Baghdad/Washington: The United States is quietly rushing dozens of Hellfire missiles and low-tech surveillance drones to Iraq to help government forces combat an explosion of violence by an Al Qaida-backed insurgency that is gaining territory in both western Iraq and neighbouring Syria.
The move follows an appeal for help in battling the extremist group by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, who met with President Barack Obama in Washington last month.
But some military experts question whether the patchwork response will be sufficient to reverse the sharp downturn in security that has already led to the deaths of more than 8,000 Iraqis this year, 952 of them Iraqi security force members, according to the United Nations, the highest level of violence since 2008.
Al Qaida’s regional affiliate, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, has become a potent force in northern and western Iraq. Riding in armed convoys, the group has intimidated towns, assassinated local officials and, in an episode last week, used suicide bombers and hidden explosives to kill the commander of the Iraqi army’s 7th Division and more than a dozen of his officers and soldiers as they raided an Al Qaida training camp near Rutbah.
Three bombings on Christmas in Christian areas of Baghdad, which killed more than two dozen people, bore the hallmarks of an Al Qaida operation.
The surge in violence stands in sharp contrast to earlier assurances from senior Obama administration officials that Iraq was on the right path, despite the failure of US and Iraqi officials in 2011 to negotiate an agreement for a limited number of US forces to remain in Iraq.
In a March 2012 speech, Antony Blinken, who is currently Obama’s deputy national security adviser, asserted that “Iraq today is less violent” than “at any time in recent history”.
In contrast, after a recent spate of especially violent attacks against Iraqi forces, elected officials and civilians, Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, issued a strongly worded statement on Sunday warning that the Al Qaida affiliate is “seeking to gain control of territory inside the borders of Iraq.”
Pledging that steps would be taken to strengthen Iraqi forces, Psaki noted that the Al Qaida affiliate was a “common enemy of the United States and the Republic of Iraq and a threat to the greater Middle East region.”
But the counterterrorism effort the United States is undertaking with Iraq has its limits.
Iraq’s foreign minister has floated the idea of having US-operated, armed Predator or Reaper drones respond to the expanding militant network. But Al Maliki, who is positioning himself to run for a third term as prime minister and who is sensitive to nationalist sentiment at home, has not formally requested such intervention.
No support
The idea of carrying out such drone attacks, which might prompt the question of whether the Obama administration has succeeded in bringing the Iraq War to what the president has called a “responsible end”, also appears to have no support in the White House.
“We have not received a formal request for US-operated armed drones operating over Iraq, nor are we planning to divert armed ISR over Iraq,” said Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, referring to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions.
Meanwhile, cities and towns such as Mosul, Haditha and Baqouba that US forces fought to control during the 2007 and 2008 troop surge have been the scene of bloody Al Qaida attacks.
Using extortion and playing on Sunni grievances against Al Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government, the Al Qaida affiliate is largely self-financing. One Iraqi politician, who asked not to be named to avoid retaliation, said Al Qaida militants had even begun to extort money from shopkeepers in Ramadi, Anbar’s provincial capital.
A number of factors are helping the Al Qaida affiliate. The terrorist group took advantage of the departure of US forces to rebuild its operations in Iraq and push into Syria. Now that it has established a strong foothold in Syria, it is in turn using its base there to send suicide bombers into Iraq at a rate of 30 to 40 a month, using them against Shiites but also against Sunnis who are reluctant to cede control.
The brutal tactics, some experts say, may expose Al Qaida to a Sunni backlash, much as in 2006 and 2007 when Sunni tribes aligned themselves with US forces against the Al Qaida extremists.
But Al Maliki’s failure to share power with Sunni leaders, some Iraqis say, has also provided a fertile recruiting ground.
Haitham Abdullah Al Jubouri, a 40-year-old government employee in Baqouba, said that “the policy of the sectarian government” had “contributed to the influx of desperate young elements from the Sunni community to the ranks of Al Qaida.”
— New York Times News Service
