Al-Qaeda, Ex-Saddam Loyalists Claim Iraq Advance
Ghanim al-Aabed named the head of the new caretaker government in Mosul as Hashem Jamas, a former top general in Saddam’s army.
He added that the aim of the ongoing fighting, as the Sunni insurgents advance toward Baghdad, is to topple Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government.
Aabed refuted wide media reports that al-Qaeda breakaway. the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIL), was behind the swift military advances that began in Mosul and continue toward Baghdad.
He named Ansar al-Sunnah and Ansar al-Islam, both known for ties to al-Qaeda, as two of the jihadi groups involved in the fighting. The unlikely coalition includes fighters of the Sunni Naqshbandi sect, which had many officers in Saddam’s army.
“But not with ISIS,” he added. “The reports in the media about that are not correct.”
Islamists are also in control of other major cities like Tikrit – Saddam’s birthplace -- as well as Hawija, Fallujah and Ramadi, plus parts of Diyala province.
Aabed stressed that the aim of the new rulers in Mosul was not the formation of a separate autonomous Sunni region, modelled after the Kurdistan Region in the north.
“We are all Iraqis, we are part of Iraq, Iraq is ours,” he said. The aim, he said, was the removal of “the hated enemy,” -- Maliki’s Shiite-led government.
“We have problems with the regime, not with Shias. That’s why we push on for Baghdad. If Maliki leaves, there is no need for any more bloodshed. If he goes, the fighting will stop.”
The spokesman, based in the Kurdistan capital of Erbil at the request of bosses in Mosul to brief the press, praised the Kurds.
“We are all Sunni, and we both do not like Maliki,” he said.
Aabed added that the Kurds are doing a great job keeping the so called disputed areas – claimed both by Baghdad and the Kurds – secure.
Most of those areas, which have been the subject of conflict with the Baghdad government for years, are now under Kurdish control.
Since the fighting began, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has moved its Peshmerga forces into strategic places of interest outside its official borders, such as large tracts of Kurdish-populated territories that have been under uneasy joint control with Baghdad.
Most importantly, the Kurds have taken Kirkuk, the disputed city they see as the future of a future capital. But this also remains Baghdad’s juicy bone, because of vast oil reserves estimated at a whopping 4 percent of global reserves. The Sunnis also lay claim.
Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani said in a statement Friday that the Peshmergas were in Kirkuk and other areas to fill the security vacuum created by Iraqi forces deserting posts en masse.
Aabed said he did not expect the Kurds to keep those lands after the fighting is over.
“I am sure that the Kurds will then give the lands back,” he said.