Depleted ISIL plays the long game … as they’ve done before
▶ Erratic electricity and water supplies, no schools or hospitals, corruption and fear of sectarian strife – one foe has become many
After three years of tyrannical, savage rule over almost a third of Iraq and huge areas of Syria, ISIL has been defeated.
The extremists in their black balaclavas were no match for the determination, motivation and firepower of the Iraqi forces, backed by the US-led coalition.
Last month, the president of Iraq was able to declare, with undisguised triumph, that Iraq was now free of ISIL.
In Syria, too, ISIL is all but a spent force of brutalised fanatics, hated by all, wanted by nobody.
But too much crowing over the demise of ISIL and its self-declared caliphate would be not only premature but dangerous and self-deceiving. Because we have been here before.
The extremists have tasted defeat at least twice but never swallowed it. Instead, while the victors celebrated, the militants retreated to the shadows.
They made new plans. They regrouped, reformed and reemerged reinvigorated and ready to resume operations.
The rest of the world was caught napping. And after the liberators had left, convinced the job was done, ISIL moved back in.
If the forces of resistance have not learnt their lesson, it could all happen all over again.
At the foot of the craggy ridge line that slashes the plains of northern Iraq, the devastated town of Sinjar is slowly repopulating.
Crammed into their battered old cars, families pull up to houses they left in haste more than three years ago.
They are the lucky ones. Sinjar sparked an international outcry in August 2014, when ISIL stormed the town and its surrounds to kill and enslave the Yazidi population.
In response, the US began its bombing campaign to halt the extremists’ advance against an Iraqi military in disarray.
Air support by the US-led coalition allowed the Iraqis to beat back and ultimately defeat ISIL in a war that ended with the nine-month battle for Mosul, in which large parts of the city were flattened.
Sinjar did not have to wait that long for its destruction. By the time ISIL pulled out as Kurdish forces advanced in November 2015, the town centre was rubble.
The adjacent residential areas lie derelict. Houses and shops have been looted by Kurds and Yazidis, the hospital stripped of its equipment and schools closed.
Electricity comes from diesel-fired generators. The threat of explosive booby-traps lingers. Nothing has been rebuilt.
Across Iraq, liberated towns, cities and villages have suffered a similar fate. Some, such as Mosul or the desert town Al Qaim near the Syrian border, have only recently been wrested from the extremists. Others, such Fallujah, retaken by the Iraqi military in spring 2015, wait for essential services to be restored, and homes to be rebuilt.
The reason for the snail’s pace recovery is a lack of funds. ISIL’s conquest of Mosul in June 2014 coincided with a fall in the oil price, which halved to about $50 a barrel.
The Iraqi government derives almost all its revenue from oil. This has left it unable to foot the bill for rebuilding.
Sinjar’s woes are not only financial. The city lies in territory claimed by the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government and Baghdad.
The Kurds had annexed the town and its surrounds before the ISIL attack, and it fell back to them after the terrorist group was evicted. This meant no Iraqi government money for rebuilding.
The impoverished Kurdish government was unable and unwilling to deliver. It had competed with a rival group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, for control of Sinjar, so it was reluctant to revive the town, fearing that its influence would wane if inhabitants returned.
So tens of thousands of Yazidis remained in displacement camps on Kurdish territory.
In October, Iraqi militia groups swept the Kurds away from the Sinjar area, prompting some Yazidi residents to go home.
Known as the Hashed Al Shaabi, the predominantly Shia militias are allied with Baghdad but many also have close ties to Iran, and follow Tehran’s bidding.
They have moved into Sinjar to create a land corridor connecting Iran to Syria, but have done little to help the town to recover. Tension between the Kurds and the militias stops charities and aid reaching the area, and Baghdad’s purse remains closed.
Sinjar embodies the horrors of ISIL’s rule and the debilitating instability of the post-war chaos.
About 120 kilometres to the east of Sinjar lies Mosul, whose fortunes are divided by the Tigris River that splits the city into east and west.
Iraqi forces liberated the east bank of the river in January. Since then, the rubble has been cleared, bomb craters in roads filled in and a water main repaired. Many schools have reopened, and shops and showrooms are doing brisk trade. By day, the roads are choked with traffic. By night, the brightly lit restaurants are filled with families.
By the time the military began its assault on west Mosul, its best units had been depleted and it was forced to rely on heavy coalition air and artillery support to advance. When the fighting ended in July, much of the west bank had been levelled, and little has been rebuilt since. While the east thrives, the west lies shattered.
Whatever the extent of any progress, the overall situation remains dire. Air strikes and fierce fighting gutted the two main hospitals. All five bridges crossing the Tigris have been destroyed. The UN in July estimated that it will cost $1bn to repair basic infrastructure.
This is just a fraction of what is needed to undo the damage wrought by three years of war. Iraq’s planning minister, Salman Al Jumaili, in May announced a US$100 billion (Dh 367bn), 10-year plan for rebuilding areas liberated from ISIL.
But Iraq’s budget recorded a deficit equal to 13.9 per cent of its gross domestic product last year. Corruption and a bloated and inefficient public sector account for most state revenues, and oil prices remain low, so much of the funding for this scheme will have to come from abroad.
Securing such amounts of foreign investment will be a huge challenge for the government. Saudi Arabia has taken the initiative, setting up a “joint co-ordination council” with Iraq in October to help with rebuilding and reduce Iran’s influence in Baghdad.
As an important ally in the war on ISIL, Tehran’s sway in Iraq has increased in the past three years, most notably through Shiite militias.
Because ISIL failed to advance into Iraq’s Shiite heartlands, it is the Sunni-majority areas that bore the brunt of the fighting. If the government fails to deliver on reconstruction the sectarian splits are likely to widen.
Money raised through the Saudi initiative would be spent on these Sunni areas, where neglect by the Shiite-dominated government before 2014 was a significant factor in the rise of ISIL. But Saudi efforts might be opposed by Iran.
The war also rekindled Kurdish aspirations for independence. Keen to capitalise on its international image and Baghdad’s weakness, the Kurdish government held a referendum on independence from Iraq in September. Baghdad’s response was to push the Kurds out of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and other areas they annexed in 2014.
Without Kirkuk, the Kurds lacked an economic basis for independence. They also discovered that Iran and Turkey opposed secession, leaving the landlocked autonomous zone without access to the outside world.
The setback plunged the Kurdish government into political crisis. Internal divisions between rival parties will leave it too weak to push for independence for years to come – a rare success for a central government struggling to assert its authority.
After ISIL was finally flushed out of the areas bordering Syria, prime minister Haider Abadi on December 9 announced final victory over the extremists, sparking nationwide celebrations.
ISIL might be defeated but it is not gone. It will continue to kill Iraqis in bomb attacks or raids launched from desert areas. In place of its “caliphate”, which at one point spanned a third of Iraq, is a country more divided than ever, led by a government that is vulnerable to internal challengers and unable to resist outside interference.
With much of Iraq in ruins, geopolitical rivalries threaten to undermine its recovery and internal tensions threaten to push it back into violent chaos.
A lack of money means Iraq must seek favours abroad, and donors will have their expectations of an Iraq at peace