Trump kin Kushner in Iraq

Ranks of non-state militias swell

BAGHDAD, April 3, (RTRS): US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, flew into Iraq on Monday with the top US military officer to get a first-hand assessment of the battle against Islamic State from US commanders on the ground and to meet Iraqi officials.

For Kushner, who has not been to Iraq before, the trip comes at a critical time as Trump examines ways to accelerate a US-led coalition campaign that US and Iraqi officials say has so far been largely successful in uprooting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

The visit appears to demonstrate the far-reaching portfolio of Kushner, 36, who is part of Trump’s innermost circle and who has been given a wide range of domestic and foreign policy responsibilities, including working on a Middle East peace deal.

Marine General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he invited Kushner and Tom Bossert, White House homeland security adviser, to accompany him so they could hear “first-hand and unfiltered” from military advisers about the situation on the ground and interact with US forces.

“I said, ‘Hey, next time I go to Iraq, if you’re interested, come and it’d be good,” Dunford said, adding he extended the invitation weeks ago.

That kind of ground-level awareness of the war helps inform strategic decisions, Dunford said, adding it was the same reason he regularly leaves Washington to visit Iraq.

“The more appreciation you could have for what’s actually happening on the ground, the more informed you are when you start talking about the strategic issues,” Dunford said.

Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, did not speak with reporters during the flight to Iraq.

Dunford’s spokesman, Navy Captain Greg Hicks, said Kushner was traveling on behalf of Trump to express the president’s support and commitment to Iraq’s government and

US personnel helping combat Islamic State.

Trump, who campaigned on defeating Islamic State, has yet to announce any dramatic shift in war strategy.

The trip to Iraq comes as Iraqi security forces engage in fierce, house-to-house fighting to retake Mosul, Islamic State’s last major stronghold in Iraq and the city where leader Abu Bakr alBaghdadi declared a caliphate nearly three years ago.

Nearly 290,000 people have fled the city to escape the fighting, according to the United Nations.

Although the loss of Mosul would deal a major defeat to Islamic State, US and Iraqi officials are preparing for smaller battles even after the city is recaptured and expect the group to go underground to fight as a traditional insurgency.

What happens to the US military role in Iraq after Mosul is recaptured remain unclear.

Influential Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has previously called on Iraq’s government to order the withdrawal of US and allied forces after the battle of Mosul is over.

Dunford said Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi understood the need for continued US military support.

“It’s not our judgment that the Iraqis will be self sustaining and self sufficient in the wake of Mosul. More importantly, it’s not Prime Minister Abadi’s assessment,” Dunford said.

Across the border in Syria, a US-backed campaign to isolate Islamic State’s de facto capital of Raqqa is advancing ahead of an eventual assault on the city.

US-backed Syrian forces repelled a major counter-attack by Islamic State militants holding out at the country’s largest dam and in the nearby town of Tabqa, the group and activists said on Sunday. The dam is a strategic target in the military campaign, located about 40 kms (25 miles) to the east of Raqqa.

Meanwhile, for Iraqi police officer Jassem and his brothers, the battle against Islamic State is personal. The militants captured and beheaded their father, a Shi’ite militiaman, in 2014; before that, the family lost another son fighting the jihadists.

“We were able to identify my dad’s body by the tattoo on his arm. The head wasn’t found. They had also drilled holes in his hands and cut fingers off,” 31-year-old Jassem told Reuters on the front line in Mosul as Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State in the city.

After the murder, Jassem’s youngest brother signed up with the army and another joined a Shi’ite paramilitary group. With a further brother already with the Counter-Terrorism Service, that meant their mother had all four of her surviving sons at war.

“Mum wasn’t happy,” said Jassem, not giving his full name because he works in intelligence. But his brothers still answered the call to arms. “They said Iraq was falling apart, and they wanted to protect it,” he said.

The family from southern Iraq — far from Mosul which lies near the country’s northern border — is just one of many where entire sets of brothers have taken up arms against Islamic State out of revenge, duty or just to earn money.

The US-backed Iraqi forces are now set to drive the group from its stronghold of Mosul, taken in 2014 when the jihadists seized large areas of Iraq and Syria, proclaiming a caliphate.

But the fight has further militarised Iraqi society, pushing young men into the armed forces and, increasingly, sectarian and tribal militias. This has raised fears of new outbreaks of violence once the caliphate has crumbled.

Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric issued a fatwa in 2014, calling on all men able to carry arms to fight Islamic State, which is known in Arabic by its opponents as DAESH.

On another Mosul front line, Counter-Terrorism Service commando Hamza Kadhem said that before Islamic State arrived, he was the only one of five brothers to have picked up a gun. “The others all joined after the fatwa,” he said.

They joined the Hashid Shaabi, or Popular Mobilisation Forces, a staterun umbrella that includes Shi’ite militias. Two are deployed west of Mosul, and another two near the Syrian border, where Shi’ite fighters have played a crucial role in cutting off Islamic State supply lines.

Before the call-up, they had worked as farmers in the southern Kut region, more than 500 kms (300 miles) away.

As well as Shi’ites from the south, young men from around Mosul - where Sunni Muslims are in the majority — are also keen to fight.

They are now flooding to join Sunni tribal militias also under the Hashid, security officials and militia leaders say. Many residents told Reuters in recent weeks they want to join, or know relatives and friends who are trying to do so.

“Many men are volunteering in the Hashid groups. They either want to fight terrorism or to get wages,” one security officer in the area said, declining to be named because he was not authorised to speak publicly. “It’s easier than joining state armed forces. You just put your name down.”