Iraqi militia calls for evacuation of Sunni areas to cut support for ISIS

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — A top pro-Iran militia leader called for forced displacement of civilians in Sunni areas north of Baghdad and in Diyala to deprive Islamic State (ISIS) militants of local support in areas that are a hotbed of recent terror activity.

"The security situation in Tarmiyah and al-Mukhaisa village in Diyala will not stabilize without a reproduction of the Jurf al-Nasr experiment," Abu Ali al-Askari said in a post on Telegram. He is a senior official within the Shiite Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia. 

Jurf al-Sakhar, which was renamed as Jurf al-Nasr after the defeat of ISIS in the area in 2017, is a predominantly Sunni town in Babil province, central Iraq. It was evacuated of its more than 120,000 residents over the course of the ISIS war, leaving only Iraqi security forces and the Iranian-backed, state-sponsored Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or al-Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic) in the town.

The US State Department has accused Kataib Hezbollah of holding at least 1,700 prisoners in an “illegal detention facility” in Jurf al-Sakhar.

Iraqi forces and the PMF have not allowed people to return, claiming the area is dangerous because of mines planted by ISIS. The now defunct Babil Governorate Council voted in August 2017 to file a lawsuit against any politicians who demand the residents of Jurf al-Sakhar be allowed to return to their homes. The council dubbed the area an "incubator of terrorism."

Sunni politicians have criticized the blanket terror label applied to the area and blocking residents from returning. “There are 100,000 Iraqis in Jurf al-Sakhar who are prevented by militias from returning to their homes in a despicable endeavor of demographic change,” MP Dhafer al-Ani said in April.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in a visit to Iraq last month, discussed the situation of Jurf al-Sakhar in a meeting with the secretary general of the Arab Project in Iraq, Khamis al-Khanjar. "The crisis facing thousands of Jurf al-Sakhar residents and some areas in Salahaddin and Diyala governorate must be resolved, as they must return to their areas,” Khanjar said he told Zarif.

Kataib Hezbollah’s Askari said that meeting has “confused the matter” and made the situation more complicated in Tarmiyah and Diyala, both hotbeds of ISIS activity.

The head of the PMF, Falih al-Fayyadh, on Sunday told UTV that some areas of Iraq, most notably Tarmiyah, are still "embracing" ISIS armed groups. 

In its quarterly report on anti-ISIS operations, the Pentagon said “Shia militias oppress local Sunni populations” in Salahaddin province, another area where ISIS is active and the militants take advantage of these sectarian rifts. 

The “coercive tactics used by Iranian-aligned militias operating in the Sunni-dominated province stoke tensions, build public resentment, and degrade the ability of local governments to provide essential services and security, contributing to an environment that ISIS seeks to exploit,” reads the Pentagon report.

Sunnis are fragmented politically and prominent figure Osama al-Nujaifi, who heads the Salvation and Development Front, accused some Sunni officials of working with Shiite forces for personal gain, to the detriment of the Sunni population. 

“Some of the current Sunni officials do not want strong and competent personalities to be in the political scene to compete with them such as Rafi Al-Issawi and Atheel al-Nujaifi and a number of other personalities. It is clear that these Sunni officials cannot make this decision on their own and they work with some of the Shiite officials,” Nujaifi told Rudaw’s Shahyan Tahseen in an interview on April 29.

“The Shiite officials want the second-rate Sunni officials to reach the top so they will come under their influence. And with this the Sunni component will be undermined. Therefore, there is a mutual interest between some Sunni and Shiite officials in the context of a greater project to pave the way for the hegemony of Iran in the Sunni regions,” he said. 

At least four members of Iraq’s security forces were killed on Saturday in an explosion in Tarmiyah, north of Baghdad. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack. Clashes between Iraqi forces and ISIS in the same area in February left six Iraqi soldiers dead.

Diyala has also witnessed deadly attacks by ISIS against Iraqi forces. One civilian and two policemen were killed in a double bombing in Diyala province on April 23.

PMF head Fayyadh also blamed instability in some areas on lack of coordination between Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga. “The absence of security coordination between Baghdad and Erbil has created a security gap that enables ISIS cells to operate in some areas,” he told UTV channel.

Three Peshmerga were killed this weekend in an ISIS attack in Kirkuk. After the attack, the federal and regional presidents both called for greater cooperation between Iraqi and Kurdish forces to combat the threat.