Iraq may follow U.S. Marines' blueprint to defeat Islamic State in Anbar
Baghdads Shiite-run government has begun its second major counteroffensive against the Islamic State, this time choosing western Anbar province, where the U.S. Marine Corps years ago showed that the path to victory requires an alliance with Sunni tribal chiefs.
The governments just-completed retaking of the city of Tikrit was carried out principally by Iranian-led and -equipped Iraqi Shiite militiamen. In Anbar, Sunni sheiks have made it clear that they do not want Iranian operators or proxies on their territory.
It falls on the beleaguered Iraqi army to dust off and follow a playbook for defeating terrorists there. The Marine Corps in the mid-2000s wooed and organized Sunni tribal fighters to take on and expel al Qaeda insurgents. The battle plan became a template for an Iraq-wide campaign known as the U.S. troop surge and Sunni Awakening.
Al Qaeda-inspired terrorists returned and captured much of Anbar in January 2014. This time, they showed up under a different name, the Islamic State, and a new leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi cleric who got his start as a vicious terrorist in Anbars city of Fallujah in 2004.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who meets in Washington this week with President Obama, ordered the counteroffensive Wednesday. He immediately traveled to an air base in Anbar and was photographed handing out rifles to local fighters whose leaders have long complained that Baghdad refuses to ship the equipment they need.
Kenneth Pollack, a Middle East analyst at the Brookings Institution, said American advisers had been arguing to go into Anbar before Tikrit Saddam Husseins old neighborhood because Sunni opposition to Shiite rule remains deep-seated.
Its a good way to take smaller bites, use them to blood the army, work out any problems and use the time to work out better arrangements with the Sunnis before going after the daunting challenge of Mosul, Mr. Pollack said, mentioning Iraqs second-largest city, now under Islamic State rule. I think it is very smart. And Abadi will hopefully get a bunch of wins under his belt that will create a sense of momentum going his way.
Mr. al-Abadi said Tikrit is now in government hands. But the victory remains uneven, with reports of Shiite-on-Sunni atrocities, looting and burnings.
The Islamic State, also known as ISIL and ISIS, typically launches suicide bombing attacks on cities it does not control, such as Baghdad. It also has shown that it can dispatch its fighters on other objectives, such as smaller towns or oil refineries, to keep the U.S.-led coalition off balance.
But it is clear that Mr. al-Abadi is a wartime prime minister who plans to take the fight to the terrorists as often as possible.
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Iraq may follow U.S. Marines' blueprint to defeat Islamic State in Anbar