US general: Iraqi tensions divert resources from Daesh fight
BAGHDAD: The top US general in Iraq said the fallout from last month’s Kurdish vote for independence is diverting resources away from the war on Daesh just as the coalition is on the verge of defeating the extremists.
US-backed Iraqi and Kurdish forces, who together have driven Daesh out of most of the country, are locked in an increasingly tense standoff. Low-level clashes have broken out as federal forces have driven the Kurds from disputed areas, and on Thursday Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi rejected a Kurdish offer to “freeze” the referendum, an apparent attempt by the Kurds to save face.
“We don’t need Iraqis killing Iraqis when we’ve got Daesh to kill out in the west,” Lt. Gen. Paul Funk said. Daesh still controls territory straddling Iraq’s western border with Syria.
Clashes broke out earlier this month when federal forces retook the disputed city of Kirkuk and other areas outside the autonomous Kurdish region that the Kurds had seized when Daesh swept across the country in 2014. Most of the Kurdish forces withdrew without a fight, but tensions remain.
On Thursday, Al-Abadi rejected a Kurdish offer to “freeze” the results of the referendum, in which 90 percent voted to redraw the map. Iraq’s government has demanded the annulment of the vote and the transfer of border control and other infrastructure to federal forces.
The dispute has laid bare longstanding rifts in the coalition assembled to fight Daesh that could complicate efforts to flush the extremists out of their last strongholds, or create an opening for them to re-emerge.
Funk said he would have preferred to spend recent weeks focused entirely on preparations for an operation launched Thursday to drive Daesh from its last pockets in the western Anbar province. But in addition to supervising that operation, he has been shuttling between the commanders of Iraq’s various security forces acting as a mediator in the dispute with the Kurds.
The troop movements and low-level skirmishes are also stretching the US-led coalition’s intelligence and surveillance resources. Drones previously used to monitor the fight against Daesh have been diverted to watch flashpoints in the disputed territories, and the scattered clashes have impeded the movement of coalition vehicles and equipment.
Both the US-led coalition and Iran rushed weapons and trainers to Iraqi and Kurdish forces in 2014 in order to stop the Daesh advance and begin to roll it back. But the various forces involved, including state-sanctioned mostly Shiite militias backed by Tehran, were never brought under a unified command.