(MENAFN- Arab Times) Islamic State militants have closed gates of a dam on the Euphrates River in western Iraq, reducing the water and giving them greater freedom of movement to attack government forces downstream on the southern bank, local officials said.
The militants have redirected the flow of water to their advantage on the battlefield around the city of Ramadi. But the tactic also threatens southern provinces with drought and the water has been reduced to worrying levels, the officials said.
The Euphrates has acted as a barrier between the militants who control its northern bank and pro-government forces who are trying to advance towards Ramadi on the other side. Aspokesman for the governor of Anbar province, of which Ramadi is the capital, said security forces would now have to redeploy along the river to prevent the insurgents from infiltrating. "Previously they had to monitor only the bridges and certain areas, but now all of the river will be crossable," Hikmat Suleiman said. Islamic State has previously sought to use water as a weapon in its war against the Iraqi government.
Last summer, the militants seized the Mosul dam in northern Iraq and threatened to submerge Baghdad until Kurdish forces drove them back with the help of airstrikes from an international coalition. The Anbar provincial council met on Wednesday to discuss how to respond.
One member, Taha Abdul Ghani, suggested the government should bomb one of the dam's gates to release the water. Residents of Ramadi and a local irrigation official said however the insurgents had left two of the dam's gates open, apparently to avoid flooding areas under their own control upstream. The partial closure of the Ramadi dam has forced more water into a tributary running south to the Habbaniya lake, officials said.
Falih al-Essawi, a senior provincial security official, said the government had opened another dam to channel water from the Habbaniya Lake back into the Euphrates and prevent shortages in the southern provinces. But he said this was only a temporary measure that would not be effective for more than three days. "The government must act immediately otherwise dire consequences and an environmental catastrophe will be inevitable," he said.
Iraqi officials voiced fears Wednesday that jihadists will use their seizure of a dam in Ramadi to mount fresh attacks on pro-government forces preparing to try to retake the city. A string of advances last month by the Islamic State group cast doubt on the strategy of the US-led coalition battling the jihadists, but Washington has insisted it is on the right track. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said after the May 17 fall of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, that his men would take it back within days but operations are moving slowly.
More than 10,000 Islamic State fighters have been killed since the international coalition started its campaign against the militant group nine months ago in Iraq and Syria, US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday.
Speaking after the coalition met in Paris, he said there had been a great deal of progress in the fight against Islamic State but that the group remained resilient and capable of taking the initiative. "We have seen a lot of losses within DAESH since the start of this campaign, more than 10,000," Blinken said on France Inter radio, using a mildly derogatory term for Islamic State. "It will end up having an impact." A senior US envoy said on Wednesday the growth of the Islamic State militant group had global implications and could "wreak havoc on the progress of humanity" if unchecked. Retired Gen. John Allen, appointed by US President Barack Obama to build a coalition against Islamic State, told a conference in Qatar the group was not merely an Iraqi problem or a Syrian problem but "a regional problem trending towards global implications".
The group has lost about a quarter of the populated areas it once held in Iraq, but countering its ideology might take a generation or more, he told the Brookings Institution's US-Islamic World Forum. Last month, the Iraqi government had its worst military setback in nearly a year when Islamic State seized Ramadi from a weakened Iraqi army.
The capital of the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim province of Anbar is 90 km (55 miles) west of Baghdad. Since then, government troops and allied Shiite Muslim militia have been building up positions around Ramadi. Many Iraqi Sunnis dislike the ultra-hardline Islamic State but also fear the Shiite militias after years of sectarian strife
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