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Building a Base for Iraq's Counteroffensive: The Role of U.S. Security Cooperation
Encouraging signs have emerged that the collapse of federal government control in Iraq may have slowed and that Baghdad is beginning the transition to counteroffensive operations to regain ground. Massive mobilization of largely Shiite volunteers has given Baghdad an untrained but motivated "reserve army" that can be used to swamp cross-sectarian areas around the Iraqi capital. All available formed military units have been pulled out of reserve and brought toward Baghdad to defend the capital. In this effort, all Department of Border Enforcement units have been relocated from the country's borders, and Iraqi army and Federal Police units have been redeployed from southern Iraq. Isolated federal government units are scattered across northern Iraq, in some cases hanging on against Sunni militants with the support of adjacent Kurdish forces. Fighting is now taking place on five fronts:1. Southern Salah al-Din. In the Tigris River valley (TRV), the government is fighting to regain control of the mixed Sunni-Shiite areas up to sixty miles north of the capital, with the northernmost point being the "stop line" at Samarra, beyond which Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki dictated there be no further retreat. This line appears to be holding. Between Samarra and the massive army depot at Taji, on Baghdad's northern flank, the federal government is contesting insurgents' control by using its ground and aerial forces, seeking to maintain highway lines of control to Samarra. 2. Diyala River valley. To the northeast of Baghdad, in the Diyala River valley (DRV) and adjacent corridors, the government is fighting to protect Sunni-Shiite areas on the main highway between Baghdad and the Iranian border. The Badr Organization, an Iran-backed paramilitary group, has historically maintained a close focus on Diyala and today dominates Iraqi military and police paramilitary forces in the province. Baquba, the provincial capital, is now under attack from insurgents led by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). 3. Western Baghdad "belts". In Baghdad's outer suburbs to the west (Falluja, Karma, Abu Ghraib) and the south (Jurf al-Sakhar, Arab Jabour), ISIS-led forces are probing the capital's defenses, and other militant groups are periodically shelling Baghdad International Airport. The insurgents seem to have lifted the government's siege of Falluja, but for now nearby Ramadi remains loosely under combined federal and provincial government control. 4, The Kurdish front. The Kurdish peshmerga have moved into the disputed districts claimed by both Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), filling the vacuum left by collapsing Iraqi army units. Though the Kurds are mostly holding back from attacking ISIS, they have inherited areas such as Jalula where ISIS was fighting the Iraqi army and regularly killing Kurdish civilians before the uprising. Skirmishes meanwhile have been reported all along the KRG's new front line, and a number of Kurdish troops have been reported killed in social media martyrdom statements. 5. Jazirah and Mosul. In the upper TRV and the Jazirah desert abutting Syria, the insurgents are consolidating their position in the absence of government forces. However, in Bayji, an oil-refining center, and Tal Afar, a large Shiite Turkmen town west of Mosul, the government still holds pockets of terrain and is reinforcing its outposts with small contingents of air-transported Iraqi special forces. More in the article. They try to answer the big "if": If Iraq's government makes painful compromises to win back Sunni Arab and Kurdish support, U.S. security cooperation with Iraq will increase, as evidenced in President Barack Obama's speech today. Posted by: Squinty 2014-06-20 |
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