Saturday, June 14, 2014
مقتل سبعة من عناصر حزب الله في سوريا
كشف حزب الله اللبناني عن مقتل سبعة من عناصره أثناء تأديتهم ما وصفه بالواجب الجهادي، وهي عبارة يستخدمها الحزب لنعي القتلى من عناصره في سوريا.
وأفاد مراسل الجزيرة في لبنان بأن عناصر الحزب قتلوا خلال
الساعات الـ24 الماضية خلال الهجوم الذي شنته قوات المعارضة السورية على
مزارع رنكوس في القلمون بريف دمشق، في محاولة لاستعادة السيطرة عليها.
وكان حزب الله قد نعى نهاية الشهر الماضي مسؤولا عسكريا في
الحزب يدعى فوزي أيوب قضى خلال "أداء واجبه الجهادي" على حد وصف الحزب، في
إشارة إلى مقتله بسوريا.
ويعتبر أيوب من المسؤولين العسكريين البارزين في حزب الله، وكان قد اعتقل من قبل جيش الاحتلال الإسرائيلي في الضفة الغربية مع بدء الانتفاضة الفلسطينية عام 2000، ثم أفرج عنه بعد عملية تبادل أسرى مع الحزب عام 2004.
ويشارك حزب الله في الحرب السورية إلى جانب قوات النظام، وقد سقط من أفراده المئات حيث تشير بعض التقديرات إلى أن عدد قتلى الحزب في سوريا تجاوز ألف شخص.
وسبق لرئيس الحزب التقدمي الاشتراكي اللبناني وليد جنبلاط أن هاجم الأسبوع الماضي حزب الله، ووصف قراره بدخول سوريا ومشاركته في الحرب إلى جانب الرئيس بشار الأسد بأنه قرار خاطئ تاريخيا وأخلاقيا تجاه الشعب السوري.
وقال جنبلاط في مقابلة مع وكالة أسوشيتد برس إن حزب الله تدخل
في سوريا دون أن يضع اعتبارا للرأي العام اللبناني، وأضاف أن الحرب في هذا
البلد ستستمر طويلا، "وكان يجب على هذا الحزب بدلا من التدخل في سوريا أن
يركز على عدوه الرئيسي إسرائيل".
Current Al-Jazeera (Arabic) Online Poll
Is what is taking place in Iraq a revolution (uprising)?
So far, 87% have voted yes.
THE ALLMIGHTY MESS IN IRAQ
By Eric Margolis
June 14, 2014
The late Saddam Hussein was certainly right when he predicted that America’s invasion of Iraq would become “the Mother of All Battles.” Eleven years later, it continues.
This week saw the collapse of two divisions of Iraq’s government army, a full 30,000 men running like chickens before the relentless advance of the fighters of ISIS – the Islamic State of Iraq and Shams (Syria). The same puppet army trained and equipped for a decade by the US at a cost of $14 billion. An evil portent of what awaits Afghanistan’s US-led army and police.
Remember when President George W. Bush boasted, “mission accomplished?” Was not the wicked Saddam Hussein lynched by US Shia allies? Wasn’t the dreaded al-Qaida defeated and its leader, Osama bin Laden, assassinated? Remember all that crowing from Washington about “draining the swamp” in Iraq?
As soon as the US knocks down one challenger to its domination of the Mideast – which I call the American Raj – another rises up. The latest: ISIS, a fierce jihadist force that now controls large parts of Syria and Iraq.
ISIS is a combination of Sunni jihadist groups fighting the Shia-backed Damascus government of Bashar Assad( a US enemy backed by Shia Iran), and resurgent units of Saddam’s old Ba’athist army, led by Izzat Ibrahin al-Douri, the last surviving member of Saddam’s inner circle, and a handful of al-Qaida in Iraq.
They are battling to overthrow the US-installed Shia regime in Baghdad of Nuri al-Maliki, an Iranian ally. There are suspicions ISIS may be secretly financed by Sunni Saudi Arabia, a US ally.
Wait a minute. My enemy’s enemy is my friend, as the old Mideast saying goes. The US is trying to overthrow Syria’s secular government to undermine its ally, Iran. The US has been using brutal jihadist groups against the Assad regime in Damascus. But now these jihadists in Syria have mostly fallen under the sway of ISIS – which is chewing up the US-backed regime in Baghdad. Confusing, is it not? My enemy’s enemy has become my friend’s enemy.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq, the stupidest war in US history, which was rousingly backed by Congress and the media, has produced a monumental mess of mind-numbing complexity as Washington trips over its own feet. The ladies advising President Barack Obama on his Mideast policy are hopelessly befuddled.
Washington, now in a major panic over ISIS, is moving towards air strikes against Iraq using warplanes based in Kuwait and the Gulf. The US also has two full mechanized combat brigades in Kuwait. Republicans are calling for US ground forces to re-enter Iraq to shore up the widely detested Maliki regime.
While Washington dithers, its little Kurdish protectorate in northern Iraq is threatening to send its combat-effective ‘pesh merga’ fighters to battle ISIS. But this is making both Turkey, which opposes any Kurdish state, and Iran, with its own Kurdish problem, very uneasy. Iraq used to be part of the Ottoman Empire. Its vast oil reserves are a constant enticement to energy-deprived Turkey.
This awful mess can be directly traced to neoconservative strategists in Washington clustered around Vice President Dick Cheney. In 2002, their primary goal, according to Cheney, was to wreck Iraq, the most industrially advanced and progressive Arab state, so removing a major foe of Israel, and then grabbing Iraq’s oil.
Following the time-tested Roman imperial formula of ‘divide et impera’ (divide and rule), Washington played Iraq’s long downtrodden Shia against its Sunni minority, igniting a wider Sunni-Shia conflict in the Arab world, notably in Syria.
In fact, Israel emerged as the sole strategic victor of the Bush/Cheney war against Iraq. That war, so far, has cost the US 4,500 soldiers killed, 35,700 wounded, 45,000 sick and over $1 trillion. Iraq lies in ruins, likely shattered beyond all attempts to put it back together. No senior American or British official has faced trial for this disastrous, trumped-up war.
Nuri Maliki has totally excluded Sunnis from power in Iraq, and uses brutal secret police and torture to repress them. Small wonder he faces a major uprising. Iraq’s oil-based economy remains in ruins. Many Iraqis believe their now wretched nation was far better off under Saddam Hussein, as brutal and clumsy as he was.
Interestingly, efforts by ISIS to forge an Islamic state in a merged Syria and Iraq is one of the first major challenges to the foul Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916 under which the British and French Empires secretly colluded to divide up the moribund Ottoman Empire’s Mideast domains. Today’s artificial Mideast borders were drawn by the Anglo-French imperialists to impose their rule on the region. Iraq and Syria were the most egregious examples.
ISIS appears set on erasing the British-French borders and re-creating the unified Ottoman province (Turkish: vilyat) of Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. In the West, the neocon-dominated commentariat calls ISIS terrorists. In the Mideast, many see them as anti-colonial fighters struggling to reunite the Arab world sundered and splintered by the western powers. The western powers are now preparing to strike back.
copyright Eric S. Margolis 2014
PARTNERS WITH THE GREAT SATAN: Iran says envisages Iraq role with U.S. if Washington tackles regional militants
(Reuters) - Iran could contemplate cooperating with its old adversary the United States on restoring security to Iraq if it saw Washington confronting "terrorist groups in Iraq and elsewhere", Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday.
Rouhani, a pragmatist who has presided over a thaw in Iran's relations with the West, also said Tehran was unlikely to send forces to Iraq but stood ready to provide help within the framework of international law. Baghdad has not requested such assistance, he added.
Shi'ite Muslim Iran has been alarmed by the seizure this week of several major northern Iraqi towns by Sunni Islamist insurgent forces and their sweep southward to within an hour's drive of Baghdad, and not far from the Iranian border.
"We all should practically and verbally confront terrorist groups," Rouhani told a news conference broadcast live on state television.
Asked if Tehran would work with Washington in tackling the advances by Sunni insurgents in Iraq, he replied: "We can think about it if we see America starts confronting the terrorist groups in Iraq or elsewhere."
Fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) are bent on recreating a mediaeval caliphate spanning territory they have carved out in fragmenting Iraq and Syria, where it has exploited a power vacuum in the midst of civil war.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters earlier this week that Tehran, which has strong leverage in Shi'ite-majority Iraq, may be ready to cooperate with Washington in helping Baghdad fight back against the jihadist ISIL rebels. (Full Story)
The official said the idea of cooperating with the Americans was being discussed within the Tehran leadership. For now, according to Iranian media, Iran will send advisers and weaponry, although probably not troops, to boost Baghdad.
NOT SENDING TROOPS
"Iran has never dispatched any forces to Iraq and it is very unlikely it will ever happen," Rouhani told Saturday's news conference.
Western diplomats suspect Iran has in the past sent some of its Revolutionary Guards, a hardline force that works in parallel with the army, to train and advise the Iraqi army or its militia allies.
Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, quoted by Fars news agency, said: "Supporting the Iraqi government and nation doe not mean sending troops to Iraq. It means condemning terrorist acts and closing and safeguarding our joint borders."
In Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama said he was reviewing military options, short of sending combat troops, to help Iraq repel the insurgency but warned any U.S. action must be accompanied by an Iraqi government effort to bridge divisions between Shi'ite and Sunni communities. (Full Story)
U.S. officials said there were no contacts going on with Iran over the crisis in Iraq.
Rouhani said he was not aware of any American plans for Iraq or whether Washington wanted to help Baghdad.
"If the Iraqi government and nation ask for our help, we will review it. So far there has not been such a request," he added. "We are ready to help in the framework of international regulations and laws."
Rouhani said "terrorist groups" were getting financial and political backing and weaponry from some regional countries and some powerful Western states.
He named no countries, but was alluding in part to Sunni Gulf Arabs who Iran suspects has funnelled support to ISIL.
"Where did ISIL come from? Who is funding this terrorist group? We had warned everyone, including the West, about the danger of backing such a terrorist and reckless group."
Gulf Arab governments deny any role in backing ISIL, noting that the group has long battled Saudi Arabia's allies among other Sunni rebel factions in Syria.
Saudi Arabia last month designated ISIL a terrorist organisation, conveying its concern that young Saudis hardened by battle could come home to target the ruling Al Saud royal family - as happened after earlier wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Iran sends troops into Iraq to aid fight against Isis militants
Tehran and Washington form fragile alliance to aid Nouri al-Maliki as jihadist group threatens to take Baghdad
Iraqi security forces and volunteers on the outskirts of Diyala province. Photograph: Reuters
Iran has sent 2,000 advance troops to Iraq in the past 48 hours to help tackle a jihadist insurgency, a senior Iraqi official has told the Guardian.
The confirmation comes as the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, said Iran was ready to support Iraq from the mortal threat fast spreading through the country, while the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, called on ordinary Iraqis to take up arms in their country's defence.
Addressing the nation on Saturday, Maliki said rebels from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) have given "an incentive to the army and to Iraqis to act bravely". His call to arms came after reports surfaced that hundreds of young men were flocking to volunteer centres across Baghdad to join the fight against Isis.
Rouhani also made reference to the fact Tehran was cooperating with its old enemy Washington to defeat the Sunni insurgent group – which is attempting to ignite a sectarian war beyond Iraq's borders.
The Iraqi official said 1,500 basiji forces had crossed the border into the town of Khanaqin, in Diyala province, in central Iraq on Friday, while another 500 had entered the Badra Jassan area in Wasat province overnight. The Guardian confirmed on Friday that Major General Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards elite Quds Force, had arrived in Baghdad to oversee the defence of the capital.
There is growing evidence in Baghdad of Shia militias continuing to reorganise, with some heading to the central city of Samarra, 70 miles (110km) north of the capital, to defend two Shia shrines from Sunni jihadist groups surrounding them.
The volunteers signing up were responding to a call by Iraq's most revered Shia cleric, the Iranian-born grand ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to defend their country after Isis seized Mosul and Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit in a lightning advance. Samarra is now the next town in the Islamists' path to Baghdad.
"Citizens who can carry weapons and fight the terrorists in defence of their country, its people and its holy sites should volunteer and join the security forces," Sheik Abdul-Mahdi al-Karbalaie, Sistani's representative, said on Friday in a sermon at the holy Shia city of Kerbala.
He warned that Iraq faced great danger and that fighting the militants "is everybody's responsibility, and is not limited to one specific sect or group," Associated Press reported. Karbalaie's comments have consistently been thought to reflect Sistani's views.
A colonel from the military command responsible for Samarra said Iraqi security forces were preparing a counter-offensive on Saturday. The army colonel, whom Maliki announced had been granted "unlimited powers" by the Iraqi cabinet, said reinforcements from the federal police and army arrived on Friday, according to AFP.
The officer said the reinforcements were for a drive against areas north of the city, including Dur and Tikrit, that militants seized in a spectacular assault this week. Security forces were awaiting orders to begin, the colonel said.
Sunni residents of west Baghdad said on Saturday that they had been menaced by Shia militias who taunted them with anti-Sunni chants. Baghdad has remained in virtual lockdown for the past three days as jihadists from the Isis threatened to storm the capital. However, Saturday morning saw relative normality return to deserted streets, with many residents returning to shops to gather stockpiles.
Residents of the capital offered little reaction to Barack Obama's statement late on Friday on which he appeared to condition renewed US military support on Iraqi leaders first making efforts to pull the country back from the brink.
The US and Iran, foes throughout the US occupation of Iraq, share a common interest in defeating Isis, and Iran has so far expressed no opposition to US threats to send military support to the beleaguered Maliki.
Meanwhile, Willaim Hague has held talks with the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, "urgently to co-ordinate approaches to the instability in Iraq and links to Syria conflict", he said on Twitter. Britain is also to give £3m ($5.1m) of aid to Iraq as the first step in dealing with the humanitarian consequences of the insurgency by Isis.
The international development secretary, Justine Greening, said the initial tranche of emergency funding would allow agencies to supply water, sanitation, medicine, hygiene kits and basic household items
Friday, June 13, 2014
Iraqi military breakdown fueled by corruption, politics
Fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) celebrate on vehicles taken from Iraqi security forces, at a street in city of Mosul, June 12, 2014.
CREDIT: REUTERS/STRINGER
(Reuters) - The Iraqi army that disintegrated under an onslaught by Islamist fighters this week was a hollow force, riven by corruption, poor leadership and sectarian splits - a shadow of the military Washington had hoped to leave in the war-ravaged country.
The United States dismantled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's military after invading in 2003 and spent $20 billion to build up a new 800,000-strong force, banking on its ability to keep the peace when the U.S. military withdrew in 2011.
While the 2003 decision to disband Iraq's army led to a bloody civil war, Iraqi forces were seen as generally competent by 2011 and sectarian fighting had eased, giving U.S. PresidentBarack Obama some confidence as he pulled out all American forces.
But corruption sapped funds meant for soldiers' rations, for maintaining vehicles and for fuel, said an Iraqi officer in Sunni-dominated Anbar Province, parts of which have been out of government control for more than six months. Senior military posts are frequently for sale, and soldiers go to local markets to buy spare parts because government stores are empty, he said.
The Iraqi force has also been heavily politicized under Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said Retired Lieutenant General Jim Dubik, who led the U.S. and NATO effort to train Iraqi forces from 2007 to 2008.
"Their leadership has eroded," said Dubik, who is now a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington. "If you're a fighter and you think your side's going to lose, you don't fight until the last man. You save yourself."
A former U.S. official in Iraq said poor treatment of rank-and-file soldiers by their superiors contributed to mass desertions. "These guys, these units are demoralized. They are underpaid and ripped off constantly by their commanding officers, who steal their allowances and use their commands as a way to build a personal nest egg,” the former official said.
A HOLLOW ARMY
Apart from a few standout units, such as special forces who have borne the brunt of the fighting, "it's a hollow army," the former official said.
The performance of the Iraqi forces was far from perfect even before the U.S. pullout. Endemic problems of fraud in military contracting, extortion at checkpoints, and the padding of rosters with non-existent soldiers were things the U.S. military was never able to solve and sometimes ignored.
The collapse this week started at the top with the senior-most commanders abandoning their positions early on Tuesday morning as black-clad fighters of the radical Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) swept into the country's second city of Mosul.
Mosul's defenders held up well for three days until late Monday evening, but over the next few hours the force imploded, with the senior commander for all of Nineveh province, Mahdi Garawi, fleeing.
The commander of Iraq's ground forces, General Ali Ghaidan, and the vice chief of army staff, Lieutenant General Abboud Qanbar, also abandoned their posts, according to an Iraqi official and a Western security expert.
The entire military structure deployed by the Shi'ite government in Baghdad to protect the north and west melted away before the well-armed Sunni rebels, who had been advancing for weeks across the rocky, dusty flatlands of western Iraq.
"There’s no question there was a breakdown, a structural breakdown, in Mosul," Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said in Washington.
CAPTURED U.S. EQUIPMENT
The Sunni rebel advance engulfed towns and cities, allowing them to seize weapons and other equipment, much of it supplied by the United States. Two days after the fall of Mosul, ISIL militants staged a parade of American Humvee patrol cars.
Eyewitnesses said they saw two helicopters captured by the militants flying over the city.
President Obama expressed frustration on Friday.
"The fact that they are not willing to stand and fight and defend their posts against admittedly hardened terrorists, but not terrorists who are overwhelming in numbers, indicates that there's a problem" with morale and commitment that is rooted in politics, he said.
Since the withdrawal of U.S. troops, American support for Iraqi forces has been modest, consisting mostly of a small number of advisers attached to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, some cooperation on intelligence and limited arms deliveries.
This changed after the war in neighboring Syria flared in 2013 and fueled resurgent violence. U.S. special forces began training small numbers of elite Iraqi soldiers in Jordan and Washington accelerated arms sales.
This included deals for Apache attack helicopters, Hellfire missiles and surveillance drones, much of which has yet to arrive.
Warren, the Pentagon spokesman, declined to discuss what, if any, U.S. weapons sold to Iraq might have been seized by ISIL, but said the militants had exaggerated gains.
ACHILLES' HEEL
The military collapse this week can be traced back to Maliki's earlier failure to rebuff ISIL in western Anbar province, which has become a militant stronghold as the conflict in Syriaintensified.
After ISIL fighters seized Falluja and other areas of Anbar late last year, Iraqi medical sources say some 6,000 soldiers died there. Iraq-based foreign diplomats say 12,000 deserted their posts. Iraqi forces have not been able to retake Falluja or regain all of the largely Sunni province’s capital, Ramadi.
In the battle for Mosul, U.S. government experts estimate that Iraqi army forces outnumbered ISIL fighters by a factor of "double digits." Still, the militants easily took the city.
Senior Iraqi military officials "are picked because Maliki values their loyalty to him over any kind of war-fighting skills. They don’t understand what it takes to fight a counterinsurgency like this," one former senior U.S. military officer said.
"They failed to put in rigorous training (for their soldiers). They failed to invest in maintenance and logistics as we told them to," the former official said. "We warned them this would be their Achilles' heel."
Iraq faces the abyss after its military melts away
Redrawing of regional map looms large as violence and sectarian confrontation return to Iraq
Iraqi army troops chant slogans against Isis as they recruit volunteers to join the fight against a major offensive by the jihadist group in northern Iraq. Photograph: Ali Al-Saadi/AFP/Getty Images
In December 2011 a band played quietly in the corner of a Baghdad military base as American soldiers lowered three flags and solemnly carried them away. Within minutes, the remaining US commanders had boarded a plane and left Iraq – with Washington vowing they would never return.
It wasn't quite a Saigon moment, but the scene did capture the essence of America's nine tumultuous years; great expectations, crushing lows, a pyrrhic victory. Then a low-key retreat.
Three and a half years later, it is as if the US military never left. Iraq has suddenly found itself in early 2006 again, in a week that has seen Sunni insurgents once more face off with Shia militias, a major city looted as an army stands by, and the two shrines whose destruction sparked the sectarian war again endangered. This, though, is a crisis like no other for Iraq, eclipsing even the blood-soaked and hopeless war years that pitched sects against each other and whittled out towns and cities. There is no occupying army to hold the country together this time. After the stunning capitulation at the hands of Sunni insurgents this week, there is barely a military left at all.
Late on Thursday, as Barack Obama spoke of sending US assets back to the country to save it from the abyss, Iraqi officials were almost begging to be rescued from gunmen sweeping the country almost unopposed and fast descending on Baghdad.
The group, known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis), has seized the second biggest city, Mosul, Saddam Hussein's former stronghold, Tikrit, and chased the Iraqi army out of the most bitterly contested city in the land, Kirkuk – allowing triumphant Kurdish forces to enter and seize control.
"They came to stay," said an Iraqi police captain in Kirkuk, reflecting the profound shift in the balance of power between Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, and Baghdad. "They are not going anywhere soon," he said.
Worse was to come on Thursday, when Samarra – home to the Imam al-Askareen shrines twice blown up by al-Qaida in 2006 – saw its military protectors capitulate. All it took was several phone calls from insurgents at a nearby checkpoint to spook troops in the town.
Within a day Shia militias from Baghdad were rushing to guard the shrines alongside the few soldiers who had stood their ground. The countryside nearby erupted in clashes between Isis operatives and Shia militias, who were at the vanguard of the civil war fighting.
"[Iraqi president Nouri al-] Maliki's tongue has turned white from fright," said one senior Iraqi official. "He is finished. He has nowhere left to turn."
Since Thursday at least three divisions of the Iraqi army – close to 50,000 men – and other smaller units scattered around the northern countryside have refused to fight, shedding their uniforms, selling their service weapons and buying dishdashas (robes) to blend in with civilians as they fled.
The extraordinary scenes have quickly revealed the fault lines running through post-US Iraq and the fragile ties that have bound together the ethnically diverse country since the fall of the Ottoman empire.
Iraq's military is majority Shia, while Mosul and Tikrit are predominantly Sunni. The two sides haven't often got on since 2006, despite periods of co-operation.
The sectarian enmity that festered during the war years has been reignited by the war in Syria, which pitches a Sunni majority against an Alawite minority with links to Shia Islam. Here and now grievances, amplified by historical unfinished business, are seriously testing the post-Ottoman borders.
Isis has made no bones about its intent to rewrite them. It already controls much of the border between Iraq and Syria and aims for the same control between Syria and Lebanon. And as great cities fell this week with little more than a gentle push, the jihadists seem on their way to their goal.
With his authority crippled and his army on the run, the president is the last person able to rally the country. After a finger-waving speech early in the week, in which he blamed conspiracies for Iraq's predicament, Maliki hasn't re-emerged.
Many say it is a problem of his own making. His leadership style has rarely been inclusive and is often polarising. A mandate he won in 2010 was unconvincing and his pledges to re-enfranchise Iraq's Sunni, who lost their power base when the US ousted Saddam Hussein, have never been honoured.
Maliki has spent the past six weeks trying to assemble a coalition that will gives him a third term as leader. This time round he has retreated to his sectarian base, leaving Sunnis to accuse him of using the army as a sectarian militia and co-opting the state at their expense.
Other figures, also active during the US occupation and the turbulent time since, have instead returned to the fray. First among them is the elusive Iranian general, Qassem Suleimani, whose elite Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards had the Americans on the run from 2006, and have played a lead role in running Iraq and Syria ever since.
Suleimani arrived in Baghdad early on Friday. He spent the day in meetings with the leaders of his proxy militias, including Qais al-Khazali, from the much-feared Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Iraqi parliamentarians (Maliki wasn't on the list), and Sunni Sheikhs who control parts of Baghdad's outskirts.
His meetings suggest that he will play a lead role in organising the defence of the capital – a role that reaffirms his primacy in Iraq's strategic affairs.
"Isis are also strategically very capable," said the senior Iraqi official. "They are planning to enter Baghdad using the same routes that the Americans used when they entered [in 2003]. No one has faith anymore in the Iraqi military. Their work has been outsourced to Iran."
Obama, apparently also stirred into action by Iraq's existential crisis, signalled he is now willing to do what he had earlier vowed not to. His statement that there were "short term, immediate things that will need to be done militarily", was interpreted by Iraqi leaders as a new willingness to give them what they want – air strikes and drones.
"This group is a threat to US national security," added Obama.
The unlikely alliance of interests between Iran and the US in Iraq comes after a nine-year proxy war on Iraqi soil, which saw militias directed by Suleimani account for around one quarter of US battle casualties. As the US disengaged, Iran stepped in and, in the years since the US withdrawal, has acted as an overlord in neighbouring Iraq.
Iran has been determined to protect its arc of influence, from Tehran, through Baghdad, Damascus and southern Lebanon. The US, meanwhile, has tried to change the way it projects itself in the region, without letting its arch foe get the better of it, or its allies. "That's a battle it hasn't won," said a regional western ambassador. "Iran has been privately gloating, while America's friends have been publicly scathing."
Iraq, though, is a disaster that has rattled both foes. "Already the CIA have sent more than 150 men back here solely to look into Isis," the Iraqi official said. "What they give us, Iran finds out about soon enough."
Throughout the chaotic three years of the Arab spring, a potential redrawing of the regional map has always loomed large. The recent gains by Bashar al-Assad's army in Syria, supported fulsomely by Suleimani, who has spent much of the past two years in Damascus, had doused such fears. But Iraq has rapidly rekindled them.
"What is going to hold this country together?" one cabinet minister asked. "We cannot stand on our feet. We have to turn to the heavyweights. Iraq has not emerged from the fog at any point after Saddam."
The sheer scale of the Iraqi military's capitulation in the face of a well-armed and disciplined insurgent force has shocked American soldiers and officers who fought in Iraq. Many were involved in training and mentoring Iraqi counterparts and left the country thinking they had helped build a credible institution, perhaps the only one in the land.
"When I arrived in 2003, I was a true believer," said a former US marine. "I voted for Bush, I believed in the cause. Then I stayed for three years. "We were lied to. We went there for nothing and we came away with nothing. It cost a trillion dollars for this?"
"Put simply, the army didn't think Mosul was worth dying for," said Iyad Allawi, Iraq's first leader after Saddam Hussein and a leading political figure since then.
The price of their desertion is immense. Iraqi officials said on Friday that the jihadists had driven off with 200 armed trucks and humvess, supplied by the US. Most had been taken to Syria. They had torched the vehicles that they didn't have the manpower to deal with. An early bill for the losses is at least $1.2bn. A further $500m has been looted from banks and insurgent ranks have been swelled by at least 2,000 prisoners freed from local prisons.
By week's end Baghdad, a city so used to siege, had settled into a familiar rhythm. Shops were almost all closed, the few restaurants that opened were largely empty and the baking hot streets were deserted.
"It was like this before 2003," said a shopkeeper in the central city. It was like that three years later as well. But this might be the worst of all times.
As night fell, the back to the future theme continued. The few locals spending the early evening in tea shops tuned into another US president preparing to send bombers to Iraq.
Unlike George W Bush, though, Obama seemed a reluctant commander in chief.
Condemning the Iraqi army for its failure to "stand and fight", he said: "There's a problem with morale and commitment and ultimately that is rooted in the political problems that have plagued the country for a long time."
"In in the past decade American forces and taxpayers have made extraordinary sacrifices to give Iraqis a better choice and future. Unfortunately that hasn't been met by the same commitment from Iraq's leaders who can't seem to get past their sectarian differences."
Barely lifting his head, one local man, Abu Yousif said: "I completely agree with everything he said. Now lets get on with it."
An Iranian general arrived in Baghdad to discuss defenses against Isis
An Iranian general arrived in Baghdad to discuss defenses against Isis with Iraqis, Martin Chulov reports from the capital.
The Guardian
Major General Qassem Suleimani, a powerful figure who plays significant role in Iraq's affairs, met with a series of militia leaders and Sunni tribal sheikhs in control of Baghdad's western approaches.He is believed not to have met with embattled prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, or Iraqi generals, whose military capitulated across the north of the country this week and remains besieged in the central city of Samarra.Volunteer Shia fighters were quickly assembled after Iraqi forces abandoned positions around Samarra, leaving only a small number of troops to guard the Imam al-Askari shrines – the two shrines blown up by insurgents eight years ago, triggering the sectarian war that almost destroyed the country.
سليماني من النجف لبغداد... و300 ألف جندي لمعركة العاصمة
بغداد ــ عثمان المختار
13 يونيو 2014
اختيارات القرّاء
مشاهدةتعليقاًإرسالاً- 1 2 3 4 5 6
لم تبدأ معركة بغداد بعد، على وقع استعدادات هائلة يقوم بها الجيش العراقي والميليشيات المتحالفة معه داخل المدينة، في ما بدا أنه يحصل تحت إشراف قائد "فيلق القدس" في الحرس الثوري الإيراني، قاسم سليماني، الذي انتقل من طهران إلى النجف حين صدرت "فتوى" المرجع علي السيستاني بضرورة القتال ضد المسلحين، ثم إلى بغداد، حيث اجتمع بقيادات عسكرية وسياسية.
وأصبح الدعم الايراني العسكري للجيش العراقي علنياً، وقد ترجمته زيارة قاسم سليماني إلى بغداد، على رأس وفد عسكري رفيع المستوى، عقد اجتماعات داخل المنطقة الخضراء مع مسؤولين حكوميين وقادة عسكريين، بحسب ما كشفته مصادر برلمانية عراقية، يوم الجمعة، لـ"العربي الجديد".
وأوضح عضو في البرلمان العراقي، طلب عدم ذكر اسمه، أن "سليماني وصل بطائرة خاصة إلى بغداد، آتياً من النجف، بعد وصوله من طهران ولقائه بمراجع دينية عليا"، مرجحاً أن يكون إعلان المراجع الدينية "الجهاد الكفائي" والدعوة لدعم الجيش، ناتجاً من زيارة سليماني لتلك المراجع.
وأصبح الدعم الايراني العسكري للجيش العراقي علنياً، وقد ترجمته زيارة قاسم سليماني إلى بغداد، على رأس وفد عسكري رفيع المستوى، عقد اجتماعات داخل المنطقة الخضراء مع مسؤولين حكوميين وقادة عسكريين، بحسب ما كشفته مصادر برلمانية عراقية، يوم الجمعة، لـ"العربي الجديد".
وأوضح عضو في البرلمان العراقي، طلب عدم ذكر اسمه، أن "سليماني وصل بطائرة خاصة إلى بغداد، آتياً من النجف، بعد وصوله من طهران ولقائه بمراجع دينية عليا"، مرجحاً أن يكون إعلان المراجع الدينية "الجهاد الكفائي" والدعوة لدعم الجيش، ناتجاً من زيارة سليماني لتلك المراجع.
وفي السياق، أعلنت وزارة الداخلية العراقية وضع خطة أمنية محكمة حول أسوار بغداد لمنع دخول المسلحين إليها، "تضم ثلاثة خطوط دفاعية بمئات الآلاف من العسكريين وافراد الشرطة"،بحسب المتحدث باسم وزارة الداخلية العراقية، العميد سعد معن، لـ"العربي الجديد"،بعد فشل طيران الجيش في إجبار الجماعات المسلحة على التراجع من محيطها.
وفي السياق،أوضحمصدر رفيع المستوى في وزارة الداخلية لـ "العربي الجديد" أن الخطة التي تم الانتهاء منها تتضمن نشر 300 ألف جندي حول أسوار بغداد، معززين بثلاثة الوية مدرعة، وبطارية صواريخ ارض ــ أرض، فضلاً عن نصب آلاف الحواجز الاسمنتية بارتفاع مترين وطول 3 أمتار، يليها فريق قوات خاصة مدربة على حرب الشوارع والمدن.
وفي السياق،أوضحمصدر رفيع المستوى في وزارة الداخلية لـ "العربي الجديد" أن الخطة التي تم الانتهاء منها تتضمن نشر 300 ألف جندي حول أسوار بغداد، معززين بثلاثة الوية مدرعة، وبطارية صواريخ ارض ــ أرض، فضلاً عن نصب آلاف الحواجز الاسمنتية بارتفاع مترين وطول 3 أمتار، يليها فريق قوات خاصة مدربة على حرب الشوارع والمدن.
وأوضح المصدر أن العدد الحالي المقدر بـ300 ألف جندي، يعتبر غير كافٍ مقارنة بحجم التهديد ومساحة بغداد الكبيرة، وخصوصاً أن الهجوم المتوقع سيكون من ثلاثة محاور، شمالي وغربي وجنوبي، مع مخاوف من انفجار حراك مسلح داخل العاصمة نفسها من قبل "خلايا نائمة موجودة في جانب الكرخ من بغداد" على حد تعبيره.
وتابع المصدر أن الحكومة قررت حظر مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي "تويتر وفيسبوك ويوتيوب منعاً لتسريب ناشطين معلومات وصور فيديو تبين ما يحدث على الارض. كما تم قطع الانترنت بشكل عام عن خمس محافظات وهي الأنبار ونينوى وصلاح الدين وكركوك وديالى".
ولفت المصدر إلى أن "قوات حكومية أمنت عملية إخلاء موجودات البنك المركزي العراقي والخزينة الاتحادية للدولة، فضلاً عن عدد من المؤسسات والوزارات الحكومية بينها وزارتا المالية والنفط ".
وكانت قناة "العراقية" الحكومية قد أعلنت عن وصول رئيس الوزراء المنتهية ولايته، نوري المالكي، إلى سامراء، على متن مروحية عسكرية، حيث التقى بمسؤولين محليين وعسكريين بينهم محافظ صلاح الدين، أحمد عبد الله، الذي منحه المسلحون عفواً سابقاً، بعد السيطرة على مكتبه ومقر اقامته.
وفي أول تصريح علني عن اشتراك ميليشيات موالية للحكومة في دعم الجيش بمعاركه، قالت وكالة أنباء "الغد برس"، التابعة لميليشيا "عصائب أهل الحق"، أن "لواء ذو الفقار" دخل إلى محافظة صلاح الدين لتأمين الطريق لقوات الجيش، بعد وصوله من سورية لهذا الغرض.
وأفادت الوكالة أن "عناصر اللواء مدربون بشكل جيد على قتال الشوارع والمدن وسيؤدون مهمة قتالية لدعم الجيش ضد داعش، وقد نجحوا بقتل 22 عنصراً منهم"، من دون أن تبين مكان الحدث، رغم أن المحافظة تعتبر خارج سيطرة الحكومة باستثناء مدينة سامراء المحاصرة.
ميدانياً، نجحت الفصائل المسلحة في السيطرة على مناطق السميلات وخرنابات وبني زيد والسعيدات والحمدانية وتقع على نحو 25 كيلومتراً من بغداد إلى الغرب، بعد الهجوم على مقر اللواء الثالث بالجيش العراقي والسيطرة عليه.
وقال شهود عيان من سكان المنطقة لـ "العربي الجديد" إن الجنود والضباط تمكنوا من الخروج من المنطقة جرياً على الأقدام، عبر بساتين النخيل باتجاه بغداد بعد استبدال ملابسهم العسكرية بملابس مدنية.
وقال أحد المواطنين، ويُدعى كمال الزوبعي، لـ"العربي الجديد"، إن الحمدانية والمناطق الاخرى خالية من قوات المالكي، والاسلحة والذخائر تنتشر في البساتين، وكذلك الملابس العسكرية، فيما منح المسلحون عفواً عاماً عن عناصر الشرطة المحلية، وطالبوا عناصر "الصحوة" بإعلان "توبتهم" عن دعمهم السابق للمالكي.
ولا تزال مدن نينوى وصلاح الدين والأنبار وكركوك على حالها، من دون تقدم بري من الجيش، باستثناء غارات سلاح الجو التابع للجيش الحكومي، الذي بدا مؤثراً في تلك المدن وقد طالت غاراته مسجد الحق وسط تكريت، ما أدى إلى قتل مدنيين، وهو ما برره التلفزيون العراقي الحكومي بالقول إن المسجد "كان يضم قيادات ارهابية من تنظيم داعش".
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