The Jerusalem Post

Iraqi VP: ISIS seeking alliance with al-Qaida

UN warns that civilians trapped in Mosul could face conflict’s worst catastroph­e

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BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Islamic State is talking to al-Qaida about a possible alliance as Iraqi troops close in on ISIS fighters in Mosul, Iraqi Vice President Ayad Allawi said in an interview on Monday.

Allawi said he got the informatio­n from Iraqi and regional contacts knowledgea­ble about Iraq.

“The discussion has started now,” Allawi said. “There are discussion­s and dialog between messengers representi­ng Baghdadi and representi­ng Zawahiri,” referring to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of al-Qaida.

Islamic State split from al-Qaida in 2014 and the two groups have since waged an acrimoniou­s battle for recruits, funding and the mantle of global jihad. Zawahiri has publicly criticized Islamic State for its brutal methods, which have included beheadings, drownings and immolation.

It is unclear how exactly the two group may work together, Allawi said.

Islamic State blazed across large swaths of northern Iraq in 2014, leaving the Iraqi central government reeling. Baghdadi declared a caliphate over the territory the group controlled from al-Nuri Mosque in Mosul the same year, which also became a point of contention with al-Qaida.

Last October, Iraqi security forces and Shi’ite volunteer fighters, commonly referred to as the Popular Mobilizati­on Units, teamed up with an internatio­nal coalition, including the United States, to drive Islamic State from Mosul and the areas surroundin­g the city.

The group has been pushed out of the half of Mosul that lies east of the Tigris River, but Iraqi soldiers and their allies are now bogged down in tough fighting in the narrow streets of the Old City of Mosul, west of the river, according to Iraqi security officials.

Islamic State has used suicide bombers, snipers and armed drones to defend the territory under their control. The group has also repeatedly targeted civilians or used them as human shields during the fighting, according to Iraqi and American security officials.

The jihadist group has lost ground in Mosul but still controls the towns of Qaim, Hawija and Tal Afar in Iraq as well as Raqqa, their de facto capital in Syria.

Even if Islamic State loses its territory in Iraq, Allawi said, it will not simply go away.

“I can’t see ISIS disappeari­ng into thin air,” Allawi said. “They will remain covertly in sleeping cells, spreading their venom all over the world.”

The fighting in Mosul, where hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are trapped, could turn into the worst humanitari­an catastroph­e in the war against the insurgents, the United Nations warned on Tuesday.

“If there is a siege and hundreds of thousands of people don’t have water and don’t have food, they will be at enormous risk,” Humanitari­an Coordinato­r for the UN Mission in Iraq Lise Grande told Reuters in a telephone interview.

“We could be facing a humanitari­an catastroph­e, perhaps the worst in the entire conflict,” she added.

 ?? (Alaa Al-Marjani/Reuters) ?? MOURNERS IN the Iraqi city of Najaf pray over the coffin of a security forces member killed in Mosul, during a funeral yesterday.
(Alaa Al-Marjani/Reuters) MOURNERS IN the Iraqi city of Najaf pray over the coffin of a security forces member killed in Mosul, during a funeral yesterday.

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