Replacing ISIS with Shiite militia only means more bloodshed for Iraq
I remember very well the day I arrived at Sihela, on August 5, 2014 and saw the Kurdish Peshmerga reorganizing for a long war with ISIS after having just lost Shingal, Zumar and some other areas.
A few hundred meters away many Yezidi civilians who were lucky enough to have escaped an ISIS onslaught were weeping and wailing for their relatives and loved ones being killed by the militants, and their girls taken as sex slaves.
I shall never forget that scene. The people of Kurdistan were all in a state of shock.
Back then the issue was not that the Peshmerga were not good fighters. It was lack of weapons. The ISIS men had seized advanced American weapons from five Iraqi army divisions.
Three years later, on 16 October 2017, I was in the outskirts of Kirkuk when the Iraqi army backed up by the Shiite militia of Hashd al-Shaabi, Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Khorasan Kataeb launched an offensive on Kirkuk from the south and west.
The Peshmerga knew that the Iraqis carried heavy and advanced American weapons and intended to use them against the Kurds, which they did.
Three years ago the Peshmerga were telling me “This would be our last war,” but before that war was over they started using their ammunition more carefully, predicting another war. “There is another war ahead of us, which we hope will not happen.”
They were right. The Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi has started a war against the Kurdistan Region and it could be the start of a long and exhausting war.
ISIS was born and grew in the heart of Iraq’s Sunni regions because the Shiite government of Iraq was not giving them their rights and oppressed them. The Sunni areas were in a dire state and when they protested they were answered with fire.
The Sunnis had lost all hope. They were ready to make a pact even with the devil as long as it could set them free. That’s why they welcomed ISIS and took up arms in its defense.
The United States had not joined the war yet when the Peshmerga successfully halted the ISIS advance west of the Tigris and pushed them back in some areas.
On August 11, 2014 I landed on Mount Shingal in an Iraqi army helicopter where I spent five days. Civilians had been there for a week. The Peshmerga opened a corridor in the south and many managed to escape to Rojava-the Kurdish areas of Syria and from there back into the Kurdistan Region.
The elderly were unable to take the three-day trek. It was hot and dusty. Some of them, especially the sick were left on the side of the road to die.
Soon afterwards a serious counteroffensive started and the Peshmerga began taking territories back from ISIS. The Sunni population started slowly moving into Mosul and Tal Afar. From the Shiite rule they fell under the rule of the caliphate.
That same month of August the Americans and the Peshmerga were busy planning an offensive on a town and three villages. When the offensive was launched into Zumar many Peshmerga lost their lives.
I was inside an armored badger which was so strong that six ISIS rocket-propelled grenades simply bounced off its armor. Through small holes in the window designed for rifle fire I was able to see the ISIS militants. They would stand in the middle of the road and fire RPGs at the Humvees. In the end they lost Zumar and many other areas.
On October 17, 2016 the final offensive against Mosul was launched and after a year of intense fighting both the Sunnis as a people and their areas were brought to their knees and weakened. The Hashd al-Shaabi dressed in army and federal police uniforms went on a killing spree of innocent people. They burnt homes and separated children from their families. Many men went missing.
In Nabi Younis neighborhood I went to a home where a family was mourning the death of their son. He was the first victim of retribution. His relatives told me that the Hashd al-Shaabi had taken him to the Nabi Younis cemetery where they had shot him with bullets and chanted that it was for the death of Imam Ali and Hussein.
Iraq and the United States fought a three-year war against ISIS in order to destroy it while the protection and safety the Kurds provided for the Sunnis gave them a chance to think of getting involved in politics and taking a new path. But the current Shiite control and actions in those areas has already made the Sunnis think of seeking the path of arms and possibly even form groups worse than ISIS.
Now ISIS is replaced with Shiite groups who are outside government control and pay no heed to state orders. This could only mean another bloody and destructive war may sooner or later grip this country’s Sunni regions and parts of the south.
*Hevidar Ahmed is a Rudaw TV senior correspondent.
A few hundred meters away many Yezidi civilians who were lucky enough to have escaped an ISIS onslaught were weeping and wailing for their relatives and loved ones being killed by the militants, and their girls taken as sex slaves.
I shall never forget that scene. The people of Kurdistan were all in a state of shock.
Back then the issue was not that the Peshmerga were not good fighters. It was lack of weapons. The ISIS men had seized advanced American weapons from five Iraqi army divisions.
Three years later, on 16 October 2017, I was in the outskirts of Kirkuk when the Iraqi army backed up by the Shiite militia of Hashd al-Shaabi, Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al-Haq and the Khorasan Kataeb launched an offensive on Kirkuk from the south and west.
The Peshmerga knew that the Iraqis carried heavy and advanced American weapons and intended to use them against the Kurds, which they did.
Three years ago the Peshmerga were telling me “This would be our last war,” but before that war was over they started using their ammunition more carefully, predicting another war. “There is another war ahead of us, which we hope will not happen.”
They were right. The Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi has started a war against the Kurdistan Region and it could be the start of a long and exhausting war.
ISIS was born and grew in the heart of Iraq’s Sunni regions because the Shiite government of Iraq was not giving them their rights and oppressed them. The Sunni areas were in a dire state and when they protested they were answered with fire.
The Sunnis had lost all hope. They were ready to make a pact even with the devil as long as it could set them free. That’s why they welcomed ISIS and took up arms in its defense.
The United States had not joined the war yet when the Peshmerga successfully halted the ISIS advance west of the Tigris and pushed them back in some areas.
On August 11, 2014 I landed on Mount Shingal in an Iraqi army helicopter where I spent five days. Civilians had been there for a week. The Peshmerga opened a corridor in the south and many managed to escape to Rojava-the Kurdish areas of Syria and from there back into the Kurdistan Region.
The elderly were unable to take the three-day trek. It was hot and dusty. Some of them, especially the sick were left on the side of the road to die.
Soon afterwards a serious counteroffensive started and the Peshmerga began taking territories back from ISIS. The Sunni population started slowly moving into Mosul and Tal Afar. From the Shiite rule they fell under the rule of the caliphate.
That same month of August the Americans and the Peshmerga were busy planning an offensive on a town and three villages. When the offensive was launched into Zumar many Peshmerga lost their lives.
I was inside an armored badger which was so strong that six ISIS rocket-propelled grenades simply bounced off its armor. Through small holes in the window designed for rifle fire I was able to see the ISIS militants. They would stand in the middle of the road and fire RPGs at the Humvees. In the end they lost Zumar and many other areas.
On October 17, 2016 the final offensive against Mosul was launched and after a year of intense fighting both the Sunnis as a people and their areas were brought to their knees and weakened. The Hashd al-Shaabi dressed in army and federal police uniforms went on a killing spree of innocent people. They burnt homes and separated children from their families. Many men went missing.
In Nabi Younis neighborhood I went to a home where a family was mourning the death of their son. He was the first victim of retribution. His relatives told me that the Hashd al-Shaabi had taken him to the Nabi Younis cemetery where they had shot him with bullets and chanted that it was for the death of Imam Ali and Hussein.
Iraq and the United States fought a three-year war against ISIS in order to destroy it while the protection and safety the Kurds provided for the Sunnis gave them a chance to think of getting involved in politics and taking a new path. But the current Shiite control and actions in those areas has already made the Sunnis think of seeking the path of arms and possibly even form groups worse than ISIS.
Now ISIS is replaced with Shiite groups who are outside government control and pay no heed to state orders. This could only mean another bloody and destructive war may sooner or later grip this country’s Sunni regions and parts of the south.
*Hevidar Ahmed is a Rudaw TV senior correspondent.