US plans to prepare Iraqi troops for spring offensive on IS powerbase, Mosul, but Kurdish leader says progress will depend on resolving political and sectarian differences to provide a unified front against IS
US air support and pledges of weapons and training for Iraq’s army have raised expectations of a counter-offensive soon against the Islamic State (IS), but sectarian rifts will hamper efforts to forge a military strategy and may delay a full-scale assault.
The Shi’ite-led Iraq government relies on Shi’ite militias and Kurdish peshmerga to contain the Sunni IS militants – a dependence which underlines and may even exacerbate the sectarian rivalry which opened the door for the summer offensive.
According to US newspapers, officials in Washington have said the Americans’ training mission aims to prepare Iraqi troops for a spring offensive to retake territory, including Mosul, the powerbase of IS. However, Hemin Hawrami, an official close to Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, reportedly said Iraqi forces would not be ready to take the fight to Mosul until late 2015, adding that IS will have to be degraded in Syria as well and it could take years to do so.
He said progress depended on government willingness “to reorganise the army, how quickly they can solve political issues with us and the Sunnis, (and) how quick the coalition will be in providing heavy arms to peshmerga and the Iraqi army”.
SOME VICTORIES:
The Iraqi army, Shi’ite militias and Kurdish fighters have made some gains against IS, pushing back an advance toward Kurdish territory in August and last week recapturing towns in Diyala province, on the road from Baghdad to Iran.
The leader of the pro-Iranian Shi’ite Badr Organisation said they would turn next to the Sunni provinces of Salahuddin and Anbar before moving towards Mosul.
“We are counting on the support of Sunni tribal fighters. If they join, our victory is certain,” Hadi al-Amiri reportedly said.
Amiri said he expected to get weapons from the Iraqi government, which may allocate a quarter of next year’s $100 billion budget to the military, and also from the $1.6 billion of arms and training which Washington plans to deliver.
LONG WAR:
Iraqi authorities also aim to overcome the deep rifts between Shi’ites, Sunni Arabs, Kurds and other groups by absorbing local fighters into a state-funded National Guard, but the role of that force remains undecided.
Moreover, Iraq government adviser Zuhair al-Chalabi has said, “The (Iraqi) army is in no shape to surge north and Mosul’s mainly Sunni residents would resist a campaign by Shi’ite militias alone”.
Instead, a combined force of army soldiers, Sunni tribes, Kurdish peshmerga and Shi’ite fighters must be assembled – and the open border with IS territory in Syria sealed, he said, adding that there is a plan “but it can’t be implemented that quickly”.
Iraq Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari said IS was losing the ability to conduct major ground combat because that exposed it to air strikes.
Zebari, a Kurd, declined to give details of the military strategies of either the Baghdad government or the semi-autonomous Kurdish authorities, but said “planning and coordination are already under way” for the battle for Mosul.
Meanwhile, US is setting up four training camps for Iraq’s 80,000-strong armed forces – two around Baghdad, one in the Kurdish city of Arbil and the fourth in Anbar. Washington has also set out plans to provide body armor and guns to 45,000 soldiers, 15,000 Kurdish peshmerga and 5,000 Sunni tribal forces.
A Western diplomat in Baghdad said the training might take six months, with the first round complete in late spring. The fighting was likely to stretch into 2016, he said, adding that without control over the border, IS fighters could slip away and regroup in Syria.
