IRAQ: ISIS TAKES KEY BORDER CROSSING; BAGHDAD A CITY IN FEAR; IRAQI ARMY INEFFECTIVE

Reuters

The Washington Post

A key Iraqi border crossing was taken Saturday by Sunni militants, another blow against the crumbling authority of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government. ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) fighters captured the crossing of Qaim on the border with Syria, which will not only facilitate deployments of equipment across the border but also advance their goal of erasing the border entirely in order to establish a single Islamic state.

Muntadar Naji Khalife held the Iraqi flag as Shiite men lined up in Najaf to register to fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Credit Lynsey Addario for The New York Times        

N.Y. Times

The militants seem intent on methodically consolidating their hold on the large Sunni provinces to the west and north as the Iraqi Army’s attention is focused on securing Baghdad.

The militants already have considerable strength in Anbar Province, but it has been primarily in remote villages and towns, with the exception of Falluja, which they have also seized. Now, with the taking of the border post of Al Qaim after a three-day fight, and the nearby towns of Ana and Rawaa, they will be able to move on the road that leads to Haditha, where there is a major dam.

[If the dam and adjoining power station were destroyed, it could cripple the country's power grid and cause widespread flooding.Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2664954/Four-key-Iraqi-towns-fall-ISIS-militants-backed-Sunni-Muslim-fighters-country-teeters-brink-sectarian-conflict.html#ixzz35RJxSmKs ]

N.Y.Times
 Behind the image of savagery that the extremists of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria present to the world, as casual executioners who kill helpless prisoners and behead even rival jihadis, lies a disciplined organization that employs social media and sophisticated financial strategies in the funding and governance of the areas it has conquered.

The insurgents seized as much as $400 million from the central bank in Mosul, said Atheel Nujaifi, the governor of Nineveh Province, and reportedly emptied the vaults in all the other banks in a city of more than one million residents.

 

In a bloody seesaw battle for control of Iraq’s biggest oil refinery at Baiji, halfway between Baghdad and Mosul, the insurgents worked with the families of employees there to broker a cease-fire — so the workers could be safely evacuated.

It was no humanitarian gesture. “They want them to run the refinery when the fighting is over.

 

Its extortion rackets in Mosul netted as much as $8 million a month, according to Gen. Mahdi Gharawi, until recently the Nineveh Province police commander, in an interview with Niqash, an Arabic-language news website. And that was even [before] the ISIS insurgents took over. Once in charge, they typically levy “taxes,” which are just as lucrative. So-called road taxes of $200 on trucks are collected all over northern Iraq to allow them safe passage. The Iraqi government claims that the insurgents are now levying a “tax” on Christians in Mosul, who were a significant minority there, to avoid being crucified.

Even a cellphone app that helped ISIS propel its Twitter feed to the top of the jihadi charts had advertising embedded in it.

An Iraqi young boy holds a gun from the window of a vehicle carrying volunteers joining Iraqi security forces in the fight against Jihadist militants ... Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced the Iraqi government would arm and equip civilians who volunteer to fight, and thousands have signed up. AFP PHOTO/AHMAD AL-RUBAYE (Photo credit sh | AHMAD AL-RUBAYE via Getty Images

Associated Press:

While the Iraqi capital is not under any immediate threat of falling to the Sunni militants who have captured a wide swath of the country's north and west, battlefield setbacks and the conflict's growing sectarian slant is turning this city of 7 million into an anxiety-filled place waiting for disaster to happen.

Traffic is nowhere near its normal congestion. Many stores are shuttered and those that are open are doing little business in a city where streets empty hours before a 10 p.m. curfew kicks in. Arriving international and domestic flights are half empty, while outgoing flights to the relatively safe Kurdish cities of Irbil and Suleimaniya are booked solid through late July as those who can flee.

The number of army and police checkpoints has grown, snarling traffic. Pickup trucks loaded with Shiite militiamen roam the city, including in Sunni and mixed areas, chanting religious slogans....
----
Across the plaza, a giant screen displayed the text of June 13 edict by Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite cleric, calling on Iraqis to join the security forces to fight the Islamic State fighters, and reminding them that the insurgents have threatened to march on Shiite shrines in Baghdad, Samarra, Najaf and Karbala.
Just outside the mosque gates, Shiite clerics addressed dozens of Shiite militiamen in ski masks and combat fatigues. Though unarmed, their presence near one of Iraq's most revered Shiite shrines added to the sense of impending war — and was a reminder of the quick erosion of government authority following the security forces' humiliating defeat in the north, where Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, fell after troops abandoned their positions and weapons.
Since then, tens of thousands of Shiite militiamen of the so-called "Peace Brigades" have staged parades in Baghdad and the predominantly Shiite south,...in Baghdad's sprawling Shiite Sadr City district, home to some 2 million Shiites,...The Peace Brigades is the latest name for the Mahdi Army, a brutal militia loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which took the lead in targeting Sunnis during the sectarian bloodletting nearly a decade ago.

The latest evidence [indicates] the Sunni-Shiite conflict carries the potential for a civil war that could herald the division of Iraq. It is a scenario that spells the most trouble for Baghdad. Baghdad's Sunnis already are terrified.

Militants from Sunni rebel group ISIS (pictured) seized four more towns in Iraq yesterday while Shiite soldiers marched through Baghdad as the country heads towards sectarian warfare

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2664954/Four-key-Iraqi-towns-fall-ISIS-militants-backed-Sunni-Muslim-fighters-country-teeters-brink-sectarian-conflict.html#ixzz35RIHWH7o

N.Y.Times

As Iraqi Army forces try to rally on the outskirts of Baghdad after two weeks of retreat, it has become increasingly clear to Western officials that the army will continue to suffer losses in its fight with Sunni militants and will not soon retake the ground it has ceded.

Recent assessments by Western officials and military experts indicate that about a quarter of Iraq’s military forces are “combat ineffective,” its air force is minuscule, morale among troops is low and its leadership suffers from widespread corruption.

As other nations consider whether to support military action in Iraq, their decision will hinge on the quality of Iraqi forces, which have proved far more ragged than expected given years of American training.

 

The picture that emerges is of an Iraq where the lines on the map mean little. The north and west have become a haven for Sunni extremists who have largely succeeded in erasing the border between their territory in Syria and Iraq.

 

A measure of the military’s desperation is that its chief assistance now comes from hundreds of thousands of volunteers and a smaller number of highly trained militia members. For army units — and there are a number of them — that are fighting hard, often under difficult circumstances, adding volunteers who have little or no experience has been of questionable benefit. Hundreds of volunteers have been killed or wounded in ambushes on their way to the battlefield, for example. That is not true of the trained militias, which have far fewer fighters but are experienced and highly trained, mostly by the Iranians, and who augment the regular army’s morale, said commanders.

 

Western officials describe ISIS as a far tougher enemy than the one the American military faced when it was battling Al Qaeda in Iraq from 2004 through 2009. Assessments of the militants’ capabilities vary, but there is a consensus that despite their small numbers they are well equipped, trained and financed. They also appear dedicated to their cause of vanquishing the forces of the modern world and returning the territory they take to an earlier form of Islam.

 

With an estimated 10,000 fighters, ISIS has been able to seize stores of military equipment and plan small offensive missions that, when coupled with a propaganda campaign, have proved highly effective. So far the fighters seem impervious to combat losses, quickly replenishing their ranks with fighters from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Chechnya and Europe, who appear to be drawn by the successes in Iraq. They have also found recruits by freeing prisoners in brazen prison breaks.

ADM. EXPLORES TALKS W/IRAN IN IRAQ CRISIS. IRAQ LDR AL-MALIKI KEEPS SUNNIS & KURDS MARGINALIZED IN GOVT.

 N.Y. TIMES, MICHAEL GORDON & DAVID SANGER

A senior American diplomat met with his Iranian counterpart in Vienna on Monday to explore whether the United States and Iran could work together to create a more stable Iraqi government and ease the threat from Sunni militants.

The initial meeting took place after Secretary of State John Kerry signaled that the Obama administration was open to cooperating with Iran on Iraq,

The Obama administration’s strategy is to pressure Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, and his Shiite-dominated government to form a multisectarian government with Sunnis and Kurds in an effort to heal the rifts being exploited by the insurgents. But that goal could be frustrated if Iran decided to back hard-line Shiite leaders or sent Quds Force fighters into Iraq, aggravating the already inflamed tensions.

 

Complicating the picture are the parallel talks between Iran and world powers on its nuclear program.

With an initial July 20 deadline for an agreement looming, one expert who has periodically advised the American negotiating team said there was already “a recognition the Iranians will try to milk any help on Iraq to get any advantage they can” as they haggle with the lead negotiators over how much of their nuclear infrastructure can remain if a final nuclear agreement is reached.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani

----

In a sign of the growing dangers in Iraq, Mr. Obama notified Congress on Monday that he is sending as many as 275 military personnel to augment security and provide support for the heavily fortified American Embassy in Baghdad. The United States has already announced plans to evacuate a significant number of embassy personnel.

----

The outreach to Tehran was a surprising turnabout for the Obama administration, which has not held talks over regional crises with Iran. Cooperation between the United States and Iran to contain the Iraqi crisis would represent the first time the two countries have jointly undertaken a common security purpose since they shared military intelligence to counter the Taliban in Afghanistan after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Mr. Kerry, in fact, worked furiously in January to persuade the United Nations to disinvite Iran from the Geneva peace talks on Syria, arguing that Tehran’s military support to Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, disqualified it from participating.

 

 

N.Y. TIMES

 

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has presented himself as the man who could bring Iraqis together, but with the collapse of his army before a Sunni militant assault, he has taken on only one role — that of commander in chief of Iraq. 

He is spending much of his time on the military side of the presidential compound, while some of his close civilian aides have taken to wearing starched military fatigues. He spends the better part of his day running the war.

He meets with military commanders, travels to the front lines, makes speeches at recruiting drives rallying young Shiite men and, not infrequently, falls into fits of anger, according to members of his inner circle.

What he does not do, by all accounts, is spend much time on the political reconciliation with the Sunni Arabs and Kurds that his international allies in Washington and Tehran have insisted is his country’s only possible salvation. Even his top aide in charge of reconciliation said Monday that he thinks it is all but hopeless at this point.

 

 

President Obama has made it clear that the United States will not provide military support unless Mr. Maliki engineers a drastic change in policy, reaching out to Sunnis and Kurds in a show of national unity against the Sunni militants, whose shock troops are the extremist Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Without that, analysts say, the country is at risk of a renewed sectarian war in which Baghdad could lose control over nearly a third of the country for the foreseeable future.

 

But Mr. Maliki is showing few signs of changing his ways. Just as he did in a similar, though not nearly as threatening, crisis in 2008 in Basra, he is pinning his hopes on the military option. He is determined to use the Shiite fighters he trusts to stabilize the country and, he hopes, rout the Sunni insurgents and reimpose the government’s control over its territory.

For now, Mr. Maliki’s public message to Mr. Obama is that it is just not possible to work with the Kurds and Sunnis right now, that the army first needs to retake lost ground.

Mr. Maliki, 63, has long shown a stubborn streak, an unwillingness to bend his principles. He spent much of his life as a dissident, working to oust the former president, Saddam Hussein.

 

Sectarian civil war: Shiite tribal fighters raise their weapons and chant slogans against the al-Qaeda-inspired ISIS group in Baghdad as Iranian-backed militias move in to spearhead what Shiites see as a fight for survival against Sunni militants

In the southern Iraqi city of Basra, Shiite tribal fighters on Monday chanted slogans against  the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Credit Nabil Al-Jurani/Associated Press        

He lived in exile for 24 years, and secrecy became a way of life, in order to avoid arrest. The experience left him wary of all but his closest associates. He did not appear destined for higher office but was encouraged to run for prime minister in 2006 by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, in part because he was viewed as incorruptible.

Mr. Maliki surprised the United States and other Western governments by sending his army forces in 2008 against Shiite militias loyal to the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr, which at the time were destabilizing the country. But in more recent years he has not appeared willing to repeat that step and has hewed more to sectarian policies.

At times it has looked almost as though Mr. Maliki was going out of his way to alienate the Sunnis. After the Sunni tribes helped to defeat Al Qaeda in 2008, he cut off much of their funding.

In search of insurgents, Mr. Maliki has authorized mass arrests of Sunnis and held many of them in prisons outside the law. He has also accused a prominent Sunni politician, Tariq al-Hashimi, of running a death squad, driving him into exile in Kurdistan, and has similarly gone after other prominent Sunnis.

 

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq led a meeting with military officers during a visit to the city of Samarra on Friday. Credit via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images       

 

Convinced that there is a conspiracy to undermine him, Mr. Maliki speaks often of “failed politicians” who are working with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, while his associates describe “dirty deals” between the Kurds, ISIS and the Sunnis. Sunnis have lost patience and now simply want the prime minister to resign.

 

Shiite politicians have said there are some immediate gestures Mr. Maliki could make that would help ease the tensions. He could release the thousands of Sunni prisoners detained by his security forces and being held without trial. He could make common cause with Sunnis and Kurds with statements against the Sunni militants, and he could work with them to bolster the military instead of turning to Shiite militias.

 

The worry is that, barring reconciliation, Iraq will split into a Sunnistan and a Shiastan, said a former ambassador, Ryan C. Crocker.

“Either we intervene at the White House and the secretary of state level or this is going to devolve into a bloody stalemate,” he said, “a line of demarcation between north and south, to be determined, but probably just north of Baghdad and the establishment of a de facto Al Qaeda state, and that’s completely terrifying.”

 

Many Shiite politicians, worried about the fate of the country, have begun offering alternatives to Mr. Maliki’s approach. [They urge him to] reach out to Kurds, thanking them for receiving refugees and recommending a national reconciliation.

 

That does not mean that Mr. Maliki has lost faith in all Sunnis. He still has words of praise for the Sunni tribes with whom he has long worked, and who have fought and lost large numbers in battling Qaeda-type extremists in western Iraq.

But Mr. Maliki has little faith in the Sunni political leaders,

As recently as last week in the wake of the fall of Mosul, Mr. Maliki appeared to have a chance to create a unified multisectarian, multiethnic block to fight ISIS and those who support it. In a long late-night meeting with Sunni and Kurdish leaders, it appeared they might emerge with a unified stand. Hours passed, and when they emerged there was no agreement.

It turned out the Sunnis proposed raising in effect a Sunni army, a sort of new version of the tribal Awakening Councils that fought Al Qaeda in 2007 and 2008. But that idea was rejected by Mr. Maliki, even as the Shiite militias were beginning to organize.

While the idea of separate Sunni and Shiite armies is an indication of the depths of the sectarian divide, Mr. Maliki’s inability to use the moment to try to build trust is telling,

 

The suggestion of many is that Mr. Maliki has lost so much credibility that the best thing that could happen would be to form a new government with a different leader who might inspire more trust. But for now Mr. Maliki is not stepping down, and it seems unlikely that there would be enough unity to anoint a successor anytime soon. [Further,] it is widely accepted in Iraqi politics that any plausible candidate for the post of prime minister must also be acceptable to Iran.