AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Groups fighting it12/29/2023 ![]() Turkey’s government has called for the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since late 2011, and provided military and financial assistance to Syrian rebel groups fighting the regime. “After ISIS, I think many of these groups are going to turn to politics as a way of maintaining their organizational survivability.” Turkey “You can’t exactly be only a militia unless there’s a war going on,” says Ramzy Mardini, a fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center at the Atlantic Council. Some of the militias, like the Badr Organization, have political aspirations in Iraq, while others are closely aligned with Iran’s interests in the country. In addition to their sectarian nature, the Shia militias also pose a threat to the stability of Iraq’s government. In the aftermath, Sunni residents have accused the Shia militias of detaining, beating and sometimes summarily executing Sunnis. Despite mutual acrimony, American warplanes have bombed ISIS positions before Iraqi security forces, many times bolstered on the outskirts of the fight by Shia militias, advance on the ground. Nonetheless, Shia militias have supported Iraq’s military, which is still recovering from near collapse in 2014. “The hell of Iraq has been sectarian violence.” Iraqi security forces, Carter added, had “borne the brunt of the fighting and had the lion’s share of victories” against ISIS. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told FRONTLINE. “We do not enable Shia-backed militia at all,” U.S. However, the presence of long-established Shia militias inside the PMF - some of which are backed by Iran, some of which fought an insurgency against American troops during the Iraq war, and some of which have been accused of sectarian abuses against Sunni civilians - makes their involvement in the fight highly problematic for the United States. The Popular Mobilization Forces have played an instrumental role in Iraq’s battle against ISIS. ![]() “Without the political victory to supplement the military victory, we could be talking about these wars in a few years time again,” says Renad Mansour, a fellow at Chatham House, an independent policy institute in London. While Iraq has had military victories against ISIS, retaking Tikrit, Ramadi, Fallujah and other cities from ISIS, analysts say finding a political solution to balancing the country’s disparate groups and addressing sectarian divides is vital. My government has zero tolerance towards any excesses in the war.” When asked about allegations of atrocities carried out by some of the militias, Abadi said, “We have to find the culprits and make them accountable. He told FRONTLINE the militias are now working with the government - not against it, as in the past. officials is that such sectarian excesses could further contribute to disenfranchisement and resentment among Sunnis - some of the same factors that allowed ISIS to recruit from among Iraq’s disillusioned Sunni population in the first place.Ībadi has tried to bring the Popular Mobilization Forces into the official fold of the state. In battles to retake cities like Amerli, Tikrit and Fallujah, the Shia-dominated government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has been reliant on the al-Hashd al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella group comprised of Shia militias that have been accused of carrying out attacks against Sunni civilians. However, the Iraqi government was hobbled in the fight against ISIS by the near total collapse of the Iraqi army in 2014. ![]() and other coalition partners to conduct airstrikes against the group inside Iraq. The government joined the international coalition against ISIS, and invited the U.S. Iraqįor Iraq, defeating ISIS is a matter of national security and survival, as the terrorist group seized large swaths of the country’s territory over the course of 2014, including the nation’s second largest city - Mosul. has maintained a narrow focus on degrading and ultimately defeating ISIS, competing agendas among a group of eight key players involved in the fight have served to complicate that effort. Still others have contributed humanitarian aid, taken in refugees or provided weapons and training to fighters on the ground.īut while the U.S. Some nations - including the United Kingdom, Australia, France and a handful of regional powers - have helped launch airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, while others have cracked down on the flow of funds and foreign fighters to ISIS. ![]() The United States has led an international coalition of more than 60 countries against ISIS. The global fight against ISIS has been halting and complex since it began in late 2014. ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |