(MENAFN- Arab Times) Iraq's Shi'ite paramilitaries said on Tuesday they had taken charge of the campaign to drive Islamic State from the western province of Anbar, giving the operation an openly sectarian codename that could infuriate its Sunni population. The Iraqi government is scrambling to reverse its biggest military setback in nearly a year, the fall of Ramadi, capital of Anbar province west of Baghdad. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has vowed to recapture it within days.
The Shi'ite militiamen, supported by a smaller cadre of government troops, advanced on Tuesday to within a few kilometres of a university on Ramadi's southwestern edge, police sources and Sunni tribal fighters allied to the government said.
As they passed through Euphrates river valley farmland south of Ramadi, the militiamen told people to return home, stay inside and they would not be harmed. Ramadi's fall a week ago was swiftly followed by the fall of the UNESCO heritage city of Palmyra in Syria, the two biggest gains by Islamic State fighters since the United States began targeting them with air strikes in both Iraq and Syria last year. Islamic State controls swathes of territory in both countries, where it has proclaimed a caliphate to rule over all Muslims according to strict mediaeval precepts.
The simultaneous advances over the past week at opposite ends of the group's territory have raised doubts about the US strategy to bomb the militants from the air but leave fighting on the ground to local Iraqi and Syrian forces. In Iraq, the regular military's failure to hold Ramadi has forced the government to send Iran-backed Shi'ite paramilitaries to help retake the city.
Washington is worried this could enrage residents in the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim province and push them into the arms of Islamic State. A spokesman for the Shi'ite militias, known as Hashid Shaabi, said the codename for the new operation would be "Labaik ya Hussein", a slogan in honour of a grandson of the Prophet Mohammed killed in the 7th Century battle that led to the schism between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims. "The Labaik Ya Hussein operation is led by the Hashid Shaabi in cooperation and coordination with the armed forces there," Ahmed al-Assadi said at a televised news conference. "We believe that liberating Ramadi will not take long."
The militia fighters have performed better on the battlefield than Iraq's own army, but their presence risks alienating the Sunni residents of the area, especially if they emphasise sectarian aims. Just weeks ago, the Baghdad government and allied militia appeared to be having success against Islamic State, recapturing former dictator Saddam Hussein's home city of Tikrit in the Tigris river valley north of Baghdad. But Anbar, west of the capital in the valley of Iraq's other great river, the Euphrates, has proven more difficult.
The Shi'ite militia had until now stayed out of the area, where Sunni tribes have been hostile to outsiders for generations. Assadi, the militia spokesman, said the plan was to open a route for pro-government forces to reach Anbar across the desert from the Tigris valley province of Salahuddin. Meanwhile, Obama says the US wants to support the Iraqi government in its fight against the Islamic State group. And the president says that means the US needs to think about whether it is deploying its military assets in Iraq effectively.
His comments Tuesday came after Defense Secretary Ash Carter over the weekend criticized Iraqi forces, saying their men fled the Islamic State advance on Ramadi without fighting back. Since then, Iraq has announced the launch of a major military operation to drive the Islamic State from the western Anbar province. The Iraqi troops are out to retake the Sunni heartland where the extremist group captured the provincial capital of Ramadi. The president spoke after meeting in the Oval Office with NATO Secretary- General Jens Stoltenberg
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