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After months of fighting, Iraqi Security Forces have finally regained control of the eastern half of Mosul, the last urban stronghold of Islamic State in Iraq. They are now advancing on the citys west.

The recapture of the northern Iraqi city will be a strategic victory for Iraq and its international partners. But did it ever have to come to this?

Violent opposition has gone up like a mushroom cloud in Iraq since the early years of US occupation. The US military believed that buying peoples hearts and minds with cash was an effective tool to counter against the opposition. Things did not always work out that way.

Back in 2003, shortly after taking control of Baghdad, US forces discovered millions of dollars of loot taken by the Baathist Party during its rule. The US government decided to use it as the seed funding for the Commanders Emergency Response Programme (CERP).

The CERP aims to rebuild the country by funding hundreds of small-scale projects on water and sanitation infrastructure, food production, health care, education, and transport. And research shows that these small projects have improved the security situation in Iraq in the short term.

But the hearts and minds strategy may not be as effective as it appears in the case of Iraq. Aid can fuel conflict by creating incentives for looting, and providing a fertile ground for criminal activities. It is frequently stolen en route and induces fraud and corruption.

This new resource base can strengthen rebels capacity in an armed struggle. And many Iraqis see this foreign assistance as occupation forces simply giving them a tent after burning down their home.

The relationship between different religious groups is a decisive determinant of aid effectiveness in Iraq, and it was crucial in this case.

After the US invasion, the Shia-led government had the chance to reduce the enmity of the Sunni population towards them. To this end, part of the emergency response funds were used to sponsor the Sons of Iraq programme, which paid Sunnis to become security providers.

Sons of Iraq had two effects in the short term: it rewarded people who chose to stop fighting and, it gave incentives to local people to cooperate with security forces by providing them with local intelligence. After the introduction of the programme, the number of attacks in Iraq between 2007 and 2012 decreased.

According to the plan, the Government of Iraq would offer participants, most of them Sunni, a job in the security sector or civilian ministry. But in the end, only a small number of Sunnis were lucky enough to get a government job. Worse still, there were reports that the Shia-led government arrested, tortured, and murdered Sunni members of the programme.

Between 2009 and 2013, former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki gradually dismantled the programme, and filled Iraqi security forces with Shias; Sunnis began to be excluded in Iraqi society once more. This stirred up religious tensions between the two groups. The conflict escalated, leading to a massacre in Hawija in 2013, where hundreds of Sunnis were killed in clashes with security forces.

An Iraqi boy holds a rifle at a Sons of Iraq checkpoint in 2009.

Mosul has long been a site much-contested between different religious groups. These include Sunni and Shia Arabs, Kurds and Assyrian Christians. The complex tribal structure of the region and its proximity to the Syrian border make governing the area almost impossible.

Fearing a perception of favoritism towards Sunnis, the US tamed the Sons of Iraq programme in Mosul. But doing so contributed to the rise of insurgency in the region. It has had the unintended consequence of making Mosul a safe haven for members of al-Qaeda in Iraq, who were repelled from Baghdad, Anbar, and Diyala.

By now, all the conditions were set for a firestorm. Angry people were gathered in Mosul, willing to fight for whichever group was ready to overthrow the government.

Arguably, if the Shia government took the chance to absorb more Sunnis into the regime according to the original plan, ISIS, which stormed onto world stage in June 2014, taking both Fallujah and Mosul in the space of a few months, would have found it more difficult to initiate a war that has since become a political crisis at the global level.

While there is still a long way to go before a decisive victory in Iraq, it is time to plan ahead.

What can the international society do to prevent ISIS from re-emerging?

Humanitarian assistance is necessary for rebuilding houses and infrastructure destroyed by rockets and car bombs. But as the military advancement of the past few months shows, the key to success is cooperation that transcends religious and ethnic identities.

On one hand, the Shia-dominated security forces and Kurdish Peshmerga need intelligence from local citizens, mainly Sunni Arabs. On the other hand, local people require the help of the security forces to free them from ISISs harsh rule.

Behind the major identity fault lines between Sunni and Shia lie numerous grassroots-level rivalries over land and resources that have led to decades-long enmity. To achieve sustainable peace, different community members have to reach reconciliation. At the minimum, all groups should realise that no one is more righteous than the other.

Studies have found that cross-ethnic interactions in unions, theatres or even playgrounds can explain why Hindu-Muslim riots are less common in some places than others.

In this light, donors should fund social and urban design projects that help to build more inclusive, safe and resilient cities for all Iraqis. Hopefully, through these small steps, disparate groups can begin to reach a national-level reconciliation.

Even when ISIS is defeated, unless different groups can repair their relationship, violent extremism will remain, and peace in Iraq will stay elusive. Donor funding must be directed to programmes that help bridge divides.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Originally posted here:
Sons of Iraq: Mosul will only recover if we heed the lessons of the US invasion - Huffington Post

MOSUL, Iraq A reporter and anchor for an Iraqi Kurdish TV station was killed Saturday while working on the front lines as Iraqi forces battle ISIS for the city of Mosul.

Shifa Gardi, 30, a beloved journalist in a male-dominated profession, died in a roadside bomb blast that also injured her cameraman, Younis Mustafa, according to her employer, Rudaw.

Bayan Sami Rahman, the Kurdish governments representative to the United States and a former journalist, tweeted that Kurdistan has lost a courageous and professional journalist who cracked the glass ceiling.

Gardi had been live on TV hours before her death, reporting from western Mosul with Iraqi forces in the background.

She joined the Kurdish media network in 2013.

The network paid tribute to Gardi on its website Saturday, recalling her empathy earlier this week when she earlier rescued an injured rabbit during fighting outside Iraqs second-largest city and ISIS last stronghold.

The rabbit is suffering from malnutrition, which has caused visible damage to its face, she said after returning to the newsroom with the animal.

We will be treating the rabbit and then give it to an animal protection agency which is willing to look after it.

Douglas Silliman, the US ambassador to Iraq, sent his condolences to Gardis family and friends on Twitter. Very sad news, he wrote.

Gardi, who was born a refugee in Iran in 1986, graduated from Salahaddin University in Irbil, according to Rudaw.

She started her journalism career in 2006.

Shifa Gardi was one of Rudaws most daring journalists, the station said in a statement.

Falah Mustafa, minister of the foreign relations department for the Kurdistan Regional Government, described Gardi in a tweet as a brave journalist and role model to young women.

Quentin Sommerville, the BBCs Middle East correspondent, tweeted that Gardi was intrepid and determined.

Iraqi forces are advancing on western Mosul after taking the citys east.

The second stage of the operation could be especially dangerous for civilians as Iraqi troops try to secure densely populated areas amid ISIS resistance, humanitarian groups warn.

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Reporter killed, cameraman injured in Iraq after roadside bomb blast - kfor.com

The authenticity of the video is currently unclear but it appears to show Islamic State jihadis, known for their improvisations on the battlefield, have wrapped the tiny animals torso with explosives before sending it across the front line.

The horrifying video was apparently uploaded online by fighters with the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Units.

The PMU, or Al-Hashd Al-Sha'abi, is a group of militia, brought together and state-sponsored to battle with jihadis in Iraq.

In 2014 the group was incorporated into the countrys armed forces to help fight on the battlefield as major cities were overtaken by terrorists.

Three PMU fighters crouch over the small animal in the video, one resting a knife on the ground as they speak to the camera about the find.

They tell the camera the dog is strapped to four bottles, likely filled with shrapnel.

Accoring to the men, if detonated it could kill three of four people.

PMU

The trio claimed the dog was sent around the corner to where they were positioned.

PMU members said the dog was fitted with explosives which are remotely detonated

Express.co.uk is working on verifying the claims in the footage.

PMU

What was this animals crime? Even animals, ISIS booby traps them and send them out against us

PMU

ISIS has just sent an innocent animal with explosives wrapped around it to our position to try and blow our troops up, the group said.

We have disarmed the explosives and taken them off.

(The) Animal is being sent to the Baghdad Zoo for a nice break from the war zone and well away from ISIS fighters trying to blow animals up for their sick war.

"What was this animals crime? Even animals, ISIS booby traps them and send them out against us.

"They have no morals, they will never defeat us those dirty ISIS fighters."

Daily Express

1 of 12

With its ears down and its back arched the dog appears to be terrified.

The PMU did not reveal its position although it is believe the footage may have been shot outside Mosul.

In recent weeks the city has been liberated from the east as coalition backed forces push ISIS back and gain ground.

Read the original:
ISIS strap suicide vests to PUPPIES in horror footage of sick front line bomb tactic - Express.co.uk

A member of the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) paramilitaries walks next to a sinkhole in the village of Athbah, south of Mosul. (AFP)

The sinkhole that could be the largest mass grave in Iraq's latest conflict is barely visible from the road, nothing more than a small depression behind a desert ridge near Mosul.

The place known as the Khasfah (an Arabic word for a crack or a hole that opens up in the ground) was once a local curiosity, a natural formation that many locals believe was caused by a meteorite.

But the Islamic State group transformed it into a "place of death" after capturing the area in June 2014, using it as an execution site and a mass grave where they disposed of victims, according to local residents.

"They would bring them blindfolded, their hands tied behind their backs. The Khasfah would be in front of them, they would make them kneel down, shoot them in the head and push them in," said Mohamed Yassin, 56, a resident of the nearby town of Hammam al-Alil.

A retired soldier, he said he saw people being executed at the site on several occasions after IS captured the area in June 2014.

He was in the area regularly, transporting oil from a site just metres away, and said he saw executions there at least six times.

Most of those killed, he said, were policeman, soldiers or government employees, judged guilty for their association with the Iraqi state.

"People became afraid of the place, it became a place of death, a place where you'd be executed."

Hussein Khalaf Hilal, 73, was taken to the Khasfah by IS fighters who accused him of violating their rules by treating people with religious folk medicine.

"They came to the house, they blindfolded me, tied my hands behind my back and took me away in a car with blacked out windows," he told AFP.

"They took me there because they wanted me to pledge allegiance, to frighten me."

He said IS fighters marched people into the pit after forcing them to take pills.

"They would line them up, ten by ten, 15 by 15," he said.

He declined to pledge allegiance, but asked for a chance to consider the matter, and was taken to prison instead.

The stories of mass executions match what Belkis Wille, senior Iraq researcher for Human Rights Watch, has heard for months.

"I started hearing about this location about a year ago, in interviews I was doing with people who had fled IS control," she said.

They told her about people who had been executed at the sinkhole, and prisoners whose IS guards told them they were taking detainees to the Khasfah to be killed.

HRW examined satellite imagery that suggested the sinkhole was filling up, and local residents told AFP that IS had piled rusted car parts and shipping containers into it, before bulldozing earth on top.

A month after the area was taken from IS, the once-cavernous hole now extends just a few metres down for most of its surface.

In the centre, there is a smaller, deeper hole, with the carcass of a vehicle lying on top.

The area is strewn with IEDs, both inside and around its perimeter, and is in territory patrolled by Iraq's Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitaries.

"This is a place where you feel sadness," said Hashed fighter Abu Ahmed Hassani.

"You think about all the Iraqis who have been executed, from all the sects," he said.

"They killed children, they killed old people, women, men."

And the Khasfah is still claiming lives.

On Saturday, a reporter from Kurdish channel Rudaw and three Hashed members were killed at the mouth of its central hole, when an IED detonated.

No exact figures yet exist for the number of bodies that could be buried in the sinkhole.

"The figure that we hear over and over again in interviews is 4,000," said Wille, stressing the information was as yet impossible to verify.

HRW wants to see Iraq's government, which has an inter-ministerial team dedicated to dealing with mass graves, carry out an extensive operation to protect and excavate the site.

"We'd want to see that team going up as quickly as possible, marking off the site both to protect it and also to stop people going to a site that's contaminated," said Wille.

"After that comes the harder job, which is first collecting the surface remains... for use by forensic experts to start identification, and after that the much harder work of excavating the remains that are below."

But Hassani said he thought it would be impossible to excavate the many layers of the sinkhole.

"What should happen is that it should be covered over, and become a cemetery for Iraqi martyrs," he said.

AFP 2017

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Mass grave horror found beneath the dirt in Iraq - 9news.com.au

A senior military adviser to the Leader of Islamic Revolution said the stances adopted by certain countries against the Islamic Republic at the recent Munich Security Conference are rooted in their defeats in Iraq and Syria. Speaking to Tasnim News Agency on Saturday, Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi denounced recent anti-Tehran remarks by the representatives of some countries in the confab and said they are angry over their defeats in Iraq and Syria. "The fact is that the proxy wars waged by the US, Zionists [Israelis], Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in Syria and Iraq have failed," he said. "The immature stances adopted by some countries in the Munich conference originated from their anger over the defeats." Safavi further highlighted Iran's successful strategy in countering regional terrorists, saying the Islamic Republic's success in restoring security to Syria and Iraq has infuriated those who created terror groups like the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group. The remarks came after Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir and Israel's Avigdor Lieberman delivered harsh speeches against Iran in the MSC in Germany. The Israeli official even sought to support Riyadh, alleging that Iran had an ultimate objective of undermining Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. In response, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qasemi said the Saudi and Israeli regimes are both attempting to "provoke the international atmosphere" against Iran to cover up their own defeats and failed policies in the region. Qasemi stressed that the recurring tone of Saudi and Israeli officials, whose regimes are collaborating in the suppression of people in the region, demonstrates "painful frustration and resentment". "It is a pity that the occupying regime of Israel has counted on the cooperation of an Islamic countrySaudi Arabiato pursue its anti-Iran policies," he said.

More:
Defeats in Iraq, Syria Behind Anti-Iran Stances - Financial Tribune