An alarming warning from Iraq
The Battle of Mosul is nearing an end. Soon Daesh will have been chased from Iraq.
That's what has some people very nervous.
Muqtada al-Sadr, a powerful cleric, political figurehead and warlord, believes divisions between Sunni and Shia Muslims will worsen when Iraqis lack a common enemy.
“I'm afraid that the defeat of Daesh [Isis] is only the start of a new phase,” he told Middle East Eye.
“My proposal is inspired by fear of sectarian and ethnic conflict after Mosul's liberation."“I want to avoid this. I am very proud of Iraq's diversity but my fear is that we may see a genocide of some ethnic or sectarian groups.”
Muqtada al-Sadr isn't just anybody. He's one of the most influential people in Iraq, and one of the leaders of the insurgency against the American occupation.
His primary concern, as well as everyone else's, is the Shia militias organized to fight ISIS after the Iraqi army collapsed in 2014. They've been involved with some horrific ethnic cleansing, such as 643 men and boys missing from Saqlawiyah, and the more than 700 men missing from Fallujah.
Instead of trying to disband them, the Iraqi government legalized them.
The Iraqi parliament has passed a bill recognising the Shia militia fighters, the Popular Mobilisation Forces, as a government entity operating alongside the military.
The bill passed on Saturday will see the establishment of the Popular Mobilisation Forces Commission, which critics said could only widen sectarian divisions in the war-torn country.
...
The Shia militias that operate under the banner of the Popular Mobilisation forces, most of which are backed by neighbouring Iran, have been bankrolled and equipped by the government since shortly after ISIL swept across much of northern and western Iraq in 2014.
Many of these groups existed long before ISIL emerged, fighting American troops in major street battles during the US military presence in Iraq from 2003 to 2011, as well as al-Qaeda in Iraq - which later became ISIL.
These groups killed hundreds of American soldiers during the occupation, and at least one of them is listed as a terrorist group by the State Department.
So you would think that our troops would be kept at arm's length from them.
You would be wrong.
In a significant break with past policy, U.S.-led forces in Iraq have started arming and training hundreds of fighters belonging to Shiite militias historically known for having ties to Iran...
The U.S.-led coalition has provided hundreds of guns and training to the fighters in recent weeks, indicating a new level of cooperation, although U.S. military officials quickly moved to downplay it, saying the fighters being trained have no ties to the Iranian-backed groups that targeted Americans in the past.
Dorrian acknowledged that some militias are still classified as terrorists by the U.S., but insisted those being trained had no ties to groups that have “American blood on their hands.”
But U.S. officials acknowledged the difficulty in fully vetting all members of the militias. And the senior leadership of the Shiite forces includes individuals who have been deemed terrorists by the United States.
Oh. My. Gawd.
How is this not training and arming terrorist groups? How is this not spitting on the Iraq war vets that fought these criminals?
Also what happens with these terrorists when ISIS is defeated in Mosul?
How safe will the 6,000+ Americans soldiers in Iraq be?
This Stars and Stripes article isn't encouraging.
The fighting continues for west Mosul, the last major urban bastion for the Islamic State in Iraq, but the military forces that drove the jihadi group out of the east are now competing for influence against one another, rather than cooperating to maintain order. The rivalry among these groups is coming at the expense of efforts to combat Islamic State sleeper cells, which have launched a campaign of suicide bombings in liberated areas.
Months after east Mosul was declared liberated, there appears to be scant planning for restoring security, let alone reconciliation and reconstruction...
Iraq's many defense and intelligence agencies lack a unified command and answer to a bewildering array of political appointees in the Defense and Interior ministries, the National Security Council, or the prime minister's office. "They are like fiefdoms, each competing for resources and power," said David M. Witty, a retired U.S. Army special forces colonel and an authority on the Iraqi armed forces.
My immediate concern is if Trump actually plans on regime change in Syria.
It concerns me because you can't overthrow Assad without fighting and killing those very same Shia militias.
Shia militias have also played a decisive role. Raised by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the militias have been far more effective than Syrian units. Their numbers had built around east Aleppo since early last year to an estimated force of 6,000-8,000 troops, many of them battle-hardened in Iraq or southern Lebanon.
Shia graveyards in Najaf have similarly been filling up, with several thousand Iraqi fighters known to have been killed in Syria and buried in large dedicated plots bought by the militias over the past three years.
If we start killing Iraqi Shia militiamen in Syria, what do you think their fellow Shia militiamen in Iraq will do? Especially when American soldiers are so close and vulnerable?
Comments
I'm under the impression that the Iranian
forces in Syria are regular army, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps plus paramilitary volunteers whereas there is the Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq militia which has the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force as advisors in Iraq.
Both
Quds and shia militias are in Syria.
I had this moment of joy about a spider
species, in a cave.
But now back to reality.
No need for oil, no need for war.
Thankfully, I am old, have no kids. When I was young, I fought for my life. I miraculously lived it.
I pass the torch.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Looks like they're arming and
Looks like they're arming and training up new excuses for expanding the military to cover the globe 3-deep with US military and converting the entire North America continent into an enormous MIC factory. That'll be the real reason that the Parasite Class is arranging bolt holes in New Zealand - there won't be room left for people with that required for storage, production lines, etc..
Presumably, citizens will be off-shored somewhere in the ocean, while robots will fill the ranks in the armies and have to pay tax without actually being paid, since the Parasites won't.
Seriously, who's producing all of this insanity long since reaching an unspoofable point and thereby taking the fun out of whatever remains of life?
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
@Ellen North Incredibly rich people.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
@on the cusp
By Jove, I think you've got it!
Economic vampires, desperate for brains yet incapable of realizing that eating other people's won't make them any smarter... but still emptying the pockets of all victims within range.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Spreading that good old democracy thick and deep
And where are our Sunni Saudi friends in all of this? n/t
They are the conduit for the money going to Al-Qaeda etc.
Our Sunni/Saudi friends...
...have been busy financing the Sunni-led ISIS movement to oppose Shiite forces in the region.
Some 'friends', eh?
Oh? You think it's crazy that we're supporting the Shiites in Iraq at the same time we're supposedly fighting ISIS in Syria?
Me too...
James Kroeger
The US policy in the ME
is foreign to me. I suppose if you want an endless war, you arm both sides. Even if both of them hate you.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott