On April 1, the city of Tikrit was liberated from the Lion of Islam group Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
. The Shi'ite-led central government and allied militias, after a month-long battle, had expelled the barbarous Sunni radicals. Then, some of the liberators took Dire Revenge.
An Arab tradition, demanded to maintain Honor and Dignityâ„¢.
Near the charred, bullet-scarred government headquarters, two federal coppers flanked a suspected Islamic State fighter. Urged on by a furious mob, the two officers took out knives and repeatedly stabbed the man in the neck and slit his throat. The killing was witnessed by two Rooters correspondents. Somehow my sympathy meter remains on zero for Islamic State turbans.
The incident is now under investigation, interior ministry front man Brigadier General Saad Maan told Rooters.
I really fail to get riled up at the thought. If you're fighting somebody who doesn't merely ignore, but consciously flouts rules of war dating back five hundred years or so then they're not due any mercy, are they?
Since its recapture two days ago, the Sunni city of Tikrit has been the scene of violence and looting.
When the IS took the city didn't they kill everybody who disagreed with them and steal their property?
In addition to the killing of the Lion of Islam combatant, Rooters correspondents also saw a convoy of Shi'ite paramilitary fighters -- the government's partners in liberating the city -- drag a corpse through the streets behind their car.
The sort of thing real soldiers expect from undisciplined militias.
Local officials said the mayhem continues. Two security officers, speaking on condition of anonymity... for fear of being murdered...
, said on Friday that dozens of homes had been torched in the city. They added that they had witnessed the looting of stores by Shi'ite militiamen.
Sounds like a job for the Bloody Provost.
Later Friday, Ahmed al-Kraim, head of the Salahuddin Provincial Council, told Rooters that mobs had burned down "hundreds of houses" and looted shops over the past two days. Government security forces, he said, were afraid to confront the mobs. Kraim said he left the city late Friday afternoon because the situation was spinning out of control. "Our city was burnt in front of our eyes. We can't control what is going on," Kraim said.
In a city that welcomed the enemy with open arms, where partisans killed those who opposed the enemy even in theory, there's really no surprise. Probably things would have gone better had the inhabitants turned on the turbans and strung them up from the lamp posts. A "Welcome Government Troops" banner across Main Street would have helped, but there wasn't one. Now the inhabitants have to cope with the Deep Blue Sea.Those reports could not be immediately confirmed.
... but they're probably accurate.
It wasn't supposed to be this way.
Was that a voice from Cloud Cuckooland?
Islamic State, an Al Qaeda offshoot that arose from the chaos in Iraq and Syria, slaughtered thousands and seized much of northern and central Iraq last year.
I said that.
The government offensive was meant not only to dislodge the group but also to transcend the fundamental divide in fractured Iraq: the enmity between the now-ruling Shi'ite majority and the country's formerly dominant Sunni minority.
Nice in theory, unlikely in practice. Had the city surrendered, maybe. Instead it had to be taken by storm.
Officials close to Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi, a moderate Shi'ite, had described the Tikrit campaign as a chance to demonstrate his government's independence from one source of its power: Iraqi Shi'ite militias backed by Shi'ite Iran and advised by Iranian military officers. Sunnis deeply mistrust and fear these paramilitaries, accusing them of summary executions and vandalism. But Abadi has had to rely on the Shi'ite militias on the battlefield, as Iraq's regular military deserted en masse last summer in the Islamic State onslaught.
A lot more ferocious on the parade ground than on the battlefield, are they? Had Maliki not stiffed the Sawha maybe things would have gone a little better. But we obviously wasted a lot of time training the Iraqi army.The militia groups spearheaded the start of the Tikrit assault in early March.
An armored shock brigade would have worked better, but that would have required disciplined troops led by competent officers, which ain't really an Arab thing.
But after two weeks of fighting, Abadi enforced a pause. Asserting his power over the Shi'ite militias, he called in U.S.
I saw an article yesterday where the militias were dismissing the effectiveness of the airstrikes. One guy said he'd seen U.S. aircraft dropping supplies to the IS positions.
Now, the looting and violence in Tikrit threaten to tarnish Abadi's victory. It risks signaling to Sunni Iraqis that the central government is weak and not trustworthy enough to recapture other territory held by Islamic State, including the much larger city of djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
. Tikrit, hometown of the late dictator Saddam Hussein, is in the Sunni heartland of Iraq.
Too bad they had to rely on a militia, which in this case is basically an armed mob. Had the govt left it to the Peshmerga it probably would have gone better, but that's politix, not strategy.At stake is much more than future votes: Islamic State's rapid conquests in 2014 were made possible by support from Sunni tribal forces and ordinary citizens. They were convinced that the government -- under Abadi's predecessor, Nuri al-Maliki -- viewed their community as terrorists. If Sunnis dislike what they see in Tikrit, they may not back the government's efforts against Islamic State.
Abadi's approach should be reconciliation now. The Sunnis have the example of what being conquered by militias will get them. If they string up the turbans and let the govt in all that happens is a change in city hall.
DEFENDING LIVES AND PROPERTY
On Friday, the government sought to assure all sides that it will enforce order. Abadi issued a statement calling on the security forces to arrest anyone breaking the law.Good idea. The Bloody Provost?
Asked to comment on the scenes witnessed by Rooters, his front man Rafid Jaboori said he would not address individual incidents but said: "People's lives and property are priorities, whether in this operation or in the overall military effort to liberate the rest of Iraq."
If there's reconciliation it has to be on the basis of nationality, not religion.
Sunni politicians who visited Tikrit complained that events have spun out of control since the security forces and militias retook the city.
We've already discussed that.
Parliamentarian Mutashar al-Samarrai credited the government with orchestrating a smooth entrance into Tikrit. But he said that some Shi'ite paramilitary factions had exploited the situation. "I believe this happened on purpose to disrupt the government's achievement in Tikrit," Samarrai said. "This is a struggle between the (paramilitaries) and the government for control."
They creating a new problem while solving the immediate (bigger) problem. Since the immediate problem's existential and the Mooksters and the Badr Brigades aren't quite, they have to go with what they have. That doesn't mean the militias have to be given free rein.Neighborhoods entered by the Iraqi forces and Shi'ite paramilitaries have been burnt, including parts of neighboring Dour and Auja, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein.
The heart (urp!) bleeds.
Security forces blame Islamic State for rigging houses with explosives, while Sunnis suspect the Shi'ite militias and the army and police of deliberately torching their homes.
Probably both statements are true. Certainly the IS left enough booby traps behind in Kobane. The places being deliberately burnt might be according to who's inhabiting them and how they conducted themselves while under occupation.
Looting has also been a problem. Shi'ite paramilitary fighters in pickup trucks raced through the city carrying goods that appeared to have been looted from homes and government offices. The vehicles were crammed with refrigerators, air conditioners, computer printers, and furniture. A young militia fighter rode on a red bicycle, gleefully shouting: "I always dreamed of having a bike like this as a kid."
Discipline. Gallows. Pour encourager les autres.
Brigadier General Maan, the main front man for the government forces, said police were stopping vehicles that appeared to have stolen items. "We are doing our best to impose the law."
IRAN'S FINGERPRINTS
Passions were running high among the Shi'ite militia groups before the assault. Islamic State beheaded people and carried out other atrocities in the lands it conquered. In particular, the militias wanted Dire Revenge for Islamic State's killing in June of hundreds of Iraqi soldiers captured from Camp Speicher, a base near Tikrit. It was an event that came to symbolize the Sunni jihadists' barbarism.That's kinda the situation, isn't it? The enemy's barbarism justifies counter-barbarism. Hundreds of murdered comrades leads to probably only a few dozen slaughtered murderers since the actual butchers are probably congratulating each other on their escape to slice again another day.
Despite Baghdad's efforts to rein in the paramilitaries, the fingerprints of the Shi'ite militias -- and of Iran itself -- were all over the operation's final hours.
They were before the final offensive,
On Wednesday, as Tikrit fell, holy warriors were racing to stencil their names on houses in order to take credit for the victory.
Meanwhile the guys who's done the actual fighting were probably looking for a hot meal, some sleep, and a hooker if they were lucky.An Iranian fighter, with a Kalashnikov rifle slung over his shoulder and a picture of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pinned to his chest, bragging about Tehran's role in the campaign: "I am proud to participate in the battle to liberate Tikrit," said the man, who called himself Sheik Dawood. "Iran and Iraq are one state now."
That's the idea in Terrorhan. But that'll be the next fight after this one.
On the edge of Tikrit in the hours after the city's fall, a Shi'ite paramilitary group drove in a convoy past several police cars. The holy warriors had strung the corpse of a suspected Islamic State fighter from the back of a white Toyota pickup truck. The cable dragging the man snapped, and the vehicle stopped. The men got out to retie the bullet-riddled corpse. As they fastened the cable tighter to the body, a song about their victory over Islamic State played on the truck's stereo. Then they sped off, the corpse kicking up a cloud of dust.
Eventually they just kinda wear down on the asphalt and you're left with nothing but a pair of feet.
The coppers standing nearby did nothing.
... assuming there was anything to do.
On Wednesday afternoon, Rooters saw two suspected Islamic State detainees -- identified as an Egyptian and a Sudanese national -- in a room in a government building. The Egyptian and the Sudanese were then taken outside by police intelligence. Word spread that the two suspected Islamic State prisoners were being escorted out. Federal coppers, who had lost an officer named Colonel Imad the previous day in a bombing, flocked around the detainees.
"Question One: Why aren't you guyz in Sudan and Egypt, respectively?"
The interior ministry front man, Brigadier Maan, said the Egyptian had stabbed an Iraqi police officer, which explains the anger against him. Rooters couldn't verify that claim. The two prisoners were put in the back of a pickup truck. As the vehicle tried to leave, the crowd blocked it.
"We're waiting for answers, turban boyz!"
The federal coppers started shouting to the intelligence officers: Hand over the men. The intelligence officers tried to shield the prisoners. One pulled a sidearm as the federal police began swinging their fists. The mob was screaming: "We want to avenge our Lieutenant Colonel."
"Well, y'see... These things happen..."
Shi'ite paramilitary men swarmed the area. The street filled with more than 20 federal police. Gunfire erupted. Bullets ricocheted. At least one of the Shi'ite fighters was maimed, and began bleeding from the leg.
"We come fer yer prisoners, Sharif!"
"Back off, boyz! Nobody takes our prisoners!"
The pickup truck tried to back up. People in the mob grabbed one of the prisoners from the truck, the Egyptian, and pulled him out.
"Nobody takes our remaining prisoner!"
The Egyptian sat silently at the feet of two big coppers in their twenties. His eyes filled with fear. He was surrounded by a few dozen people, a mix of federal police and Shi'ite militiamen.
"That's how it feels, al-Misery!"
"He is Daesh, and we should take Dire Revenge for Colonel Imad," the two federal coppers yelled, using a derogatory Arabic term for Islamic State.
It's not "derogatory." It's an abbreviation. There's a difference between "hated" and "derogatory." Usually.
One of the coppers held a black-handled knife with a four-to-five-inch blade. The other gripped a folding knife, with a three-inch blade and a brown handle. They waved their knives in the air, to cheers from the crowd, and chanted: "We will slaughter him. We will take Dire Revenge for Colonel Imad. We will slaughter him."
"Orf wif 'is 'ead!"
The coppers laid the Egyptian's head over the curb. Then one of the police pushed the other out of the way and he swung his whole body down, landing the knife into the Egyptian's neck. The cop lifted the knife and thrust the blade in the Egyptian's neck a second time. Blood gushed out, staining the boots of the cheering onlookers.
Life's tough. It ain't all ridin' through the streets and grinning with your black flag flying.
The killer started to saw through the neck, but it was slow-going. He lifted the blade again and slammed it into the Egyptian's neck another four times. Then he sawed back and forth.
"BRING ME A CABLE"
Their fellow coppers chanted: "We took Dire Revenge for Colonel Imad."
By chopping the head off one guy?
The killer lifted himself up the street pole next to the dying man so he could address his comrades: "Colonel Imad was a brave man. Colonel Imad didn't deserve to die at the hands of dirty Daesh. This is a message to Colonel Imad's family don't be sad, raise your heads."
"He's still dead as a rock, but now so's a piece of Egyptian scum!"
Then he shouted: "Let's tie the body to the pole so everyone can see. Bring a cable. Bring a cable."
"Fly the body like a flag!"
His friend with the folding knife kept trying to stab the Egyptian, with no success. He cried out: "I need a sharp knife. I want to behead this dirty Daesh." Finally the men found a cable, fastened it to the dead man's feet and dangled him from the pole.
And this is the cops we're discussing. Imagine how well-behaved everybody else is.
One policeman grew upset at the spectacle and shouted: "There are dozens of media here. This is not the suitable time. Why do you want to embarrass us?"
It's only embarrassing if it's done in public. Right.
The mob ignored him and continued trying to hoist the body. White bone stuck out from his slashed neck, his head flopped from side to side, and the blood continued to gush forth.
Do not impede mother nature! Stay out of it.