Date: Jun 2, 2015
Source: The Daily Star
Iraqi PM bemoans lacks of international support
PARIS: The advance of ISIS in Iraq is a "failure" for the whole world community, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Tuesday, hours ahead of a crunch international meeting to refine the strategy against the jihadi group.

He said Iraq "needs all the support of the world" to counter the jihadi advance, but "we are not getting much. I think this is a failure on the part of the world ... There is a lot of talk of support for Iraq, there is very little on the ground," said Abadi.

Abadi said coalition partners were not providing Iraqi forces with sufficient air intelligence to stem ISIS advances, while support for ground operations was also lacking.

"Air support is not enough. There is too little surveillance. Daech [ISIS] is mobile and move in very small groups. It's not enough," Abadi told reporters.

Abadi also urged the international community to help Iraq purchase weapons to fight the jihadis, saying the country had received "almost none. We are relying on ourselves."

"Because of our fiscal problems, we were not able to get into new contracts for arms supply. Most contracts were done in the previous government with the Russians," he said.

"The Russians are under sanctions now by the U.S., so we are finding it very difficult to pay for these arms to get them. The money is there sitting in the bank, but we cannot get them."

Abadi said sanctions also ruled out buying arms from neighbouring Iran.

"We are not asking for arms, but please let us purchase arms easily."

Iraq's prime minister said Tuesday that the majority of ISIS fighters were foreign, as he visited Paris to drum up international support for the fight against the jihadi group.

"What I can see for Iraq, the flow of foreign fighters is more than before," Haider al-Abadi told reporters, hours before a meeting of around 20 foreign ministers from the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition in the French capital.

"There is an international problem, it has to be solved."

He said that up until recently, around six out of 10 fighters were Iraqi and the remainder foreign whereas now the proportion was reversed.

"Daesh is creating a new generation of fighters, dedicated, ideologized. They are prepared to die but they are not suicide bombers," said the prime minister, using an alternative name for the ISIS jihadis.

Whereas suicide bombers were prepared to die but not fight, Daesh jihadis were prepared to both fight and die, creating a dangerous enemy.

Abadi's comments came after a huge suicide bomb against an Iraqi police base killed at least 37 people.

The blast further slowed an operation to retake the city of Ramadi, which will be a main focus of the Paris talks.


Iraqi Shiite militia denies connection to atrocity video

BEIRUT: A Shiite militia has denied any connection to a viral video that purports to show its fighters committing a wartime atrocity in Iraq.

The Kataeb Imam Ali militia, in a statement Sunday, said that it had no presence in the area – Al-Karma in Anbar province – where the incident is believed to have taken place.

The video, which has received more than 270,000 views since it was posted Saturday, shows a group of men as they make jokes and taunt what seems to be the lifeless body of a man who has been strung up over an open fire.

Several of the fighters are wearing insignias of the Kataeb Imam Ali group, and they claim that the man, who is wearing civilian clothes, is an ISIS sympathizer.

“Very nice,” one of them says as they mug for the camera. At one point one of the fighters recommends that the man’s body be lowered down, closer to the flames.

The militia condemned the mutilation of the man’s body and said such behavior violated the militia’s own code, accusing media outlets of seeking to stir up trouble.

“Our battalions have nothing to do with what was shown; we have no group or fighter in the area of the crime, Al-Karma,” it said, adding that it had the special distinction of counting Sunnis and Christians among its ranks.

The incident is only the latest in a string of video footage that purports to show atrocities by Shiite militiamen against Sunni civilians to circulate via social media.

Another, short piece of footage, which was also posted this weekend, purports to show a group of militiamen and policemen look on as one of their comrades repeatedly stabs a detainee in the head.

The Kataeb Imam Ali is one of several dozen groups that are part of the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization umbrella body of overwhelmingly Shiite militias. Small numbers of Sunni tribesmen are also believed to be fighting as part of the Popular Mobilization force. But human rights groups and critics of the government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi have long been critical of the practice of relying on Shiite militias in the fight against ISIS, whose members are Sunni – but who also terrorize Iraqis and Syrians of all sects.

In March, a photograph purported to show a militiaman beheading a Sunni shepherd, while an earlier piece of video purported to show a teenager gunned down by paramilitaries.

When they enter areas after seizing them from ISIS, the Shiite militias are accused of branding all residents they find as sympathizers with the jihadis.

Officials have not commented on the latest accusations of atrocities, although Abadi said in April that his government had “zero tolerance” for human rights violations, acknowledging that they had taken place.

In February, a report by Human Rights Watch warned that abuses by the militias in Sunni areas were on the rise, accusing the fighters of kidnapping, displacing and summarily executing their fellow Iraqis.

“Iraqi civilians are being hammered by ISIS and then by pro-government militias in areas they seize from ISIS,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch.