Tag Archives: Iraq

Iraq’s Air Force: Incompetent or Intentionally Cruel?

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The main difference between the Syrian Air Force and the Iraqi Air Force seems at first glance to be intentionality versus pure incompetence. They’re using the same tactics, but the Syrian regime is obviously doing it on purpose, whereas the Iraqi government — one could argue — just can’t be bothered to be more careful and probably lacks the training to do so.

However, it doesn’t really matter about training (or intent) when the main problem is using exploding barrels instead of proper bombs. No guidance system, no guarantee of immediate explosion (i.e. ongoing risk), and they’ve been bombing areas that don’t even have ISIS fighters present. Recently, while resenting political heat from his erstwhile Western backers, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki openly praised the Syrian Air Force and the Syrian regime for its actions against ISIS.

The Human Rights Watch video below shows the aftermath — and presents eyewitness accounts — of barrel-bombing raids this past June on Fallujah, a western Iraqi city that was a hotbed of Sunni resistance after the U.S. invasion in 2003:

Screen Shot 2014-08-08 at 2.15.23 AM

 
Fallujah fell to ISIS, at least temporarily, as early as January of this year, and the Maliki government strongly hinted at the time that they blamed the residents for the city’s capture — and viewed them as collaborators against Baghdad. The city is now facing what amounts to collective punishment. But is this policy intentional or just really inept?

As I noted yesterday, even when the Iraqi Air Force attempts to hit actual ISIS targets — in the most recent case an ISIS-run court that was holding 50 prisoners, probably from the Iraqi military or anti-ISIS paramilitary forces — they are just appallingly awful at their jobs.

Iraqi airstrikes didn’t even make it past day 1 without indiscriminately obliterating big clusters of people who weren’t the intended target because the air force lacks the training — and desire — to be more careful or conscientious about their target selection. Killing 50 prisoners from your own side, while trying to liberate them by way of airstrikes, is not a smooth move.

 
That instance was probably an accident, even if an altogether unsurprising one. But the seemingly random aerial targeting of northern and western Sunni-majority cities and towns with crude and improvised bombs, throughout 2014 (even before the fall of Mosul to ISIS), seems to point to a much more serious total lack of regard for the lives of Iraq’s sectarian minorities by the Maliki government and perhaps even an active desire to do them harm.

A one-time accident would be one thing. Repeated attacks on populated areas, without real evidence of militant presence, and without any effort whatsoever to reduce casualties or even to use real munitions, suggests an intent to repay alleged rebellious behavior in-kind, just as the Alawite-run/Shia-supported dictatorship in neighboring Syria has done repeatedly throughout its civil war. Small wonder Maliki has such kind words for their model actions.

And that is exactly what many observers were trying to raise earlier this year about the heavy-handed and Shia-supremacist government he was running. The Iraqi government, as currently run and led, is its own biggest enemy. Without a major sea change, popular anger and resentment will continue to fuel disunity, separatism, and sectarian violence.

Kurds say US airstrikes have begun in Iraq tonight

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In an effort likely aimed at rescuing 50,000 starving Yazidi Kurd civilians trapped by ISIS on Mount Sinjar, Kurdish commanders say the U.S. has started airstrikes tonight on ISIS positions, in coordination with Kurdish peshmerga troops. The mountain, which is a Yazidi holy site near the Syrian border, is outside the normal zone of control of the Kurdish Regional Government and is virtually surrounded by the forces of Islamic State (of Syria & Iraq), following the recent Kurdish retreats.

From the New York Times:

An announcement on Kurdish television of what was described as an American intervention prompted street celebrations and horn-honking by residents of towns under siege by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Anwar Haji Osman, deputy minister of the pesh merga, the Kurdish military force, said in the televised statement that his forces had been in contact with the Americans and that the bombings had been carried out by fighter jets.

Kurdish officials said the bombings had initially targeted ISIS fighters who had seized two towns, Gwer and Mahmour, near the main Kurdish city of Erbil. A top Iraqi official in Baghdad close to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said that the Americans had consulted with the Iraqi government Thursday night about starting the campaign, the government had agreed and the bombing had begun.

 

Location of Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq. (Credit: Urutseg on Wikimedia)

Location of Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq. (Credit: Urutseg on Wikimedia)

The Pentagon is denying the reports of U.S. airstrikes there — though the Obama Administration has confirmed plans to drop food and supplies for the refugees — and tried to shift credit on to the Turkish military or Iraqi Air Force. While Turkey’s foreign minister did announce a food drop via helicopter, the government has denied conducting any airstrikes.

And although Iraq’s airforce has indeed been conducting airstrikes, they have already proven themselves far too incompetent to be responsible for the precision strikes near Sinjar. Iraqi airstrikes didn’t even make it past day 1 without indiscriminately obliterating big clusters of people who weren’t the intended target because the air force lacks the training — and desire — to be more careful or conscientious about their target selection. Killing 50 prisoners from your own side, while trying to liberate them by way of airstrikes, is not a smooth move.

The likeliest scenario is that this is a United States humanitarian intervention air campaign to try to rescue the Yazidis, a shrinking minority sect who have faced full-blown extermination campaigns by various factions more than 70 times in history. (Update, 8/8/14: The United States confirmed Friday morning that they had initiated airstrikes against ISIS missile launchers that were threatening Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish Regional Government. President Obama vowed to defend Erbil, a longtime U.S. ally city in northeastern Iraq, from any efforts by ISIS to move on it.)

In other news, the town of Qaraqosh also has fallen to ISIS and Christians are having to flee as the Kurdish Peshmerga troops fell back again. The town was one of the big centers of Iraq’s Christian populations. Earlier today, the UN claimed that the 50,000 trapped Yazidis were successfully and safely broken out, but US and most UK media outlets (following the lead of the US government) say they are still there. On another front, newly ISIS-aligned rebel forces in Syria struck at Lebanese military posts on the border, in retaliation for their failure to stop Hezbollah’s cross-border activities in support of the Syrian regime.

ISIS rolls back Kurdish forces in Iraq. What’s next?

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ISIS — now known as “Islamic State” following its recent declaration of establishment — just won a significant operation against what is arguably Iraq’s most effective fighting force, the Kurdish Peshmerga paramilitaries. So, everything is probably really about to go sideways now.

The immediate loss of two more towns is another destabilizing and demoralizing blow:

The Islamic State captured the northern towns of Sinjar and Zumar on Saturday, prompting an estimated 40,000 from the minority Yazidi sect to flee, said Jawhar Ali Begg, a spokesman for the community.
[…]
“Their towns are now controlled by [Islamic State] and their shrine has been blown up,” Begg told The Associated Press. The group gave the Yazidis, who follow an ancient religion with links to Zoroastrianism, an ultimatum to convert to Islam, pay a tax or face death, Begg added.

 

But perhaps worse, through this operation, ISIS captured another northern oil field (number 5 in Iraq, not to mention their Syrian oil and gas fields), as well as the largest dam in all of Iraq, the massive hydroelectric Mosul Dam on the Tigris River. With every flare-up in violence or war since the 1986, there have been persistent fears that someone will intentionally blow it up to cause torrential and lethal downstream flooding in many major Iraqi cities.

The Kurdish troops, who retreated in the face of the ISIS advance after some fighting, assert that they were hung out to dry — not even getting sufficient ammunition assistance — by the central government of Iraq, which has been simultaneously blasting their separatist tendencies and explicitly relying upon them to “hold the line” against ISIS while they figure out what the do. The Kurds have been responsible for protecting thousands of refugees fleeing the city of Mosul, the center of ISIS operations in Iraq.
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Tomb of the Prophet Jonah blown up outside Mosul

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In the continuing battle over the religious future of the city of Mosul, the modern heir to the Biblical city of Nineveh, the Tomb of Jonah (also known as the Mosque of the Prophet Yunus, after his Arabic name) was blown up today. Video showed the structure being completely leveled by explosives.

The Mosque, previously a Church and originally part of an Assyrian palace complex, was supposed to be the burial ground of the 8th Century BCE prophet most famous for being swallowed by a fish when he tried to avoid going to Nineveh to preach. Today the area is a suburb of Mosul, which lies across the river from where Nineveh stood.

Government officials blamed ISIS for the attack, which seems to be the case. It was not immediately obvious exactly why the extremist Sunni Islamist would target a Sunni Mosque of significance to the core of Islam. Jonah/Yunus is one of the crossover figures from the Hebrew Bible, Christian Old Testament, and Quran.

However, ISIS has reportedly destroyed a number of other Sunni Mosques in Mosul already since capturing it in June, perhaps to remove competition against their hardline views.

Less than a week ago, ISIS expelled all the Christians from the city for the first time in 18 centuries.

Video still seconds after detonation of the minaret and building complex. Watch

Video still, seconds after detonation of the minaret and building complex. Watch

Mosul empty of Christians for first time in over 18 centuries

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Al-Arabiya and AFP are reporting that the city of Mosul’s Christian community, dating to the 2nd Century CE, has evacuated en masse to Iraqi Kurdistan in the past 48 hours, following a specific threat of extermination from ISIS. Although it’s possible some members are still hiding in the city, the leaders of the close-knit and small community believe everyone is gone. Some who had pre-emptively fled when the city fell to ISIS in early June had tentatively returned, hoping for the best, but today the evacuations appeared definitive and total.

Christians have fled Iraq’s northern city of Mosul en masse before a Saturday deadline issued by the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) for them to either convert to Islam, pay tax, leave or be killed.
[…]
Patriarch Louis Sako told AFP on Friday: “Christian families are on their way to Dohuk and Arbil,” in the neighboring autonomous region of Kurdistan. “For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians,” he said.

Witnesses said messages telling Christians to leave the city by Saturday were blared through loudspeakers from the city’s mosques Friday.
[…]
“We were shocked by the distribution of a statement by the Islamic State calling on Christians to convert to Islam, or to pay unspecified tribute, or to leave their city and their homes taking only their clothes and no luggage, and that their homes would then belong to the Islamic State,” Sako said.

 
It remains to be seen if any of the community will return if ISIS is ever dislodged from Mosul in the near future, but they may not have homes to return to. In past waves of emigration of ethnic and religious minorities from the city, especially under the intentional policies of Saddam Hussein, abandoned homes have quickly been taken over by Sunni Arabs.

For the past 18-19 centuries, Mosul was the continuous center of Iraq’s Assyrian Christian ethno-religious community, despite basically every war in regional history coming through. The community was a diverse set of old school (2nd century CE) Middle Eastern Christian sects within the Assyrian/Syriac/Chaldean ethnicity, whose members still speak and read Aramaic, one of the most important language families in Middle Eastern ancient and classical history, as well as across multiple religions.

St. Elijah's Monastery, near Mosul, a site dating to 595 CE, seen here in 2005. (Credit: Doug - Wikimedia)

St. Elijah’s Monastery, near Mosul, a site dating to 595 CE, seen here in 2005. (Credit: Doug – Wikimedia)

Unfortunately, most of Iraq’s Assyrians had been fleeing the city and country since the 2003 invasion, even before the latest — and perhaps final — crisis, with ISIS.

The city has long been a holdout against sectarian pressures until now. Mosul became the regional capital of what is now Iraq under the 7th century Umayyad Caliphate (an early Muslim dynasty), even as it remained a major — even rising — Christian city. It also maintained a significant Jewish population well into and past the era of the Crusades.
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Why is the UN not in the Iraq intervention discussions?

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In a new op-ed in Al Jazeera, Vartan Oskanian suggests that Iraq is ripe for a multilateral intervention against ISIS under the aegis of the United Nations. Oskanian, who served from 1998 to 2008 as Foreign Minister of Armenia and originally hails from Syria, is a longtime proponent of multilateralism in the Middle East and the world in general. He was one of the key figures in finagling post-Soviet Armenia’s (unusual) diplomatic position to be partially integrated with Europe and NATO but still strategically allied with and supported by Russia, without making everyone mad (a position Ukrainians right about now are probably wishing they could have secured).

In the essay, Oskanian outlines a number of reasons the UN should be involved, condemns the failure of everyone’s unilateralism in the region, and discusses the success of George H.W. Bush’s delimited intervention in Iraq with a multilateral coalition — and Soviet support. He also identifies some points where the Americans and Russians of today could cooperate in Iraq after the new low point reached in relations during the Crimea/Eastern Ukraine crises of this year.

One point that didn’t really come up in the essay is that this is one rare time when Russia and the United States both oppose the same faction, operating in two different countries. And China also isn’t a fan of non-state actors (and specifically jihadists) seizing large territories and oil fields. Usually, in the past 2 decades, vetoes from Russia or China (or both) have been the sticking point on suggested interventions in places.

But despite their discontent over alleged NATO overreach after they agreed to let an intervention resolution on Libya slide through in 2011, neither of them wants to see ISIS taking over parts of the region — which is the same position as the United States. Russia is selling military technology to both the Syrian and Iraqi governments already to help fight ISIS, and the the U.S. which doesn’t really support either government anymore still doesn’t want ISIS to gain strength within either country.

So why wouldn’t the 5 Major Powers (those with veto power) all agree on some kind of intervention — even a very limited one, probably in Iraq only — if it were brought to the UN Security Council? I mean, maybe they actually wouldn’t, but isn’t it worth trying? (That is, worth trying, if an intervention is going to happen at all. I don’t support such an intervention, but if it’s going to happen, it shouldn’t been unilateral.)

That in turn raises a good question. Why isn’t the UN even mentioned (publicly) in the US discussions on intervening in Iraq? Not even by the Obama Administration, which came into office rejecting the war and purporting to embrace international norms and multilateralism. Has everyone just totally given up on getting cooperation with Russia on anything ever again, at the UN or anywhere else? That’s going to get pretty self-fulfilling pretty quickly. Or has the administration just gone full unilateralist on us all?

Credit: NordNordWest, Spesh531 - Wikimedia

ISIS control on June 12, 2014. Credit: NordNordWest, Spesh531 – Wikimedia

Maliki appears to fully switch foreign alliances

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Maliki, having been dumped by the Americans, enthusiastically announced the purchase of military jets from Russia and welcomed airstrikes by the Assad regime in Syria on Iraqi border positions held by ISIS rebels.

It sound as if he has thrown himself in with the Russian and Syrian governments, who are already allied with Iran, his primary benefactor, in the Syrian civil war and on the nuclear issue.