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Months after the Obama administration sent military advisers to Iraq to shore up the countrys splintered army, Baghdad is no closer to mounting an organized offensive against Islamic State, which controls territory in western Iraq and eastern Syria. Pentagon officials say they need at least a year to reorganize the Iraqi army, whose troops fled rather than fight the Sunni Muslim group, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Its a mixed picture of competence and capability throughout the Iraqi army, and sometimes even within units, Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagons top spokesman, said at a briefing in October. This is an army that was not properly resourced, properly trained, properly maintained for three years.

U.S. officials are still figuring out which moderate groupsamong the insurgents whove been fighting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assadit wants to bring into the battle against Islamic State. Saudi Arabia has offered to host a training camp for as many as 5,000 Syrian fighters, but the Pentagon hasnt worked out how to transport them. Turkey has also agreed to let the U.S. train rebels on its soil. Fielding a force of two or three Syrian brigades could take two years and cost $1billion to $2billion annually, according to Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA Persian Gulf analyst who is at the Brookings Institution.

President Obama, who won in 2008 partly because he promised to get U.S. troops out of Iraqwhich he did, in 2011has pledged not to return American ground forces to the region. Instead, the U.S. has continued bombing Islamic State positions and has intensified support of Kurdish Peshmerga fighters along Iraqs northern border. The strategys very clear, National Security Adviser Susan Rice said on Meet the Press in October. Well do what we can from the air. We will support the Iraqi security forces, the Kurds, and ultimately, over time, the moderate opposition in Syria to be able to control territory and take the fight to ISIL.

As Islamic State grows stronger, pressure is building on the administration to send U.S. troops to quickly rout the militants. Ruling out U.S. ground forces is a huge mistake, says James Jeffrey, who served as Obamas ambassador to Iraq from 2010 to 2012. Its going to take time to train ground forces in Syria and in Iraq to wage an offensive. Time isnt on ourside.

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The Slow March Back to War in Iraq

After a few months of calm ushered in by a truce between Iraqs Al Jubur tribe and Islamic State, came the curfew and the disappearances.

The two groups had battled for control of al-Alam town, north of Baghdad, over several weeks in June. Sunni tribal elders then sat down with militant leaders and negotiated a deal that allowed Islamic State to raise its black flag, confiscate weapons and run local affairs.

Everything was good and life was normal, said Abdel-Latif Khalaf Saleh, a 38-year-old resident. Until last week, when Abu Raad was appointed as Islamic States new emir in al-Alam.

Since then, hundreds of men and boys, aged 12 to 70, have been rounded up and taken to unknown locations, said Khalaf Saleh and other witnesses interviewed by phone. In other areas of western Iraq, hundreds have been killed.

While the reprisals against Sunni tribes that resisted Islamic States drive to establish a caliphate are meant to eradicate opposition, they could have the opposite effect, said Julien Barnes-Dacey, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The executions arent random mass killings. Its a powerful message that this is a consequence for those who challenge us, Barnes-Dacey said. Yet Sunni communities disenfranchised by the Shiite-dominated government and security forces assisted the Islamic State advance. If that breaks down, it becomes harder, he said.

One powerful tribal chief, Sheikh Faris al-Dulaimi, a leader of a clan network that formed the backbone of Saddam Husseins army for years, has already escalated the fight with Islamic State.

A thousand heavily armed tribal fighters have been sent to areas near the cities of Hit and Zawiya, west of Baghdad, to protect clans being threatened by the militants, Dulaimi said in a phone interview. Theyre being led by former army officers and will be joined by government troops soon, he said.

Islamic State believes the people of these tribes were born Muslims but abandoned their religion when they helped Shiites fighting against them, al-Dulaimi said, explaining that when the group first entered Anbar province, it killed more than 30 members of his sub-tribe, Albu Assaf, and demolished their houses.

Extreme brutality was also a characteristic of al-Qaeda in Iraq, a previous incarnation of Islamic State. One of its most notorious leaders, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, took over large areas of the country after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion before he was killed in a U.S. airstrike three years later.

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Islamic State Massacres Stir Unrest Among Iraqs Sunni Tribes

A series of attacks, mainly against Iraqi troops, killed 13 people in Baghdad and in the country's west on Thursday as the government pressed ahead with a draft law meant to establish a community-based national guard force in efforts to mobilize Iraq's Sunni minority in the battle against the Islamic State group.

In one of Thursday's attacks, a suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden car into an army checkpoint near the town of al-Baghdadi, about 180 kilometers (110 miles) northwest of Baghdad, killing five soldiers and wounding 12, police officials said.

In Baghdad, a bomb blast in a commercial street in the western district of Ghazaliyah killed four people and wounded eight, while a bomb near a line of shops killed two people in the city's northwest, the officials said.

Earlier, gunmen in a speeding car opened fire on an army checkpoint in Baghdad's western suburb of Abu Ghraib, killing two soldiers.

Hospital officials confirmed the causalities. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Meanwhile, Iraq's parliament speaker, Salim al-Jubouri said that the draft law to establish a community-driven national guard in each province would be finished and submitted to the parliament within the next two weeks

The move is mainly designed to appease and mobilize Sunni tribes against the extremists form the Islamic State group who made big advances in the Sunni western province of Anbar in recent months. Members of the Sunni minority have been complaining of second-class treatment by the Shiite-led government and abuse by Shiite militias.

Once the law is approved, it could still take months to assemble and equip such a force.

"Obviously the events of Anbar ... led to a popular mobilization of the people to confront the IS group," al-Jubouri told The Associated Press from Irbil in northern Iraq.

Iraq is facing its worst crisis since the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. troops, with the Islamic State group in control of large swaths of land in the country's north and west.

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Attacks in Iraq, Mainly Targeting Troops, Kill 13

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