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Sunni Muslim and Baathist Forces Said to Clash Near Kirkuk As Fighting Spreads Through Iraq, Sunni Allies Turn on One Another
(about 3 hours later)
BAGHDAD — In a sign of a split in the coalition of Sunni Muslim forces supporting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the militants clashed with an Iraqi Baathist faction allied with them, Iraqi security officials said on Saturday. BAGHDAD — The violent struggle over Iraq on Saturday consumed cities and towns widely spread over the north and west of the country, with neither the Sunni militants nor the Iraqi army seeming to gain major ground.
The clashes took place in western Kirkuk and the suburb of Hawija, a longtime stronghold of the Men of the Army of Naqshbandia, a group formed by former army officers who served under Saddam Hussein and joined with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, in its drive through Iraq. The fighting also was one of the first times fissures appeared in the extremist Sunni coalition led by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, with a battle between that group and its Baathist allies killing 17.
A security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with official policy, said militants from the two factions fought one another Friday night after ISIS tried to disarm the Naqshbandia. However, someone in Hawija who witnessed the clash said the two factions had fought over control of gasoline and oil tanker trucks brought by the Sunni militants from the refinery at Baiji, which they have been attacking for nearly a week now. In Baghdad, a bomb exploded in a market in the predominantly Shiite Zafaraniya area, killing four shoppers. Three hours later, two men were found dumped nearby, handcuffed and shot to death. The victims were likely to be Sunnis since the area is controlled by Shiite militiamen.
The security official said eight Naqshbandia militants and nine ISIS militants had been killed. In the insurgent-held city of Tikrit, in Salahuddin Province, the morgue at the hospital reported that it had received 84 bodies of policemen, soldiers and government employees who had been executed. Seven of them had been beheaded, according to an official there, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of angering the insurgents.
The Naqshbandia group was formed under the leadership of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, one of Hussein’s few top commanders to escape capture by the American military. The group includes Baathist party members and former military officers, and has a Sufi, nationalist philosophy that is at odds with the ISIS ideology. In western Anbar Province, two more towns fell to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, near the border town of Qaim, which fell to the rebels on Friday. Reports from officials at the scene said 34 Iraqi soldiers were killed on Friday as hundreds of militants overran Qaim.
The group was active in demonstrations last year in Hawija, one of its strongholds, that ended with at least 42 people killed when the Iraqi Army tried to disperse protesters. Except for Sunni neighborhoods of western Kirkuk, the city has been under the control of Kurdish pesh merga militiamen, after the Iraqi Army in the area collapsed. A local government leader, Muthana al-Rawi, said the two towns taken Saturday, Ana and Rawaa, fell after troops and police officers fled Qaim and “sleeper cells of the militants showed up to fill the gap and take control over the two towns.”
The official Iraqi military spokesman, Gen. Qassim Atta, again claimed that Iraqi forces had regained the initiative. He said fighting was continuing in Qaim, an important border crossing with Syria in western Anbar Province that apparently fell under ISIS control on Friday. In a briefing for reporters, General Atta, declined to take questions as he has throughout the past week. Eyewitnesses from another border town, Al Waleed, said the Syrian air force had bombed ISIS troops who were trying to attack and capture it, as well. If Al Waleed fell, that would leave the Iraqi government without control of a single border crossing to Syria.
“We will not let them take any foot of our earth,” the general said. “We are the ones who are making the attacks.” He said the militants had been particularly hard hit by Iraqi airstrikes. “You should see how those ISIS run away when they hear even the sound of our air force,” he said. “It shows they are really afraid.” The government also said it was still battling to hold on to the Baiji oil refinery, the country’s biggest, not far from Kirkuk, and to retake the town of Tal Afar.
General Atta then played video from a gun camera that showed helicopter gunship bombing runs on groups of men who he said were ISIS fighters and who were running in the streets of Tal Afar, a city west of Mosul in the north. Tal Afar was also reported to have fallen to the insurgents last week, but Iraqi forces were battling to retake it, and local reports said that it was still being contested. In Baghdad, attention was focused instead on tens of thousands of Shiite militiamen as they marched in a display of force there and in southern cities in the Shia heartland. Some had homemade heavy weaponry.
In a separate development, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia called Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq and offered Russia’s “full support for the Iraqi government’s efforts to liberate Iraqi territory from the terrorists’ hands as quickly as possible,” according to a statement issued Saturday by the Kremlin. The prime minister’s top military spokesman, Gen. Qassim Atta, gave a press briefing in which he once again insisted that the initiative had shifted to Iraqi government forces.
Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, fell to the militants on June 10, and in the following three days they pushed to within about 60 miles of Baghdad, conquering most of the provinces of Nineveh and Salahuddin, as well as much of Diyala Province. In the past week, however, they appear to have concentrated on consolidating their gains, attacking cities and towns on the margin of the territory they overran, but not advancing closer to Baghdad.
As he has consistently done since the ISIS offensive advanced toward the capital, General Atta gave his televised briefing to Iraqi journalists but refused to take any questions from them.
“We will not let them take any foot of our earth,” General Atta said. “We are the ones who are making the attacks.” He said the militants had been particularly hard hit by Iraqi airstrikes. “You should see how those ISIS run away when they hear even the sound of our air force,” he said. “It shows they are really afraid.”
General Atta then played a video showing helicopter gunship airstrikes on groups of men running in the streets of Tal Afar who he said were ISIS fighters.
The fighting between Sunni militants near Kirkuk that left 17 dead was an early sign of a split in the coalition of Sunni Muslim forces who joined with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and helped propel their advance. The Men of the Army of Naqshbandia, a group made of former Baathist officials, clashed with ISIS militants Friday night, according to a security official in Kirkuk, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as a matter of official policy.
The battles took place in Hawija, one of the strongholds of the Naqshbandia, a group formed by former army officers from the Saddam Hussein regime. The group’s leader is believed to be Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, one of the few top commanders who worked with Hussein who was able to escape capture by the American military. The group’s nationalistic, Sufi philosophy is completely at odds with ISIS’s extreme Islamist philosophy.
The security official said the fighting had broken out when ISIS tried to disarm the Naqshbandia, but an eyewitness from Hawija said they had been fighting over control of gasoline and oil tanker trucks captured from the refinery at Baiji.
The Naqshbandia group was active in antigovernment demonstrations in Hawija last year that ended with at least 42 people killed when the Iraqi army tried to disperse protesters.
In a separate development, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the embattled Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, and offered Russia’s “full support for the Iraqi government’s efforts to liberate Iraqi territory from the terrorists’ hands as quickly as possible,” according to a statement issued by the Kremlin Saturday.