Shias take control of campaign to get Islamic State out of Ramadi

Iraq’s Shia paramilitaries say they have taken charge of the campaign to drive Islamic State from the western province of Anbar, giving the operation an openly sectarian code name that could infuriate its Sunni Muslim population.

The United States described the codename as "unhelpful" while France, which will host a meeting of nations fighting Islamic State next week, accused the Shia-led government of failing to represent fully the interests of all Iraqis.

The Iraqi government is scrambling to reverse the fall of Ramadi, its biggest military setback in nearly a year. Prime minister Haider al-Abadi has vowed to recapture the city, the Anbar provincial capital, within days.

Shia militias, supported by a smaller group of government troops, advanced today to within a few kilometres of a university on Ramadi’s southwestern edge, police sources and Sunni tribal fighters allied to the government said.

As they passed through farmland south of Ramadi, the militiamen told people to return home and stay inside, promising they would not be harmed.

Islamic State gains

The loss of Ramadi a week ago was swiftly followed by the fall of the Unesco heritage city of Palmyra in Syria, the two biggest gains by Islamic State fighters since the US began air strikes on them in Iraq and Syria last year. Islamic State controls swathes of territory in both countries.

Its gains in the past week have raised doubts about the US strategy to bomb the militants from the air but leave fighting on the ground to local Iraqi and Syrian forces.

In Iraq, the regular military’s failure to hold Ramadi has forced the government to send in the Iran-backed Shia paramilitaries.

Washington fears this could enrage residents in the overwhelmingly Sunni province and push them into the arms of Islamic State.

A spokesman for the Shia militias, which are known as Hashid Shaabi, said the code name for the new operation would be Labaik ya Hussein.

This is a slogan in honour of a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad killed in a seventh- century battle that led to the schism between Shia and Sunni Muslims.

“The Labaik Ya Hussein operation is led by the Hashid Shaabi in co-operation and coordination with the armed forces there,” the spokesman, Ahmed al-Assadi, told a news conference. “We believe that liberating Ramadi will not take long.”

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Col Steve Warren said the key to victory would be a unified Iraq “that separates itself from sectarian divides, coalesces around this common threat”. Asked about the sectarian code name, he said: “I think it’s unhelpful.”

Political solution

France, a leading member of the coalition against Islamic State, took the Iraqi government to task, saying there could be no military solution without a political solution among Iraq’s communities.

"We linked the coalition's support to political commitments by the new Iraqi government, what we call an inclusive policy," foreign minister Laurent Fabius said.

“This contract is what justified our military engagement and I say clearly here that it must be better respected.”

The Paris meeting on June 2nd aims to devise a strategy including on how to reverse the recent losses to Islamic State. – (Reuters)