Many Sunnis in Baghdad say they live in fear of the Shi’ite militias, and human rights organizations have flagged abuses by the militias in the past.
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The closest Iraqi forces have come to moving into the centre is from the south, where they entered a suburb of Fallujah but were pinned back by a massive counterattack on Tuesday.
US -trained Iraqi counterterrorism forces, wary of coming street battles in the city, are already facing fierce resistance on the outskirts from well-entrenched militants.
Islamic State is putting up a tough fight in Fallujah and its recapture by the Iraqi army could take time, said Iraqi Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari.
“The timing of the Fallujah initiative is very much politically motivated”, said Lina Khatib, the head of the Middle East program at the London-based Chatham House research institution.
US -backed Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Wednesday that victory was “within reach”.
The offensive launched this week by Iraqi government forces to retake the city of Fallujah from ISIS militants represents the most important test so far of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s leadership as well as of USA military strategy in the region. One reason many Fallujah residents were receptive to ISIS’ takeover two years ago is that they had become deeply disillusioned by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s policies, which marginalized their interests in the central government.
Coalition warplanes bombed ISIS command centers and tunnel networks Friday in Falluja, Iraq, killing dozens of militants, the Iraqi Joint Operation Command said, as the fight intensifies to retake the strategic city.
“[Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar] Abadi has tried to minimize the cost of civilian lives by deploying [counterterrorism forces], but ISIS is going to ensure as many civilians die as possible, and this will hurt him”, says Kirk Sowell, a political risk analyst specialized in Iraq. He said more than 1,000 families had managed to get across.
Fallujah, part of the Sunni heartland of western Iraq, has always been a bastion of bitterness toward the Shiite-led central government in Baghdad that emerged after the 2003 USA invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
“UNICEF estimates that at least 20,000 children remain trapped in the city”, the agency’s Iraq representative Peter Hawkins said. Government forces have imposed a tight blockade on the city and IS militants are reportedly preventing residents from leaving.UNICEF has also stated basic survival means – food, medicine and clean water – are quickly running out.
The Islamic State is a terrorist group outlawed in the United States, Russia and numerous other countries. The Sunni-led militants still control the country’s second-largest city, Mosul, in the north, as well as smaller towns and patches of territory in the country’s west and north. The Norwegian Refugee Council said that nearly all the fleeing families lived on the city’s outskirts.
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Fallujah has always been a proud symbol of resistance for Iraq’s minority Sunni population – first against the United States occupation in 2004, and more recently against the Shiite-dominated government, which has marginalized them.
