Iraq in Crisis

Iraq is dealing with its worst crisis since American forces withdrew in 2011. Extremist Sunnis now calling themselves the Islamic State (formerly the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) have taken much of the North and West of the country. They vowed to march on Baghdad and the violence in the capital spiked again last week.

Police claim they found 18 bodies of security forces outside Baghdad. And this follows on a huge battle in the city of the Baqubah, which is just northeast of Baghdad, in which the Islamic State attacked a police station and police fended them off. Forty-four prisoners died in that process, but it is unclear how.

In the Kurdish north, calls for independence are growing, and relations between Baghdad and the region have soured since Sunni extremists overran much of northern and western Iraq. The Kurds used the opportunity to seize disputed territories they believe are part of a future independent state.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki angered Kurdish leaders when he accused them of harboring terrorists. World leaders are urging an inclusive government as violence escalates in the capital. Kurdish politician Fouad Massoum has been elected president of Iraq by the country’s parliament, another step in forming a new government after months of deadlock, as part of this inclusive strategy.

Al Maliki is a seriously divisive figure. He’s seen among the Sunni Arab community as corrupt and sectarian. He’s also seen as somebody who purposely put his cronies in top security forces positions to keep himself in power, the same security force that crumbled in the face of an Islamic State advance. And now he’s fired four of his top security officials in order to save face.

The Islamic State, who control the city of Mosul, announced they would enforce the compulsory veiling of women. Even more problematic, the Islamic State has introduced forced conscription. They’ve been going to the heads of families as well as tribes and saying, you have to give us one son from every family. And those young men are then taken to training camps.

Iraqi, American, and Iranian drones are continuously searching Iraq for Islamic State fighters. The US is currently flying about 50 missions a day over Iraq. Additionally, the US government has sold Iraq 10 ScanEagle and 48 Raven class drones for their own missions. The Iranians are flying a small amount of surveillance drones from their operations center at Rasheed Air Base. The Iranians are trying to minimize the public knowledge of what they’re doing, but reports suggest that Iran is trying to gather all the intelligence it can on both the Islamic State and US operations and platforms as well.

The power that the Islamic State holds in Iraq is giving the organization an upper hand in their fight in Syria. The Islamic state scored a propaganda victory when it took much of Western and Northern Iraq.

To moderate Syrian rebels, the effect of seeing the Islamic State conquer so much territory has made this organization appear to be an irresistible force in Syria too. Now, the extremists control nearly all the towns along the Euphrates River that flows from Syria into Iraq. And moderate Western-backed rebels are giving up fighting.

Before their march on Iraq, the Islamic State rarely took on Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s forces directly, preferring to consolidate control of rebel-held areas. But this month, their fighters have confronted regime soldiers over a gas field and they have also surrounded an army base close to the city of Raqqa. The Islamic State claims that its flag flutters across “all the land,” between central Syria and Eastern Iraq. This isn’t true, but they’re getting stronger.

The Splintering of Iraq

Shi’ite militias have mobilized in Iraq to battle the Sunni insurgent group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Shi’ite gunmen have marched through Baghdad and taken control of a town northeast of the capital to stage a battleground to stop the advance of the fundamentalist group.

ISIS has taken a full province, Nineveh province, including Mosul (the second-largest city in Iraq) and parts of three others.

The Iraqi army is falling apart, but it’s being bolstered by Shi’a militias responding to a call to arms by the most influential Iraqi Shi’a cleric in the world (Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani) who said that people should take up arms to defend against this group. He said, “He who sacrifices for the cause of defending his country and his family and his honor will be a martyr.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki said the government would arm and equip citizens who volunteer to fight. Al Maliki has declared a state of emergency and claims he’s been given all powers to fight this threat. According to his critics, however, al Maliki is the reason that ISIS has been so successful in winning Sunni allies in Iraq, because al Maliki has ruled in a very sectarian and corrupt way. He’s a politically embattled figure.

Al Maliki has pushed out a lot of influential Sunni leaders, and that’s why ISIS is getting the support that it has right now, because a lot of the Sunni community in Iraq feels marginalized and afraid of the al Maliki government.

As I said in a post yesterday, ISIS has taken advantage of a wave of Sunni anger in Iraq, and ISIS has gained allies among Sunni tribal leaders, ex-military officers under Saddam Hussein, and other Islamist groups in Iraq. The authority ISIS wields in Iraq is not yet part of a larger monolithic whole; rather, ISIS relies on divergent Sunni tribes, organizations, and groups that can be antagonistic and even violent towards one another.

Most of the ISIS fighters in Iraq have poured over the border from Syria, and many come from al Qaeda and affiliated groups such as Jabhat al Nusra. These groups promote a jihadist vision that is fanatically anti-Shi’a. One of al Qaeda’s main reasons for getting involved in the war in Syria has been its grievance that the Syrian regime is run by Alawites, people who belong to a branch of Shi’a Islam. 

ISIS must retain popular Sunni support in Iraq to ensure that other Sunni groups are willing to work with them if ISIS hopes to maintain its hold on Iraqi territory. However, it is unclear if that support will last.

Some Sunni clerics in Mosul and Tikrit, which are under the control of ISIS, have been executed by ISIS insurgents for not showing allegiance to the organization. ISIS militants are said to have executed around 12 leading clerics in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. According to Al Alam News, an imam in Mosul’s Central Mosque was executed for refusing to join ISIS insurgents in their cause. Executions have also been reported in Tikrit.

Meanwhile, refugees are flowing into the Kurdish north from Mosul and surrounding areas. The Kurds are taking disputed territory abandoned by the Iraqi Army, including a border point with Syria.

Kurdistan is a semiautonomous region.  It has its own system of laws and governance, and it has long wanted its own independent country. The Kurds are also fighting ISIS, but they are taking advantage of the collapse of the Iraqi military at the same time. The Kurds are taking the territories they feel should be part of their future state, including Kirkuk and this border point.

Last week, ISIS used the social media device Twitter to announce that it had executed 1,700 Shi’a soldiers, and it has tweeted graphic pictures of the executed to support its claims.