ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A group of Anbar province refugees who reached Shaqlawa in the Kurdistan region have told Rudaw they are suspicious of the central government and its use of Shiite militias in any future attempt to liberate Anbar from ISIS.
“Iraqi forces fled Anbar, SWAT forces fled, the Golden Force fled, where are the Anbar police commanders? Three days before ISIS entered Ramadi they evacuated Ramadi,” one refugee told Rudaw.
“In fact, the situation is very bad, we call on the Iraqi government to liberate Ramadi from the ISIS militants. However, I do not think they can do it,” said another.
According to information obtained by Rudaw, more than 5,000 pro-Baghdad Hashd al-Shaabi Shiite militants have been stationed in the Habbaniyah area east of Ramadi to gear up to drive ISIS militants out. The majority Sunni Ramadi was seized by Islamic State militants on May 15. The capital of Anbar, the largest province in Iraq, Ramadi’s capture by ISIS has been viewed as a major symbolic and strategic victory for the jihadis.
Though many Anbar Sunnis oppose ISIS, they are also hostile towards Shiite forces. A potential push by the central government with these Shiite forces into Al-Anbar has some locals criticizing the government forces just as much as ISIS.
“In order not to arm the Anbar tribal forces and arm Hashd al-Shaabi, the Iraqi government wanted to impose Hashd al-Shaabi on us, and now we are paying the price of the fall of Ramadi,” Anbar tribal leader Sheikh Abdulrezaq Shemari told Rudaw. “We never wanted Hashd al-Shaabi to enter our areas because we were already familiar with their war crimes against civilians.”
“Their name is not Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) but Hashd al-Shiite (Shiite mobilization forces),” he added.
