By Marwan Kabalan, Special to Gulf News
17:04 June 30, 2016
Last Sunday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi arrived in Fallujah and raised the Iraqi flag over the city hall. After five weeks of tense fighting, a broad coalition of Iraqi forces, supported by intensive United States air cover, was able to expel Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) militants from the highly symbolic Iraqi city.
The role of the US was instrumental in Operation Inherent Resolve. The US military provided logistical and other multifaceted support in aid for the effort to defeat Daesh militants in Fallujah. Yet, initially, the US was reluctant to support any major offensive to retake Fallujah. After expelling Daesh militants out of Ramadi in December 2015, the US wanted the war effort to focus on Mosul. However, when some Iraqi political forces began an effort to bring down the Al Abadi government, Muqtada Al Sadr in particular, Al Abadi chose to divert the attention away from the political crisis, announcing the beginning of the battle for Fallujah in May 22.
The US administration of President Barack Obama, which expressed support for Al Abadi during the political wrangling in Baghdad, decided to go with the effort to retake Fallujah from Daesh. A victory in Fallujah was seen as instrumental in helping the ailing prime minister, hitherto seen as weak and lacking initiative, overcome a political crisis that has plagued him since last February. Yet, the support of the US was not unconditional. The US wanted the Shiite-dominated Popular Mobilisation Militia (PMM) to stay out of the battle for Fallujah.
Al Abadi knows that without US support, the war against Daesh will go nowhere. Indeed, it was US air support that enabled the Iraqi forces to expel Daesh militants out of Tikrit in March of 2015. As such, Al Abadi would have found it difficult to go against Washington’s will that the PMM should not take part in the battle for Fallujah. Yet, the Iraqi prime minister found it equally hard to resist the PMM’s insistence to participate in the fight for Fallujah, a city of unique strategic and symbolic value. Involvement in the battle to rid Fallujah of Daesh militants would give the PMM the political capital it needed to play a more active political role. A successful military campaign in Fallujah would also empower the PMM in its intra-Shiite political feuds.
Al Abadi tried to reach a middle ground between the US desire and that of the PMM. It was hence agreed that the PMM would be allowed to help in recapturing small towns in the environs of Fallujah, but would not be allowed to enter the city proper. Addressing the terms of this agreement, Hadi Al Ameri, head of the Badr Militia — the largest group within the PMM — stated that the PMM would only enter the city if a failure of government forces to take it back necessitated such a move. Even the US-led international anti-Daesh coalition was prepared to countenance the limited participation of PMM forces in military activities on the outskirts of Fallujah, as admitted by coalition spokesperson Col Steve Warren — who also claimed that the PMM would remain outside of the city limits.
Human shields
Once events began to unfold, however, it became clear that the role of the PMM was much bigger, and more sinister. The militia played a key role in the capture and detention of large numbers of Iraqi civilians who tried to flee the fighting. A number of international bodies had earlier estimated that the civilian population of Fallujah numbered between 50,000 to 90,000 people — many of whom were used as human shields by Daesh. Commenting on the situation, United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Zeid Ra’d Al Hussain expressed dismay at eyewitness accounts that “have described how armed groups operating in support of the Iraqi security forces are detaining civilians fleeing the fighting for ‘security screening’ … [which] in some cases degenerates into physical violations and other forms of abuse, apparently in order to elicit forced confessions”.
The behaviour of the PMM forces in the battle for Fallujah has served to underscore the PMM’s image as primarily a sectarian warhorse. It has also worked to depict the present battle for Fallujah not as a confrontation between the Iraqi state and the terrorist group, Daesh, but rather as one of a series of pitched sectarian battles across the country. Indeed, Al Abadi, citing concern for the safety of civilians in Fallujah, had been at times forced to take measures to slow down the intensity of the battle.
More worrying, and with longer-lasting impacts, are the repercussions of these policies for those who yearn to get rid of Daesh. These people cannot be expected to warmly welcome Baghdad’s forces if they feel that these are forwarding a sectarian agenda. In short, unless the Sunni-Arab communities of Iraq can be convinced that their government is not out to further a vendetta of sectarian revenge, then neither the reconciliation of the Iraqi population nor victory against Daesh will be possible.
Dr Marwan Kabalan is a Syrian academic and writer.
