Iraqi PM claims victory in battle for Mosul after ‘collapse’ of Isil

We still have power and influence in the Middle East and now we can help give it a stable future

IRAQ’S prime minister declared victory over Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Mosul yesterday, three years after the militants seized the city and made it the stronghold of a “caliphate” they said would take over the world.

“I announce from here the end and the failure and the collapse of the terrorist state of falsehood and terrorism which the terrorist Daesh announced from Mosul,” Haider al-abadi said in a speech shown on state television, using an Arabic acronym for Isil.

A 100,000-strong coalition of Iraqi government units, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shi’ite militias launched the offensive to recapture the city in October, with key air and ground support from a Us-led coalition.

Abadi thanked troops and the coalition but warned challenges lay ahead. “We have another mission ahead of us, to create stability, to build and clear Daesh cells, and that requires an intelligence and security effort, and the unity which enabled us to fight Daesh,” he said before raising an Iraqi flag.

US President Donald Trump hailed Iraq’s “victory”, claiming the northern city’s liberation showed the war against the jihadis was being won. “The victory in Mosul, a city where Isis once proclaimed its so-called caliphate signals that its days in Iraq and Syria are numbered. We will continue to seek the total destruction of Isis,” he said.

Abadi arrived in Mosul on Sunday to congratulate military commanders who have waged a nearly nine-month battle to recapture the city, many parts of which were reduced to rubble.

He has been meeting military and political officials in Mosul in an atmosphere of celebration that contrasts with the fear that spread after a few hundred Isil militants seized the city and the Iraqi army crumbled in July 2014.

Shortly afterwards, Isil leader Abu Bakr al-baghdadi appeared at the pulpit of Mosul’s Grand al-nuri Mosque to declare the caliphate and himself the leader of the world’s Muslims. A reign of terror followed.

In the aftermath of victory in Mosul, Abadi’s government faces the task of managing the sectarian tensions there.

Baghdadi’s whereabouts are unknown. Reports have circulated that he is dead, but Iraqi and Western officials say they cannot corroborate this.

From the ruins of Mosul, from the defeat of Islamic State, there is a chance to build a lasting peace not just for Iraq but for the wider Middle East. This is no naive and optimistic boast, but a realistic assessment of the opportunity on offer. And Britain is uniquely placed to help make it happen. Here’s how we can go about it.

We need to realise, above all, that the rise of Al Qaeda in Iraq and then the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) was fuelled by the disfranchisement of Sunni Muslims, who felt that Shia Muslims, under the leadership of Shia Iran, grew too dominant after the demise of (Sunni) Saddam Hussein, so upsetting the regional balance of power.

The vast majority of Sunnis reject Isil extremism, but they ask themselves this question: why should we send our young men to fight and die stamping out Isil, only to put ourselves under the boot of Iran and Syrian dictator Bashar al-assad, whose Alawite sect is also an offshoot of Shia Islam? They won’t do it. And when, as now, they see images of Shia militias, draped in religious flags, moving in to the ruins of Mosul to carry out vicious reprisal attacks on Sunnis, their resentment grows.

Such Shia revenge attacks must be stopped now. If not, Iraq should remember that Turkey, a nation of 80 million Sunnis, is on its northern border. Turkey’s increasingly despotic leader, Recep Tayip Erdogan, is itching for an excuse to move across the frontier. “Protecting” Iraq’s Sunnis would be the perfect cover.

There is welcome evidence that the government of current Iraqi prime minister Haider al-abadi understands this. He is Shia himself, but unlike his predecessor, the disastrous Tehran stooge Nouri al-maliki, who presided over the wholesale retreat before Isil in 2014, he knows that only through adequate representation of all sects can stability come.

Britain created modern Iraq, but both Gertrude Bell and TE Lawrence knew than unless the Sunni tribes got a homeland there would be trouble – and so it has proved. Since 1920 the problem has been exacerbated, as the Shia population of Iraq has trebled. Today’s Sunnis feel vulnerable and humiliated – ripe for exploitation by extremists.

But there is a route out of this situation. Britain has a trusted ally in Abadi, whose government in Baghdad is no longer a vassal of Iran. Indeed Abadi has been brilliant in balancing help from the West while also allowing Russia and Iran to play a hand too. All sides feel represented, none has rendered Abadi a puppet.

Britain now needs to help him keep Iraq together by ensuring he offers genuine administrative representation to all its peoples – Kurds in the north, Shia in the centre and south, and Sunnis to the west. But, as the Sunni tribes bridge western Iraq and eastern Syria, the Sykes-picot era border between the two nations must be moved.

That will take some selling. But there is a deal to be done here. Russia is a major power behind the rule of Assad in Damascus. Yet Russia is focused principally on Tartus, the Syrian port which is a crucial strategic naval asset leased to Moscow. There is an opportunity for the West to acknowledge, rather than challenge, Russia’s interest in Tartus, in exchange READ MORE at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion for a border shift. In the West we have in the past hugely underestimated how important Tartus is to the Russians, and how pragmatic they can be. If we can guarantee that port, we can have them on our side.

Britain can also give Abadi every diplomatic, commercial and financial support possible. We can help with long loans for rebuilding. We can help with the infrastructure and know-how behind “safe cities”, doing in Baghdad as we did in Belfast in the Eighties, by bringing goods through ring-road warehouses for separate, safe transport to the centre of cities, so eradicating the truck-bomb threat and allowing normal life to return and flourish.

These are the basic ingredients of a stable future, not just in Iraq but in the region: security, commerce, power sharing. And at a time when many doubt us, this is an opportunity for Britain to show our diplomatic mettle. We still have power and influence like no other country in Europe, bar Russia. This is not just because of our history and current military power, it is also because of personal connections. Haider al-abadi spent much of his life living in exile in Britain. He speaks very fondly of his time here. When, as now, everything is in flux, these little things can suddenly become very important.