Iraq’s PM launches an operation to free Anbar from ISIS. DEBKAfile: It is Stage II of the Kurdish campaign for an Iran-backed Shiite takeover of another Sunni region.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi announced on Thursday, Oct. 26 that his army had embarked on a new operation to liberate the western Anbar province from the Islamic State. His troops were on their way to impose a siege on ISIS-held Al-Qaim on the Syrian border. ISIS also still holds Abu Kamal on the Syrian side of the Iraqi border. Abadi said the jihadis had just two options: to die or to surrender.
Sources in Baghdad report that the US Air Force has gone into action to soften resistance and speed the Iraqi army’s advance, although it is accompanied, as ever, by Shiite militias under direct Iranian command. Those militias, the PMU and Badr Brigade, are grouped together under the heading of Hasd al-Shaabi.
Therefore, the American Air Force is helping and supporting an Iranian-led militia, despite Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s assertion that “Shiite militias in Iraq must go home.” He spoke as recently as Oct. 21, after talks in Riyadh and Baghdad with Saudi King Salman and Prime Minister al-Abadi.
The scenario beginning to unfold in the Anbar campaign has features that suggest the set-up which led up to the operation against Kurdistan ten days ago. Then, too, Baghdad claimed its forces were massing for an attack on ISIS in Anbar. Instead, they suddenly turned around and landed a blow on the Sunni Kurds and Kirkuk. There are grounds to suspect that al-Abadi’s new anti-ISIS campaign in Anbar may be another masquerade to disguise an Iranian-backed Shiite offensive to seize control of Sunni Anbar. READ MORE
