ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraqi Ground Forces Commander Qassim al-Mohammedi on Tuesday called for all non-Iraqi armed groups to leave Shingal (Sinjar), while saying the remaining Iraqi Yazidi fighters could join the country’s security forces. “All non-Iraqi armed men must leave the area because this isn’t their area of operation, and their presence cannot be accepted,” Mohammedi told the state-run Iraqi News Agency (INA). The call coincides with Baghdad's broader efforts under Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi to integrate armed groups under state authority, including a recent agreement with the predominantly Yazidi Shingal Resistance Units (YBS) to hand over weapons and join state security institutions. “Security forces are taking the necessary measures to ensure no armed men outside the law remain in Sinjar,” he added. “There is a plan to integrate Iraqis in the area into security formations and to work towards forming a local administration that will manage the affairs of the citizens.” On September 11, Prime Minister Zaidi’s office said YBS would begin handing its weapons to the state and that Mount Shingal would come under the federal government and security institutions. Shingal, a Yazidi-majority district in northern Nineveh province, came under attack by the Islamic State (ISIS) militants in August 2014. The group killed and abducted thousands of Yazidis and subjected women and girls to sexual slavery, in what the United Nations has recognized as genocide. Iraqi and Kurdish forces later took part in the campaign to drive ISIS out of Shingal. Other armed groups also became active in the area, including YBS, Iraqi Army units, Kurdistan Region Peshmerga forces and factions of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). YBS is a predominantly Yazidi armed group with ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The Iraqi government has been seeking to integrate Iraqi armed groups in Shingal into official security institutions. Rudaw reported earlier this month that Baghdad planned to integrate between 1,500 and 2,000 Iraqi fighters linked to YBS into the security forces. Last week, during a visit by the Yazidi Cause Alliance and the leadership of YBS to Baghdad to meet PM Zaidi, the group announced it would hand over weapons to Iraqi security forces and integrate. Mohammedi said Iraqi forces had been instructed to remove armed men from Mount Shingal. “They won’t be allowed to stay there, whatever it takes,” he said. On Tuesday, INA also reported that Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Abdul-Amir Rashid Yarallah had arrived in the town to assess the readiness of military units and address the district’s security file. The move comes as the Iraqi government seeks to settle the security and administrative situation in Shingal and facilitate the return of Yazidis displaced by the ISIS attack. A committee formed under the prime minister’s office is also working on reconstruction, the return of displaced residents and restoration of services, according to a Yazidi lawmaker who spoke to Rudaw last week. The Iraqi government is also due to undergo a broader security transition at the end of September, when the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS is scheduled to complete its military mission in Iraq. Mohammedi said Iraqi forces were ready to assume full responsibility for the country’s security and argued that ISIS no longer posed a serious threat. “The remaining members of the terrorist group ISIS amount to nothing more than scattered gangs in remote areas, and security forces are working to track and pursue them,” he said. “All the branches of the security forces, whether the army or other security agencies, have effectively led the security portfolio from the time ISIS was defeated to the present, doing so with complete confidence and a very high level of competence,” he added. “The prevailing sentiment among security forces is the need to possess the determination and will to prevent the return of terrorist elements, whatever the cost.”
