Grip around Baghdad
Islamic State’s actions add to sense of siege in Iraq’s capital
baghdad » Onthewestern edge of Iraq’s capital, Islamic State terrorists battle government forces and exchange mortar fire, adding to the sense of siege in Baghdad despite airstrikes by a U.S.-led coalition.
Yetmilitary experts say the Sunni terrorists of the Islamic State group, who control a large territory along the border that Iraq and Syria share, won’t be able to fight through both government forces and Shiite militias massed around the capital.
It does, however, put them in a position to wreak havoc in Iraq’s biggest city, with its suicide attacks and other assaults further eroding confidence in Iraq’s nascent federal government and its troops, whose soldiers already fled the Islamic State terrorists’ initial lightning advance in June.
“It’s not plausible at this point to envision (the Islamic State) taking control of Baghdad, but they can make Baghdad so miserable that it would threaten the legitimacy of the central government,” said Richard Brennan, an Iraq expert with RAND Corp. and former Department of Defense policymaker.
The siege fears in Baghdad stem from recent gains made by the Islamic State group in the so-called Baghdad Belt — the final stretch between Anbar province, where the group gained ground in January, and Baghdad. The group has had a presence in the Baghdad Belt since spring, Iraqi officials say, but recent advances have sparked new worries.
Last week, the Islamic State terrorists seized the towns of Hit and neighboring Kubaisa, sending Iraqi soldiers fleeing and leaving a nearby military base with its stockpile ofweapons at risk of capture. The U.S.-led coalition recently launched two airstrikes northwest of Hit, U.S. Central Command said Saturday.
Perhaps mostworrying, the Islamic State group now battles Iraqi forces in Abu Ghraib, the town home to the infamous prison of the same name that’s 18 miles from the Green Zone, the fortified international zone protecting Baghdad-based embassies and government offices.
A senior military official in Anbar said Saturday that government helicopters fire on targets daily inAbu Ghraib, although the townremains in the hands of security forces.
South of Baghdad, security forces fight to hold onto the town of Jurf al-Sukr. To the north, one Sunni tribe has held onto the town of Duluiyah despite an Islamic State group’s onslaught. However, Islamic State terrorists have taken over a number of towns in Diyala province, east of Baghdad.
Authorities think an assault to take Baghdad remains unlikely. An Iraqi military and intelligence official each told the AP that as many as 60,000 government security personnel, including soldiers and police officers, are in position outside the city along the Baghdad Belt. A plot by the Islamic State terrorists to enter Baghdad in September through the Shiite al-Kazimiyah neighborhood was foiled, the officials added.
Since the September assault, Baghdad has remained calm, considering the intense bloodshed that residents saw in 2006 and 2007 after the U.S.-led invasion to topple SaddamHussein. Still, many remainworried.
“It’s scary,” said Maha Ismail, who recently visited one of Baghdad’s shopping malls. “But we have seen a lot worse than this, so we are gathering despite all the warnings.”