ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Brigadier Hidayat Abdul Karim was the top military commander in Mosul, but among the last to learn about the Iraqi city’s fall to the Islamic State (IS) more than a month ago.
He explained that as a Kurd he was virtually powerless in the Iraqi military: the army was so divided along ethnic and sectarian lines that his unit had no ammunition, and he was not told about Mosul’s fall until the next day.
“I learnt about the fall of Mosul at 10 O’clock the next morning,” said Karim, who was commander of the Third Brigade in Mosul. He has been living in Erbil with his family since Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki singled him out for a court martial “for escaping from the battlefield.”
Karim said that 85 percent of the Iraqi army is dominated by Shiites, with Kurds and Sunnis treated with suspicion and as outcasts.
“Our brigade was under the command of the Kurds, so we did not have a single bullet to fire,” Karim said. “The Iraqi government had crippled our military unit because it was under Kurdish command. We did not have tanks and cannons -- not even ammunition.”
Karim, who was promoted and assigned his new post in Mosul only 11 days before the city fell, said that despite his rank and position he did not have authority over an entire brigade: “In reality I was the commander of one-and-a-half regiment, and not a brigade.”
The rebel forces seized control of Mosul on June 9, after the Iraqi army collapsed and retreated from the city without putting up a fight.
“The Sunni soldiers knew what was going to happen, because 400 of them deserted 10 days before the IS onslaught,” said Karim, who also spoke about his own bravery and several wounds he suffered in fighting in Anbar province.
“If I was in Mosul with 100 soldiers I would not have let this happen to the city. None of the brigades were under my control. Our forces had collapsed, but they weren’t telling me,” according to Karim.
Speaking about his promotion, Karim explained he was chosen by Maliki because of direct support from the office of Jalal Talabani, Iraq’s Kurdish president who is also head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party. He has been out of the country since suffering a stroke in December 2012.
Karim said the PUK had asked Maliki for command of a military brigade in order to stand equal with its rival, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which controlled two brigades.
Karim said that after the fall of Mosul he issued orders for his men to shoot any soldier trying to flee. “Some high-ranking officers were begging the soldiers to let them escape,” he said.
Karim added he believes that Baghdad lost control of Mosul long before the rebel assault: “The IS had supporters among the Sunnis in Mosul. Mosul was lost one year ago.”
The military man said that Kurds were constitutionally entitled to 17 percent of positions in the military, but in reality they were given no more than two percent of the posts.
Commenting on orders from Baghdad for his court martial, Karim blamed that on his deputy, a Shiite from Hillah.
“He wrote a bad report about me and claimed that I surrendered the Third Brigade to Barzani (the Kurdish president) and that I fled from the fight,” Karim explained, calling the allegations “totally baseless.”
