Category Archives: Islamic State

Britain, Iraq, Islamic State, United Nations, United States

The future of Mosul depends on winning hearts and minds

MOSUL, IRAQ

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The UN has predicted that at least 200,000 people will flee in the coming days as Mosul comes under attack from warring factions.

Intro: This is an opportunity to win the hearts and minds of young and old alike

Dramatic television footage from within the city of Mosul depict not only the advancing of troops but of life-and-death battles between warring factions. It is easy to be distracted from yet another flood of refugees seeking shelter and safety.

While aid agencies may be experienced in what they do, however, even they cannot cope with the sheer numbers involved. In the last 10 days, more than 5,000 men, women and children have fled their homes in Mosul and crossed the border into Syria.

Aid and Relief agencies are now attempting to provide makeshift homes for displaced families in the al-Hol refugee camp which was meant to give refuge to 7,500 people but currently holds over 9,000.

Save the Children says the camp has only 16 latrines, with human waste littering the ground. The site also has no clean running water for the refugees to drink or cook with.

The camp is in the process of being expanded to take 50,000 people, but the biggest focus now must be on what we can do to ensure that the people living in the camp, and others like it, are treated with dignity and respect.

The UN has predicted that at least 200,000 people will flee in the coming days as the city comes under increasing attack, and head for camps being constructed in the north, south and east of the city. Given these huge numbers, we should be preparing to help this tide of people who will be living in tents during the winter (and most likely for some time to come).

This is not just a humanitarian crisis which should appeal to our conscience by ensuring that each individual in the camp is treated properly and fairly by being given more than just the basics of survival. It is one that should also be at the forefront of our minds that many of these people will return to Mosul and will take with them the memory of what life was like there.

This is an opportunity to win the hearts and minds of young and old alike. Among the thousands in the camps will be impressionable young men and women, fired by a sense of injustice. While their older relatives may be more accustomed and schooled in the realities of war, the young still have the potential to make up their own minds by what they see in front of them. Once Mosul is liberated, these people need to have affinity with the West and believe it acted to help them in their time of greatest need. It is not inconceivable to believe that if the camps are filled with horror then we will not have them on our side, leaving a vacuum that could be filled by IS.

Large scale military operations could be used in getting aid to the camps.

We should remember the recent damning lessons as published in the UK’s Iraq War Enquiry, which was chaired by Sir John Chilcot. This found that one of the major failings was the failure to plan and prepare for the future following the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

We cannot be allowed to fail again.

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Britain, Iraq, Islamic State, Terrorism, United Nations, United States

The ramifications of liberating Mosul

IRAQ

IRAQ-CONFLICT-MOSUL

Iraqi Peshmerga fighters fire a multiple rocket launcher east of Mosul as part of a broad coalition to retake the city from Islamic State.

Intro: The long-awaited attack on the Iraqi city of Mosul has begun. Taking Mosul will force IS to change its tactics.

Mosul, Iraq’s third largest city, is the last big prize that Islamic State hold. It is the city from which they announced the creation of their caliphate in 2014. The city means a lot to them and they might well decide that this is a last stand. That will mean a long and arduous battle, close-quarter urban and asymmetric warfare which will become bloody and slow. Civilian casualties are likely to be high as IS seek to be protected through the use of human shields.

The UN will have been making plans for this contingency and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has issued an appeal for an additional $61m (£50m) to provide tents, camps, and winter items such as blankets for displaced people inside Iraq and the two neighbouring countries. The fears that residents could be used as human shields – by, for example, being placed on rooftops in an attempt to deter airstrikes – and, that as many as a million people could be forced to flee their homes, has the makings of another humanitarian tragedy. Surely the governments involved in the broad coalition in the war against IS will ensure that the UN have the money and supplies that they need.

Worryingly, there may be another tactic that is more attractive to IS. There is likely to be a realisation within the organisation that the caliphate will not remain, which is likely to suggest that in pursuit of their long-term goals it would be better to flee in to the desert. That could involve as many as 10,000 fighters who could re-group and re-build. If they stand and fight in Mosul what may be left? The threats to Western societies are very real.

Regardless of tactics and time, however, there are two virtual certainties in this situation. The first is that Mosul will be re-taken by pro-government forces, it is only a matter of when and at what cost. The second is that IS will not be wiped out, but will turn in to an even more hardened terrorist organisation, not merely a territory-holding army, and be capable of conducting a campaign of insurgency. The big question here is just how effective it could be and what resources it could command.

When IS first took over its towns and cities there were local reports of at least some support for the organisation’s objectives: a deep distrust of the government and its supporters existed. But, by many accounts, that tacit support has now disappeared, and IS’s brutal regime has been uncovered for what it actually is. It is imperative that the disaffection with Islamic State be maintained, as all insurgent groups need the help and support of at least some of the indigenous population to be effective.

That is why it is vitally important that no sectarian violence occurs when towns are liberated from IS, and the undertakings given on this aspect must be delivered.

Equally as important is that there is a long-term plan to ensure the governance of these areas is as inclusive and equitable as possible.

It is in the interests of all the nations currently ranged against IS that these longer-term plans are instigated and that they continue. History clearly tells us that structures set up in the aftermath need to be adequately robust to ensure that any remnants of IS is not allowed to thrive.

Appendage:

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Mosul, Iraq’s third largest city, is the last stronghold of Islamic State. The threat now is that IS fighters may flee to the desert.

 

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Iraq, Islamic State, Middle East, Politics, Syria, United States

Resolving the crisis in the Arab world requires liberating Mosul…

IRAQ

Intro: By liberating Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, offers high expectations of assuaging Sunni anger

Those bearing the brunt of war across the Fertile Crescent – from the Mediterranean to the Gulf –  are for the most part Sunni Arabs. Whilst they form the largest ethnic group and are heirs and inheritors of fabled empires, many of their great and ancient cities are now in the hands of others: the Jews in Jerusalem, the Christians and Shias in Beirut, the Alawites in Damascus, and, more recently, the Shias in Baghdad. A further study of the disturbing patterns that have emerged also reveals that Sunni’s constitute the bulk of the region’s refugees. Where Sunnis hold on to power, as in the Gulf States, they feel encircled by a hostile and overbearing Iran and abandoned by America that is perceived as being indifferent to the changing demographics of control throughout the Arab world.

The divisions go beyond sectarianism. Almost everywhere the Arab state is in turmoil and crisis aggravated by many years of misrule, often no less than by Sunni leaders. We need look no further than Iraq’s appalling former tyrant, Saddam Hussein, the quintessential Sunni Arab strongman, or of Egypt’s flawed and deposed leader, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi. The sense that Sunnis’ are being assailed from all sides helps to explain how the jihadists of Islamic State are offering to restore the ancient caliphate. IS has taken over vast Sunni-populated areas of Syria and Iraq, yet, no battlefield victory against Islamic State can ever be complete, or no diplomatic solution lasting, until the dispossession of the Sunnis’ has been dealt with.

The future of the region is currently being decided in two venerable cities: Aleppo, the last conurbation of the Syrian rebellion against Bashar al-Assad, and Mosul, IS’s most prized possession in Iraq. The conduct of the battles, and the political order that will follow, will ultimately determine the course of the region’s barbaric wars. The best hopes for peace lies in federalism and of decentralisation which would give Sunnis (and others) a proper voice.

Aleppo has become the symbol of the worst sort of external intervention. Russia’s Vladimir Putin is helping Assad’s troops in Syria, as well as their Iranian and Shia allies, and continues to pound the besieged Sunni rebels. It looks now more of an attempt that the entire city will be taken before Barack Obama leaves presidential office next year, convinced that America is now powerless to act in stopping this relentless onslaught. The deliberate and planned brutality, in which hospitals are repeatedly attacked, will only feed Sunni resentment and stoke the flames of extremism even more. So will Russia’s orchestrated choreography that Assad should remain in charge of any future power-sharing government.

By contrast, however, Mosel could yet emerge as a model for defeating the jihadists by creating a saner political framework that fully recognises the stake that Sunni Arabs’ have in Iraq. With American support, Iraqi, Kurdish and local Sunni tribes are closing-in on the city. The Jihadists have been severely rattled and are far less effective in Mosul than they once were. The loss of Mosul would deal a blow to IS. It was from there that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the IS leader, declared his caliphate.

But much can still go wrong in Mosul. Nobody knows just how hard IS will fight. There are concerns that the Iraqi government has not done enough in preparing for a mass exodus of civilians, or, too, that it will be unable to prevent an armed free-for-all by Shia, Kurdish and rival Sunni militias. Yet, for all its violence and chaos, Iraq offers real hope. Its politics has evolved that is now more open than those of most Arab countries. It has an energetic and lively press and, despite having a parliament that is best described as rowdy and disorderly, cross-sectarian alliances are starting to form. Even Shia politicians are anxious in shaking off their image as proxy clients of Iran. Sunni Arabs in Iraq are moving away from the politics of rejection and are setting their sights on reconquering Baghdad.

Iraq could yet give the Arab world a welcome new model of devolved power, a triumph following the failures of Arab nationalism, Islamism and jihadism. This would make it much harder for murderous dictators to terrorise their people, and by giving diverse ethnic groups a perceived awareness that they rule themselves. Would-be separatists, most notably the Kurds, might be convinced to remain within existing frontiers.

More flexible forms of government might just ease some of the conflicts of the Arab world, even the atrocious bloodletting in Syria. Under such looser forms of government, the balance of power would invariably differ but would be required to follow a few basic principles. Because no region is ethnically pure, the first of these principles would require sub-entities respecting the rights of minority groups. Following on from that would be the need for all groups to have a share of power in central government. A further presumptive principle is that national resources, such as oil, must benefit the whole population. And lastly, perhaps the most difficult, would be to find the right balance of armed force between national armies and local police forces. This would allow minorities to feel protected and by discouraging local warlords and clan chiefs from rebelling or breaking away.

On paper at least, Iraq’s constitution does provide for much of this. It should become a reality. Devolution may not end all political quarrels, but if it stops the bloodshed that will be progress. It is imperative that Mosul be captured judiciously, with care for civilians and political consensus or agreement on how it will be run after the defeat of IS. The city should not only become a test of the maturity of Iraqi politics, but also a measure of the responsibility of outside powers. Saudi Arabia and Iran should support reconciliation and reconstruction. Western forces should be committed to the long-term if stability and political reform is to hold.

Mosul offers the only real opportunity to convince beleaguered Sunnis that there is a better alternative than the nihilism of jihad. If the politics that emerges feeds their sense of dispossession, expect the violence to go on. What happens in Mosul matters to many other places outside of Iraq; it might even give hope to the desperate situation in Aleppo.

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Map highlighting the most important strategic locations in Iraq.

 

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