Iraqi PM warns Isis could become unstoppable as key city threatened

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/16/iraqi-city-ramadi-verge-falling-isis-prime-minister

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Islamic State fighters have launched an offensive aimed at seizing the capital of the Iraq’s central Anbar province, as the country’s prime minister warned that if unchecked, the militants could become unstoppable.

Related: Final battle for Tikrit: ‘We won’t let the Americans take the glory’

The advance on the city of Ramadi is the most serious Isis campaign since Iraqi forces recaptured the city of Tikrit, and has displaced thousands of civilians.

Speaking in Washington on Thursday, the Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, said the offensive underscored the growing threat posed by Isis militants – whom he referred to using the group’s Arabic acronym “Daesh”.

Abadi said the group was “recruiting young people not only in Iraq but across the world – I stress across the world.

“It’s not only transnational, they’re trying to establish an entity on the ground. And if Daesh has developed this capability, no uniformed army can stop them. And they must be stopped,” he said.

The Iraqi prime minister, who in recent days has met with President Barack Obama, Joe Biden and top leaders in Congress, said air strikes by a US-led coalition would be “vital” to the broader mission against Isis.

The recapture of Tikrit, Abadi said, offered “a case study for how the rest of Iraq can be liberated”.

But the fall of Ramadi would also be a major symbolic defeat for Iraq. In areas they have seized around the city, the militants have executed hundreds of tribesmen who belonged to the Sunni Awakening movement, which was instrumental in driving jihadists out of the province with the backing of the United States.

“The situation is very dangerous,” said Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi expert who advises the government on Isis. “The city is on the verge of falling.”

The most senior US military officer played down the significance of a potential Isis victory in Ramadi.

“The city itself is not symbolic in any way, it’s not been declared part of the caliphate on one hand or central to the future of Iraq,” General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon.

“I’d much rather that Ramadi not fall, but it won’t be the end of a campaign should it fall. We’ve got to get it back.”

Ramadi, the administrative capital of Anbar, is split by the Euphrates river into an eastern and western section. Al-Hashimi said Isis is fully in control of the eastern part of the city, and now holds 80% of the western side, with the militant group’s fighters just a kilometre away from the Anbar operations command and two kilometres from key government buildings.

“The reality is that Daesh is advancing quickly,” he said.

Isis launched the offensive on Wednesday, taking control of the villages of Sjariyah, Albu-Ghanim and Soufiya. Iraqi government and US-led coalition warplanes struck back at some of the militant positions on Thursday.

But Isis is attacking the city on four fronts, fighting a guerrilla-style battle on residential streets that limits the ability of air strikes to halt their advance.

Sattar Nowruz, from the Ministry of Migration and Displaced, told the Associated Press that more than 2,000 families that fled Ramadi were in a “difficult situation” and have settled in southern and western Baghdad suburbs, posing a fresh humanitarian crisis. Another 400 families have sought refuge in Karbala.

Ramadi’s centre has long been held by the Iraqi government, with parts of the city’s outskirts falling under the militants’ sway. Isis launched a lightning offensive last summer in Iraq, conquering vast swaths of territory. Iraqi Shia militias backed by Sunni tribesmen and the army succeeded in recapturing the city of Tikrit from the terror group earlier this month.

But the fall of Ramadi would be a more significant symbolic victory for the group, which has urged Sunnis to rebel against the Shia-dominated central government, which has close ties to Iran.

Its fall would also be a warning to those Sunni tribesmen who cooperated in the fight against Isis, and offer a morale boost to its fighters, smarting from the Tikrit defeat. Al-Hashimi said the group had carried out 327 executions of “Sahwa” members in recent days, describing it as a “real massacre”.

Anbar was set to be the next key battleground in the fight against Isis in Iraq, along with Mosul, the group’s crown jewel in the country.

In Washington, Abadi insisted Iraqi fighters maintained the “upper hand psychologically” and that areas controlled by his government were increasing while those controlled by militants were rescinding.

“This is a war – and in a war you can win in one place and lose somewhere else,” he said.

Dempsey said he had urged Abadi during a meeting with the Iraqi premier in Washington to “connect these ink blots” between the Iraqi military’s campaign north of Baghdad – which Dempsey portrayed as going well – and its faltering efforts in Anbar.

But the general said he considered Isis’ attempt to regain the Baiji oil refinery more important than its advance on Ramadi.

“Baiji is a more strategic target and that’s why the focus right now is in fact on Baiji,” Dempsey said.