Update for Friday, April 8, 2016

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry makes an unannounced visit to Baghdad, after meeting with representatives of the Gulf monarchies in Bahrain. His visit is generally interpreted as a show of support for the Abadi government and his attempted reforms.

Meanwhile, conditions are dire in the beseiged city of Fallujah where children are dying of starvation and the hospital has run out of supplies. IS has prevented people from leaving even as fire from Iraqi forces is contributing to civilian casualties. The Organization for Islamic Cooperation has called for urgent relief, though it is unclear how relief can be delivered given IS control of the city and ongoing combat.

Polling by the U.S. State Dept. finds that 1/3 of Iraqis believe the U.S. supports the Islamic State, and that the U.S. is conspiring to control Iraq's natural resources. [The latter was the original plan behind the 2003 invasion, but it has largely been abandoned by now. -- C]

U.S. may establish additional "fire bases" in Iraq to support the advance on Mosul.

IS is said to be netting up to $200 million a year from the sale of plundered antiquities, according to the Russian ambassador to the UN. Although the claim appears in part to be intended as a criticism of Turkey, through which the loot transits and toward which Russia is hostile, it is credible.

Iraqi troops have reached the center of Hit.

Afghanistan

Secretary Kerry will visit Kabul on Saturday.

U.S. air strikes kill 17 people in Paktika. The provincial police chief says the dead were all militants, but another local official says they were all civilians. A third says at least some of the casualties were civilians.

Disarray, dysfunction and corruption in the Afghan government endanger the regime's survival.

Rod Nordland in the NYT reports that the opium industry corrupts all sides in Helmand. This is worth an extended excerpt -- but do follow the link.

President Ashraf Ghani’s envoy for Helmand, Maj. Gen. Abdul Jabar Qahraman, has been given the task of fixing the situation. He says that a big part of the reason Helmand has become so difficult is that so many of its combatants have a financial stake in the continuation of the drug trade and of the war itself — something he hopes to undo by getting all sides talking to one another.

He calls the problem fourth-wife syndrome. The fourth wife — four is the most allowed under Islam — is often several decades younger than the husband, so her father can demand a high price for the bride. . . .

The Taliban shadow governor for the province, Mullah Manan, is from a poor family, yet recently he took a young girl as his fourth wife. “Where did he get this money?” General Qahraman said. “He had to pay a lot for such a marriage, and his father didn’t even own a donkey.” As a counterpoint, he mentioned that the Afghan National Police commander in Nad Ali district, Hajji Marjan Haqmal, had also just paid 3 million afghanis for a young, fourth wife — around $42,000, or more than three years’ salary for a district commander.

 

Update for Sunday, April 3, 2016

As Iraqi forces advance slowly toward Hit, they liberate 1,500 prisoners from an underground dungeon. The prisoners included security forces and civilians.

The advance on Hit has been slowed, however, by trapped civilians.

Displaced people begin to return to Ramadi, but there is no electricity. About 3,000 families are said to have returned to those districts which have been cleared of mines. This is out of some half million people who fled, however. Meanwhile, additional civilians continue to be displaced by fighting.

The UN expects the flood of refugees from the assault on Mosul to swell to 1 million, and there are no resources in place to deal with the problem.

Kurdish MPs demand that the Yazidi city of Shingal (or Sinjar) be declared a "ruined city," a designation that would direct reconstruction funds to the area. The Yazidi speak a Kurdish language and the Kurds have demonstrated solidarity with them, despite their minority religion. However, the city lies outside of what has been the Kurdish autonomous region and its incorporation into Kurdistan is resisted by the Baghdad government.

Parliament has designated all of Anbar province ruined, with 80% of infrastructure destroyed. Reconstruction costs are estimated at $20 billion, of which the Islamic Development Bank has pledged only $250 million. The Iraqi government currently has no significant resources to contribute to the effort.

Salah Naswari in al Jazeera discusses the political reforms. PM Abadi has nominated a new slate of ministers said to be technically competent and politically non-partisan. He will make other personnel changes. Muqtada al-Sadr has voiced support for the moves and called off his occupation of the Green Zone. However, the current ministers will need to resign and parliament will have to approve the new slate. The current power sharing arrangement with ethno-sectarian quotas is also an obstacle to effective governance. The Kurds continue to move toward secession, while Sunni Arabs will see the reforms as merely further marginalizing them. As an example of the problems posed by ethnic politics, Turkmen are demanding representation in the cabinet.

Update for Monday, March 28, 2016

I'm going to devote today's post to Kenneth M. Pollack's Iraq situation report, mostly because I think he is largely right on the facts (even if we may differ on their implications).

First, there are some 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, not the 3,800 officially announced, and they are more engaged in combat than we are generally led to believe. That said, it's a small number and Iraqi forces of one kind or another really are doing the work. And they have gotten better. For some reason he doesn't say anything specifically about the peshmerga, but he does say that the U.S.-led coalition has trained 6 Iraqi brigades who are performing well, and that there has been some improvement in the Iraqi command culture. The Iraqis are less demanding of unnecessary close air support, which leaves coalition aircraft free to strike more important IS targets.

The result is that IS is losing. They are losing territory, and Sunni Arabs within what is left are finding the courage to turn against them and join the popular mobilization. Although Pollack thinks it will still be 6 to 12 months before Mosul falls, he thinks IS troops are losing morale and are unable to mount effective offensives.

The bad news, however, is the risk of catastrophic success. There is no plan in place to build an Iraqi nationalist culture once the common enemy is gone. The Iranian-backed militias may well remain, and competing groups will rush in to try to grab what they can if IS collapses. The result may be a new phase of civil war, rather than anything that looks like a success. Of course this is what happened after the 2003 invasion -- there was no plan to rebuild the Iraqi nation-state, and there doesn't seem to be a plan now, either. As Pollack concludes:

Unfortunately, as has been a trademark of American involvement with Iraq at least since 2003 (and arguably since 1991), military success is not being matched with the commensurate political-economic efforts that will ultimately determine whether battlefield successes are translated into lasting achievements. In particular, the absence of developed and resourced plans to deal with post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction, and the lingering question regarding the future status of the militias raise huge questions about whether these victories will prove as ephemeral as America’s many past triumphs in Iraq.

Sigh.

Update for Friday, March 25, 2016

U.S. says it has killed Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, also known as Haji Imam, who the U.S. says was second in command of IS and acting Finance Minister. Although several reports say he was killed in an airstrike, I believe this is just an assumption. The Pentagon declines to say where and how he was killed, leaving open the possibility that it was a commando raid. [I would remind everyone that during the previous civil war in Iraq, the U.S. would claim to have killed the al Qaeda number 2 every few weeks.]

Iraqi forces have begun a slow advance toward Mosul, now claiming the capture of 4 villages in Ninevah province expanding from the Makhmour base (where U.S. marines are stationed).  The marines are supporting the advance with artillery and illumination rounds. Iraqi forces also claim to have severed communication between Raqqa in Syria and areas west of Anbar, continuing the encirclement of Mosul. The advance is slow, however, as IS resists with guerilla tactics, and Kurdish peshmerga forces face an uncertain welcome in Arab villages.

Muqtada al-Sadr threatens further unrest if promised government reforms are not completed.

Turkey continues regular air strikes on PKK positions in Iraq. I should note that the wall-to-wall coverage in the U.S. of the IS bombings in Brussels contrasts with almost complete disinterest in the recent bombings in Turkey, which killed just as many people; and the regular bomb attacks on civilians in Iraq, which are no longer news. In fact, western Europe is just about the safest place on earth.

Update: Like I was saying, suicide bomber kills 29 at a soccer stadium in Iskanderiya. I'm sure CNN will feature coverage of nothing else for the next week, and everybody will be waving "I am Iskanderiya" signs at candlelight vigils all over the U.S. and Europe. Or not.

And, another explosion in Kabul, no word yet on casualties.

Taliban assassinate army general Khan Aga in Kandahar.

One dead in clash between followers of rival warlords Dostum and Noor in Faryab.

Seven police killed in a turncoat attack in Kandahar.

Update for Monday, March 21, 2016

Hoo boy. First, some context: Shiite militias, largely backed by Iran, are increasingly dominating Iraqi politics. The various militias are the armed wings of political parties, and are rivals of the Iraqi army and constitutional government for power. Excerpt:

The more than 50 Shiite militias in Iraq have between 60,000 and 140,000 fighters, according to estimates from the government and the Hashd itself. They are backed by tanks and weapons, and have their own intelligence agency, operations rooms and court of law.

The larger militias, like Asaib Ahl al-Haq, the Hezbollah Brigades, Badr and the Peace Brigades, have been in place since soon after the 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein. They are linked to political parties, effectively forming armed branches for politicians.

So, now that we have learned a detachment of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit is deployed in northern Iraq, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, the League of the Righteous, has threatened to attack U.S. forces. The group was responsible for the kidnapping of British subject Peter Moore and also shot down a British helicopter in 2006. The league is commanded by an Iranian general. Hezbollah has also threatened U.S. troops in Iraq. Note that they subscribe to the widespread theory among Shiites that IS is in fact a U.S. creation, and the U.S. is only pretending to fight it. Even the largely reality-based Iranian news channel Al-Alam laces its report of the U.S. deployment with a dose of skepticism. That the U.S. secretly backs I.S. is also a commonplace of Syrian government-backed news sources.

The situation is highly combustible, to say the least.

Update for Sunday, March 20, 2016

U.S. Marine killed in rocket attack yesterday is identified as Staff Sgt. Louis F. Cardin, of Temecula, California. Cardin was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The linked CNN story further explains that the location was a forward firebase set up just a few days earlier to support the assault on Mosul. Presumably IS forward positions spotted the marines moving in and targeted them.

Sadrists continue large-scale demonstrations near the Green Zone to demand that the government follow through on promised reforms. This article from AFP discusses Sadr's history and current role and the politics among Shiite elites in Iraq.

Iraqi forces continue to advance on Hit.

Upate for Saturday, March 19, 2016

U.S. service member killed by rocket attack on a base at Makhmour, a town near Mosul on the edge of Kurdistan. The base is controlled by peshmerga and has been hosting U.S. military advisers for some time. As the assault on Mosul gradually builds up, indirect fire attacks from IS are said to have increased. There were apparently additional injuries but little information is available as of yet. Some sources say the dead service member was a marine, others a soldier.

British hostage John Cantlie appears in a new IS propaganda video. The video is undated but raises hopes he is still alive.

Here's a blast from the past. Mullah krekar is released from a Norwegian prison sentence after his conviction was overturned. He had been imprisoned for threatening a fellow Kurd. Who is Mullah Krekar, you may well ask? I will tell you.

His real name is Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad. He was the leader of a militant organization called Ansar al Islam which operated in Kurdistan prior to the U.S. invasion in 2003. George W. Bush claimed that the presence of Ansar al Islam within the putative territory of Iraq proved that Saddam Hussein harbored terrorists. The truth, as is usually the case when George W. Bush's lips move, was the precise opposite. Mullah Krekar was an enemy of Saddam Hussein, who tried to have him killed. Since Krekar operated in the Kurdish region outside of Saddam's control, Saddam provided weapons to Kurdish militants in exchange for their promise to try to track him down. Accordingly, Krekar fled to Norway, where he was given asylum, and where he was living in 2003. Weird story.