Iraqi forces, aided by U.S. jets, claim swift gains in push to retake dam from militants
Islamic State says it is buying and selling Yazidi women, using them as concubines
(about 1 month later)
BADRIYA, Iraq — Islamic State fighters were on the run in northern Iraq on Sunday after Iraqi and Kurdish forces, backed by U.S. airstrikes, closed in on a strategically vital dam in the most significant attempt yet to reverse the militants’ blitz through Iraq.
BAGHDAD — The Islamic State extremist organization boasted Sunday that it had enslaved women from an Iraqi minority group in order to use them as concubines, as a rights organization detailed teenagers being bought and sold by fighters for as little as $1,000.
Iraqi and Kurdish commanders claimed to be making swift progress, slicing through a series of villages and then reaching the dam after a wave of U.S. attacks in which fighter jets, drones and bombers pummeled the extremists’ positions.
An English-language propaganda magazine for the Islamic State said that Yazidi women and children were considered spoils of war after they were captured as the militants seized their towns and villages. It was the first confirmation from the group of widespread allegations of detention and sexual abuse against Yazidi women.
It was the biggest offensive since the latest U.S. intervention in Iraq was announced 10 days ago, and it signaled an expansion of what was originally defined as a narrowly focused mission to protect American personnel in Iraq and help fleeing Yazidi villagers trapped on a mountain.
Hundreds of thousands of members of the ancient sect were displaced as the Islamic State swept through the Sinjar area of northern Iraq in August, prompting President Obama to warn of an unfolding genocide. Those who fled said that while men had been massacred, hundreds of women and children had been detained.
In a letter released Sunday notifying Congress of the action, President Obama said the militants’ control of the dam posed a threat to the U.S. Embassy 200 miles away in Baghdad, which could be inundated if the dam were breached.
After detaining the Yazidis, the Islamic State systematically separated young women and teenage girls from their families, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report that also came out on Sunday.
“The failure of the Mosul Dam could threaten the lives of large numbers of civilians, endanger U.S. personnel and facilities, including the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and prevent the Iraqi government from providing critical services to the Iraqi populace,” he wrote.
“The Islamic State’s litany of horrific crimes against the Yazidis in Iraq only keeps growing,” said Fred Abrahams, a special adviser at HRW. The group documented 366 Yazidis who were being held captive but also said some detainees reached by phone reported that the number was more than 1,000. The Iraqi government said that 1,500 women were detained during the advances in the Sinjar area, which is also home to Christian and Shiite minorities.
Obama had signaled in a statement last week that protecting “critical infrastructure” would be part of what officials have described as a limited military intervention. This was, however, the first time Iraqi, Kurdish and U.S. forces had come together to launch a major ground assault.
One 15-year-old girl interviewed after she had escaped told the group that the Palestinian Islamic State militant she had been sold to bought her for $1,000.
A week ago, U.S. airstrikes helped clear Islamic State positions, enabling Kurdish fighters to retake two small towns south of the Kurdish capital, Irbil. That marked the Kurds’ first successful effort to recapture territory they had lost to an Islamic State offensive launched two weeks ago.
The women and children were divided among fighters according to Islamic law, the Islamic State magazine, called Dabiq, said.
Kurdish and Iraqi officials said that Sunday’s operation was going better than expected and that the dam would soon be under full government control. “We expect to finish this within hours,” said Helgurd Hikmat, a spokesman for the Kurdish forces, known as the pesh merga.
“The enslaved Yazidi families are now sold by the Islamic State soldiers,” it continued. The article argued that although Christians and Jews can be offered the chance to pay a tax or convert, Yazidis, as polytheists, can be enslaved if captured during war.
A U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, also said that the operation had “made significant progress.” But he said that recapturing the dam would take time “because there are a lot of IEDs,” or roadside bombs.
It goes on to detail the argument for enslavement under its extremist interpretation of Islam, boasting that it’s the largest mass-enslavement since the early days of the religion.
Late Sunday night, a senior Kurdish official said that Islamic State fighters had abandoned their positions at the dam but that Iraqi and Kurdish forces had refrained from entering the facility because of concerns that it was booby-trapped.
“One should remember that enslaving the families of the [nonbelievers] and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of Islamic law,” the magazine said. “Their creed is so deviant from the truth that even cross-worshipping Christians for ages considered them devil worshippers and Satanists.”
“Everybody is being really careful about their sinister tactics. When they leave their positions, they mine them,” said Hoshyar Zebari, a former Iraqi foreign minister who is working closely with the Kurdish government.
The rejection of slavery has led to an increase in adultery and fornication, it said, because men who can’t afford marriage find themselves surrounded by temptation, including by maids. “If she were his concubine, this relationship would be legal,” it said.
“But we don’t see any resistance whatsoever.”
None of the Yazidi women interviewed by HRW said they had been raped, but sexual assault is deeply stigmatized in the conservative sect.
The Islamic State’s Aug. 7 capture of the Mosul Dam, just hours before Obama announced his decision to send U.S. warplanes back into action in Iraq, was a high point in the group’s campaign to establish a caliphate across the Middle East, putting the militants in control of one of Iraq’s most vital facilities.
One interviewed by the group said she’d seen “brides” taken from both a school and prison she was held in.
Ten days on, it seemed that the intervention was starting to turn the tide.
“Some were as young as 12 or 13, and up to age 20,” she said. “Some they had to pull away with force. Some of the young women were married but without children, so [the Islamic State soldiers] didn’t believe they were married.”
At the Badriya checkpoint, six miles north of the dam, spirits were high among pesh merga troops blocking the road ahead, citing the danger posed by explosives planted by the retreating militants. Several Islamic State fighters had been captured trying to sneak through Kurdish checkpoints in a bid to escape, said Yunus Said, a volunteer fighter. Others had retreated to the western bank of the Tigris River, he said.
As he spoke, a convoy of SUVs and armored vehicles sped past from the direction of the front line, escorting a pickup in which a bound, blindfolded captive sat.
The soldiers cheered. “Daish,” they shouted, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “Beat them, beat them.”
Iraq’s elite special forces, which worked closely alongside U.S. Special Forces units before U.S. troops withdrew in 2011, took the lead in the fighting around the dam, while pesh merga troops closed in on the surrounding villages from the north. Brig. Gen. Abdulwahab al-Saidi, a commander with the Iraqi special forces, said the Iraqi air force and SWAT teams also were involved.
Their advance was preceded by the most intense U.S. bombardment yet, with 14 airstrikes destroying armed vehicles, Humvees, armored personnel carriers and a checkpoint belonging to the militants, according to U.S. Central Command statements. The strikes followed nine in the area the previous day. Three more were carried out later Sunday.
The assault was the worst setback for the Islamic State since the militants embarked on their stunning rout of the Iraqi army across northern Iraq in June. The group has since continued to expand across Iraq and Syria .
The extremists also came under pressure in Syria on Sunday, with activists in their northern stronghold of Raqqah reporting 23 bombing raids by Syrian government warplanes against Islamic State targets there. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said there were 84 Syrian airstrikes Sunday, an unusually high number. Of them, 43 were against the Islamic State, signaling a significant escalation of Syrian attacks against the group, which the government had for many months steered away from confronting.
On Sunday, two U.S. officials said that the Obama administration had agreed to requests from the Iraqi government to help its forces retake control of the dam because of its strategic importance.
If breached, the dam would unleash catastrophic flooding across a vast swath of territory as far south as Baghdad. But Kurdish and U.S. officials said fears that the militants would blow it up have been overstated. Among other things, it would be difficult to assemble enough explosives to do so.
Moreover, said Brig. Gen. Azad Hawezi, a senior Kurdish commander, “they would flood themselves first, because the first place that would disappear would be Mosul,” the biggest city controlled by the Islamic State immediately south of the dam.
However, U.S. officials have said that the dam was poorly constructed and requires constant maintenance and upkeep — something Islamic State fighters would be unable to provide, heightening the risk of failure over the long term.
If the dam were to remain in the hands of the Islamic State, “it could have tremendous humanitarian impacts on the country,” said a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing military operations. “Having them in control of the dam is threat enough.”
In a statement, U.S. Central Command said the airstrikes Sunday were carried out by a mix of fighter jets, armed drones and bomber aircraft.
The statement did not identify the type of bombers involved, but the Air Force has B-1 bombers based in the Persian Gulf at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar. It is thought to be the first time that bomber aircraft have been involved in the Iraqi air campaign. Fighter jets involved in the attacks have largely come from the USS George H.W. Bush, an aircraft carrier deployed to the gulf.
No U.S. troops or military advisers are embedded with Iraqi or Kurdish forces, according to American officials, although about 70 U.S. troops are based at a joint operations center in Irbil.
Whitlock reported from Washington, and Morris reported from Baghdad. Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.
