Showdown?
"They agreed on expelling ISIL from Fallujah. They told them to withdraw ... or face an attack by the tribes and the army."
Dhari al-Rishawi, Al-Anbar provincial spokesman
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| Footage has emerged purporting to show militants in Falluja and Ramadi |
Regional tribal leaders in the majority Sunni province of Al-Anbar have convened an emergency meeting to discuss ways and means to exit a crisis threatening their traditions and heritage in Iraq. Their authority is effectively being usurped by the incursion and aggressive tactics of ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, the al-Qaeda-linked Islamists intent on transforming the province into a stronghold for militant fundamental Islam.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is on the receiving end of good-luck messages from the White House; get in there with your military and rout the baleful bastards intent on domination and murder. And by the way, we're graciously expediting courtesy weapons for your use, and trust you'll make good use of them. The trouble might be that the Shia-led Iraqi government has already alienated its minority Sunni population by marginalizing it.
Hellfire missiles fired into Fallujah might not be welcomed by the Sunni residents badgered by the Islamist jihadists ordering the women to burqa and niqab themselves, barber shops to close down, that residents address ISIS respectfully or suffer the grim consequences; above all to obey each and every edict that emanates from their newly ensconced-and-determined-to-settle-in oppressors.
So, Mr. al-Maliki is now appealing to the Sunni residents of Fallujah and their tribal leaders to expel the intruders. Perhaps forgetting momentarily how difficult it was for American troops to accomplish just that many years previously, and the crippling cost it took of U.S. troops' lives. But the tribal leaders have listened and they are assembling their forces within Fallujah, anxious to have the ISIS forces depart expeditiously, but prepared to fight the Iraqi military if it dare tread its boots there.
Mosque loudspeakers have issued calls for residents of Fallujah -- fearful of a clash between an invading Iraqi army and the invaded Sunni jihadis that will surely go far to destroy their city's infrastructure to a good degree and take a worrying number of civilian lives along with those of the combatants -- to return to the city they recently so hastily vacated as refugees from an impending conflict.
"We, the residents and the tribes, don't want al-Qaeda in the city. We don't want to see the same violence we saw when the Americans were here", Ayad al-Halbosi, a Fallujah teacher said. And in a spirit of renewed hope markets began reopening, some families tentatively returned to their abandoned homes despite the shortages of fuel and cooking gas.
And the United Nations and the Red Cross announced that Fallujah and other areas nearby are in the throes of a mounting humanitarian situation reflected by food and water becoming scarce. Anbar province is not a particularly sunny place to be right about now with rising sectarian tensions primarily of resentment relating to the discrimination they suffer under the Shiite government that has called upon them now to demonstrate their loyalty to the nation.
Labels: Conflict, Iraq, Islamism, Security
posted by Pieface @ Friday, January 10, 2014
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