Irbil -
Iraq government forces and Shi’a militias on Tuesday launched a renewed operation to remove ISIS from Anbar province following the humiliating loss of the provincial capital, Ramadi, last week.
The announcement of the offensive came after the Iraqi Prime Minister, Haidar al-Abadi, said Iraqi forces would retake Ramadi within days.
ISIS now controls much of Iraq's western Anbar province which borders Syria, where the group also seized the city of Palmyra last week.
Karim al-Nouri, spokesman and commander with the Shi’a Badr organisation, told The Independent by phone from the battlefield that the Anbar operation began early yesterday and that troops were heading toward Ramadi from three sides, but were not yet close.
He added that militiamen are fighting alongside the Iraqi army. “Our morale is high,” he added as gunfire could be heard in the background.
A spokesman for the predominantly Shi’a popular mobilisation forces known as Hashid Shaabi said the Anbar operation was being led by their forces alongside the army, and added that it will “not take long”.
Ahmed al-Assadi said: “The operation's goal is to liberate those regions between Saladin and Anbar and try to isolate the province of Anbar.” He added that the goal was to open a route for pro-government forces to reach Anbar across the desert from the Tigris valley province of Saladin.
The fall to ISIS of Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad, was a huge blow for Iraqi forces and forced the government to allow Shi’a militias to join the battle for the province. But their deployment in majority Sunni Anbar has raised fears of sectarian attacks. Human rights groups have reported abuses by Shi’a militias in other liberated areas of Iraq, a charge they deny.
Amid these fears, the openly sectarian name of the new operation was seen by many as a bad omen.
The title for the operation, Labayk Ya Hussein (At your service, O Hussein), is a term of respect for a revered figure in Shi’a Islam, whose death in a seventh-century battle is one of the main points of schism between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims.
The Iraqi government forces have come under huge pressure in the fight against ISIS, despite their greater numbers.
In Ramadi, 200 ISIS fighters are believed to have taken the city from 10 times that number of government forces.
Following the Ramadi defeat, the US Defence Secretary, Ash Carter, enraged Iraqi politicians by saying the Iraqi army had showed “no will to fight”, with Mr Abadi saying he had the “wrong information”. On Monday the US Vice-President, Joe Biden, called Mr Abadi to stress Washington's support for Iraq in the face of ISIS assaults.
On Tuesday a Pentagon spokesman, Colonel Steve Warren, said problems that had led to the fall of Ramadi included “both low morale amongst the troops” and problems within the Iraqi military command structure.
The United Nations in Iraq said on Monday that close to 55 000 people have fled fighting in Ramadi, most of them heading towards Baghdad. It expressed concern that some were being stopped at checkpoints, forcing them to return to the conflict zone.
Another 5 000 families are expected to arrive in the next few days, it said.
The Independent