Siege in West Iraq Shows Failure to Reverse Islamic State Gains
Hauling bodies from under the rubble, Ahmed al-Dulaimi’s fighters count the cost of defending the only major city in western Iraq yet to fall to Islamic State.
Last week, at least 17 of his men were killed resisting an onslaught to capture Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s biggest province. With government forces weakened and local government leaders fleeing to safety, tribal fighters like Dulaimi’s group are among the last standing.
“We have to fight or Islamic State will kill us,” Dulaimi said by telephone last week, as his men cleared debris from outside the government’s headquarters in the city center. “We have been abandoned by our politicians.”
Capturing Ramadi would be a major victory for Islamic State, helping tighten its grip on Sunni areas of Iraq six months after taking Mosul, Iraq’s biggest northern city. While U.S. officials say airstrikes have halted the extremist group’s momentum, Iraq’s Shiite leadership is struggling to rebuild the military and galvanize an alliance with Sunni tribes capable of taking back territory.
About a week before the al-Qaeda breakaway Sunni group laid siege to the government’s compound in Ramadi, a predominantly Sunni city, Dulaimi and other tribal leaders said only a handful of council members showed up for meetings at the Anbar province’s 30-member council. The rest chose safer places such as Baghdad about 90 kilometers (56 miles) away, the Kurdish city of Erbil, and even Dubai, according to local officials and tribal leaders.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-04/siege-in-west-iraq-shows-failure-to-reverse-islamic-state-gains.html