Residents of Fallujah trapped on front line
As Iraqi forces enter Fallujah, families who risked their lives to flee besieged city tell of brutality and starvation under the jihadists
Only 1,000 residents of Fallujah, Isil’s stronghold in Iraq, 40 miles west of Baghdad, have managed to reach safety since the Iraqi army’s offensive to retake the city began last week. Thousands of troops entered the city yesterday in a dawn offensive. The army attacked the jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) from three directions, managing to push into Fallujah itself for the first time since the operation began.
As Iraqi troops stormed her city yesterday, Suad Hadad could only give thanks that her family had escaped in time. A day earlier, the mother of six had run barefoot through the countryside around Fallujah, clutching her youngest daughter, two-year-old Hana.
Only 1,000 residents of the Isil stronghold, 40 miles west of Baghdad, have managed to reach safety since the army’s offensive to retake the city began last week.
Thousands of troops entered Fallujah yesterday in a dawn offensive. The army attacked the jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) from three directions, managing to push into the city itself for the first time since the operation began.
Aided by Shia militia fighters and air support from the US-led coalition, the army recaptured 80 per cent of the towns and villages around Fallujah and is now focused on the “final push” to retake the city itself.
The struggle for Fallujah is of an unprecedented scale in the conflict against Isil. About 1,500 jihadist fighters are believed to be holed up in the city centre, which has been under their control for more than two years. They were putting up fierce resistance yesterday, directing suicide car bombings and rockets at the army.
Mrs Hadad described how the Islamist group has been using residents as human shields and executing them if they are caught trying to escape.
“When the attack on Fallujah started, Isil forced us to leave our homes and kept moving us from one damaged, deserted house to another,” she said. “All the time we were exposed to the exchange of fire.”
Speaking from a refugee camp run by the Norwegian Refugee Council, 15 miles outside the city, Mrs Hadad added: “The afternoon of our last day there, the fighting became too fierce; they were shooting above our heads.”
At that moment, she tried taking her family back to the relative safety of their house, but when they saw other families fleeing, she took the chance. “I was carrying Hana and I quickly ran to reach the other families,” she said.
“My husband and other children were behind us all the time, trying to catch up with us, as he can’t run as he’s injured,” said the mother. “That’s how we left, taking nothing with us, not even our money. I even forgot to take my mobile phone.”
Although his troops are now fighting inside the city itself, the commander of the offensive warned the battle was likely to be a protracted one. “They are dug in,” said General Abdul Wahab al-Saadi. “We think they will fight to the last.”
In an attempt to distract the army’s attention away from the frontline, Isil carried out a wave of car bombings in Baghdad yesterday which left dozens dead. Fallujah, which once had a population of 350,000, is one of Isil’s most important strongholds: along with Mosul it is one of two big urban centres in Iraq still held by the terrorists. But Fallujah was the first to fall under the black flag of the so- called “caliphate” in early 2014. General Sean MacFarland, who commands US forces and their allies in Iraq, warned that some residents had been “early adopters” of Isil, adding: “You could have a fairly large percentage of a fairly large city that’s hostile to us.”
Found on the banks of the Euphrates, Fallujah is an important religious hub for Iraq’s Sunni minority and has been at the heart of the insurgency against the Shia-led government. Residents are unlikely to respond well to the city being taken by government forces backed by Shia militias who are loyal to Iran.
“The leading role played by radically sectarian, Iranian-controlled militias in the operation to ‘liberate’ Fallujah means that there will be parts of the Sunni population that see Isil as the lesser evil,” said Kyle Orton, a Middle East analyst at the Henry Jackson Society, a think tank.
“Isil has local support and there are suggestions it is higher now than it was before the city was captured.”
Tim Eaton, an Iraq researcher at Chatham House, said that even if Isil’s grip on Fallujah were to be broken, the terrorist movement would carry on the struggle by other means. “It’s going to be hard for the Iraqis to hold such a large area,” he said. “And Isil will not just let the city go – they will continue to try to undermine the army however it can.”
Syria’s peace talks were dealt a fresh blow yesterday when the chief opposition negotiator resigned, citing a lack of any progress. Mohammed Alloush said the international community was not “serious” about resolving the country’s five-year civil war, which has claimed as many as 450,000 lives.
‘They were early adopters of Isil. You could have a fairly large percentage of a fairly large city that’s hostile to us ’
Whatever the result of the battle for the Iraqi city of Fallujah, one thing is already certain: its residents have suffered dreadfully under the rule of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil). Some have starved to death. Others have been brutally murdered after refusing to fight for the militants. Still others have been killed by land mines and snipers as they tried to escape.
It seems equally certain that even if Iraqi government forces succeed in reclaiming the city, more will suffer before victory is complete. Isil has trapped 50,000 people in Fallujah, deliberately exposing them to harm.
The lesson of this suffering is that Isil, for all its professed religious zeal, harms Muslims more than any other group. This is an important point overlooked by many on the anti-war Left of politics including Jeremy Corbyn and his ilk. They want to portray Western interventions in the Middle East as some sort of attack on Islam. In fact, action against monsters such as the Isil fanatics is profoundly in the interests of Muslims.
The assault on Fallujah is being backed by Iran, which seeks ever-greater influence in Iraq through Iraq’s Shia Muslim population. Isil, an extremist offshoot of Sunni Islam, delights in that expansion, since it seeks to foment conflict between Sunni and Shia. The best answer to its machinations is a truly multi-denominational and multi-ethnic state in Iraq. The Baghdad government of Haider al-Abadi, a Shia, should receive more support from Western powers to help him to resist the influence of Tehran. A victory over Isil in Fallujah that simply increases sectarian divisions within Iraq will be Pyrrhic.