #Iraq Sunni cleric Sheikh Muhammad al-Mansouri, Imam of Grand #Mosul Mosque, killed by #ISIS for refusing to hand over control of mosque." Wahabis can kill you at your homes, streets, roads, worship places. No one speaks. When you defend, it becomes sectarian all of a sudden. #Iraq Crisis: Angry Locals Defy Social Media Ban With Whisper App http://bit.ly/1pXA3NY =============== Iranian forces have entered the Kurdistan Region and are based in Naft Khana, a border town near the city of Khanaqin in Diyala Province, which is under control of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). A reliable source in Khanaqin that asked to remain anonymous has told BasNews that the Iranians were deployed a few days ago after the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS) took control of most areas of mid and northern Iraq. “The Iranian forces came from Naft Khana border point and are ready to fight,” said the source. The soldiers are currently based in the former Iraqi army base Kubra Army Base. The Iranian army has small and medium weapons and their number is about 500 soldiers. A Kurdish Iranian opposition official in Kurdistan confirmed the Iranian army deployment.
“The Iranian army will help those Iraqi political functions that protect Iranian interest in the country, they are not coming for the sake of Iraqi’s interests,” said Muhammad Nazifi Qadiri senior member of Iranian-Kurdistan Democratic Party to BasNews.According to him the forces come from Kermanshah, a Kurdish city in western Iran. Kurdish media reporting that Iraqi fighter jets hit peshmerga positions in jalawla in northern diyala ================== Source: Reuters - Fri, 13 Jun 2014 20:52 GMT Author: Reuters cor-gov hum-war Enlarge image Members of Iraqi security forces stand guard during an intensive security deployment in Kerbala, southwest of Baghdad June 13, 2014 REUTERS/Mushtaq Muhammed TweetRecommendGoogle +LinkedInBookmarkEmailPrint Leave us a comment By Ned Parker and Missy Ryan WASHINGTON, June 12 (Reuters) - The Iraqi army that disintegrated under an onslaught by Islamist fighters this week was a hollow force, riven by corruption, poor leadership and sectarian splits - a shadow of the military Washington had hoped to leave in the war-ravaged country. The United States dismantled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's military after invading in 2003 and spent $20 billion to build up a new 800,000-strong force, banking on its ability to keep the peace when the U.S. military withdrew in 2011. While the 2003 decision to disband Iraq's army led to a bloody civil war, Iraqi forces were seen as generally competent by 2011 and sectarian fighting had eased, giving U.S. President Barack Obama some confidence as he pulled out all American forces. But corruption sapped funds meant for soldiers' rations, for maintaining vehicles and for fuel, said an Iraqi officer in Sunni-dominated Anbar Province, parts of which have been out of government control for more than six months. Senior military posts are frequently for sale, and soldiers go to local markets to buy spare parts because government stores are empty, he said. The Iraqi force has also been heavily politicized under Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said Retired Lieutenant General Jim Dubik, who led the U.S. and NATO effort to train Iraqi forces from 2007 to 2008. "Their leadership has eroded," said Dubik, who is now a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington. "If you're a fighter and you think your side's going to lose, you don't fight until the last man. You save yourself." A former U.S. official in Iraq said poor treatment of rank-and-file soldiers by their superiors contributed to mass desertions. "These guys, these units are demoralized. They are underpaid and ripped off constantly by their commanding officers, who steal their allowances and use their commands as a way to build a personal nest egg," the former official said. A HOLLOW ARMY Apart from a few standout units, such as special forces who have borne the brunt of the fighting, "it's a hollow army," the former official said. The performance of the Iraqi forces was far from perfect even before the U.S. pullout. Endemic problems of fraud in military contracting, extortion at checkpoints, and the padding of rosters with non-existent soldiers were things the U.S. military was never able to solve and sometimes ignored. The collapse this week started at the top with the senior-most commanders abandoning their positions early on Tuesday morning as black-clad fighters of the radical Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) swept into the country's second city of Mosul. Mosul's defenders held up well for three days until late Monday evening, but over the next few hours the force imploded, with the senior commander for all of Nineveh province, Mahdi Garawi, fleeing. The commander of Iraq's ground forces, General Ali Ghaidan, and the vice chief of army staff, Lieutenant General Abboud Qanbar, also abandoned their posts, according to an Iraqi official and a Western security expert. The entire military structure deployed by the Shi'ite government in Baghdad to protect the north and west melted away before the well-armed Sunni rebels, who had been advancing for weeks across the rocky, dusty flatlands of western Iraq. "There's no question there was a breakdown, a structural breakdown, in Mosul," Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said in Washington. CAPTURED U.S. EQUIPMENT The Sunni rebel advance engulfed towns and cities, allowing them to seize weapons and other equipment, much of it supplied by the United States. Two days after the fall of Mosul, ISIL militants staged a parade of American Humvee patrol cars. Eyewitnesses said they saw two helicopters captured by the militants flying over the city. President Obama expressed frustration on Friday.
"The fact that they are not willing to stand and fight and defend their posts against admittedly hardened terrorists, but not terrorists who are overwhelming in numbers, indicates that there's a problem" with morale and commitment that is rooted in politics, he said.Since the withdrawal of U.S. troops, American support for Iraqi forces has been modest, consisting mostly of a small number of advisers attached to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, some cooperation on intelligence and limited arms deliveries. This changed after the war in neighboring Syria flared in 2013 and fueled resurgent violence. U.S. special forces began training small numbers of elite Iraqi soldiers in Jordan and Washington accelerated arms sales. This included deals for Apache attack helicopters, Hellfire missiles and surveillance drones, much of which has yet to arrive. Warren, the Pentagon spokesman, declined to discuss what, if any, U.S. weapons sold to Iraq might have been seized by ISIL, but said the militants had exaggerated gains. ACHILLES' HEEL The military collapse this week can be traced back to Maliki's earlier failure to rebuff ISIL in western Anbar province, which has become a militant stronghold as the conflict in Syria intensified. After ISIL fighters seized Falluja and other areas of Anbar late last year, Iraqi medical sources say some 6,000 soldiers died there. Iraq-based foreign diplomats say 12,000 deserted their posts. Iraqi forces have not been able to retake Falluja or regain all of the largely Sunni province's capital, Ramadi. In the battle for Mosul, U.S. government experts estimate that Iraqi army forces outnumbered ISIL fighters by a factor of "double digits." Still, the militants easily took the city. Senior Iraqi military officials "are picked because Maliki values their loyalty to him over any kind of war-fighting skills. They don't understand what it takes to fight a counterinsurgency like this," one former senior U.S. military officer said. "They failed to put in rigorous training (for their soldiers). They failed to invest in maintenance and logistics as we told them to," the former official said. "We warned them this would be their Achilles' heel." (Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed, Mark Hosenball and David Alexander; Writing by Missy Ryan; Editing by David Storey, Jason Szep and Jonathan Oatis) ====================================================== MUSINGS ON IRAQ Iraq News, Politics, Economics, Society Friday, June 13, 2014 Continued Collapse Of Iraqi Security Forces And Fighting In Baghdad Leads to Militia Mobilization And Arrival Of Iran The continued collapse of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) along with the advance of the insurgency towards Baghdad has brought out both the militias and Iran. June 12, 2014 there was more news that police and army units were disintegrating in the face of militants. In Diyala police and army units started pulling out of the Sadiya area throughout the day. A Baathist Military Council later posted several videos of it burning parts of an abandoned ISF base in that part of the province. In Anbar, soldiers withdrew from Kubaisa near Hit in the west after fighting with insurgents. To the west of Ramadi officers in the local police, and customs and border guards fled as well after being attacked. More importantly the security forces left their positions along the Anbar-Syria border, army and tribal forces pulled out of their assignments around parts of Fallujah allowing militants to gain control of three entrances to the city, and insurgents overran the Mazraa army base west of Fallujah after it was abandoned. The day was topped off with reports of fighting in Dora in southern Baghdad and Abu Ghraib to the west. The ISF were actually able to hold the Baiji refinery and Samarra in Salahaddin. The latter includes the Shiite Askari shrine so there was far more motivation for fighting there than say Mosul or Tikrit. There was probably foreign assistance there as well which will be discussed next. Otherwise it seemed like the police and army were withering away anytime the insurgents showed up. That has forced Baghdad to look for outside support from its neighboring Iran. With these continued reversals and the insurgency’s march towards Baghdad there are more stories of militia and Iranian mobilization. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) said that its men would be working with the Defense Minister to fight terrorists. They will be backed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, which recently sent 2 battalions to Iraq. Quds Force leader General Qasim Suleimani who is in Baghdad will command them. Militia units have already been fighting in places like Anbar in recent months. With the threat to Baghdad and its majority Shiite population growing Tehran is getting ready to defend the capital. The security is so dire with the ISF giving up across the country the Iraqi government needs more boots on the ground to stabilize the situation. New Iraqi volunteers are not going to reverse the situation because they need weeks of basic training and if that was shortened they would be even more ineffective than the current security members have proven. The only country that is willing to commit its money, support and personnel is neighboring Iran. It does not want to see the expansion of ISIS, which it has fought in Syria, and will not stand for a friendly government that is right next door to it to fall to Sunni insurgents. This is just like Tehran did during the previous Iraqi civil war. That means when the serious fighting starts in Baghdad the militants will be in a real fight against not only the ISF, but also militias backed by Iranian advisers and leadership. That will get real ugly really fast. ================================================
