The Islamic State has been on the offensive in Anbar for months
now. They have launched large attacks across the province trying to spread out
the government’s forces and seize new territory. The group has had no real success
since October 2014 however, but were recently able to take a dam and several
army bases, along with killing the commander of the army’s 1st
Division in the last several weeks.
Starting on April 24,
2015, IS began laying siege to the barracks of the 2nd
Regiment of the 1st Division in the Thar Thar area north of
Fallujah. The Islamic State started with three suicide car bombs upon the base
followed by an infantry assault. The next day it caught a convoy
with a bulldozer filled with explosives, which killed
the commander of the 1st Division General Hassan Toufan, three of
his staff officers, and ten other soldiers and wounded another nine. The
insurgents also launched a psychological
warfare campaign against the surrounded camp by posting a video on line claiming
that a mass execution of troops had occurred to sow dissension. The regiment
had already been calling
for aid and reinforcements for a week, but received no help. By the time the
base was taken another 128 soldiers were killed in the fighting, some of which might
have been executed
by IS. Militants seized the nearby Thar Thar Dam as well, and posted video of it. IS had
been pushing in the area for at least a month with similar successes.
In March and earlier in April, IS overran two other army
bases in the Thar Thar region. On April
12, IS took the headquarters of the 4th Regiment. Again, the
defenses were breached by the use of suicide bombers. In March
the 26th Brigade’s headquarters were similarly assaulted and taken. In
both cases IS released video footage of its fighters inside the bases amongst
destroyed vehicles and equipment.
A member
of parliament’s security committee complained that the loss of the barracks was
due to poor deployments of units throughout Anbar. He said that soldiers were
spread throughout the province in a manner so that they could not support each
other. Many of these smaller bases are isolated and often not supplied by the
army due to poor logistics and corruption making them vulnerable to attack. Currently
the ISF are attempting to retake the area, but given its difficulties there’s
no telling whether it can hold the area afterward. The breadth of the province
has been a continual problem for the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), which lacks
the manpower to hold many areas after they are cleared causing constant
security operations in the same areas again and again.
Anbar remains one of the few provinces where IS continues to
launch offensive operations. Almost every month it carries out at least one large
assault in the governorate. Thar Thar has been its first success there since
October 2014. It solidifies its hold upon western Anbar, and as Bill Roggio and
Caleb Weiss point out in the Long War Journal IS has been using it as a base to
launch attacks into neighboring Salahaddin. Given the large number of losses
the fall of the 2nd Regiment camp also harkens back to September
2014 when another barracks in Saqlawiya
was overrun. That camp was surrounded for five days with the soldiers inside
pleading for help even calling lawmakers and humanitarian groups on their cell
phones. The then head of the Anbar Operations Command General Rasheed Flayh
called the men whiners. Eventually the barrack was taken with 300-500 soldiers
killed in the process. General Flayh was later reassigned and accused of stealing
supplies from his troops. Prime Minister Haider Abadi has been attempting to
reform the security forces since he took office, but there are still problems
with logistics, corruption, and poor leadership that plague the force leading
to events like these in Anbar.
SOURCES
Kirkpatrick, David, “Graft Hobbles Iraq’s Military in
Fighting ISIS,” New York Times, 11/23/14
Al Mada, “An informed source tells what happened in Thar
Thar: Daash used psychological warfare of mass executions,” 4/26/15
- “Parliamentary Security: senior first division leader’s
death caused by deployment of military units in a strategic error,” 4/25/15
Radio Free Iraq, “25 April 2015,” Daily Updates from Anbar,
4/25/15
Roggio, Bill and Weiss, Caleb, “Islamic State captures dam,
overruns base in western Iraq,” Long War Journal, 4/26/15
- “Islamic State overruns Iraqi Army brigade headquarters
north of Fallujah,” Long War Journal, 3/15/15
- “Islamic State overruns Iraqi Army headquarters near Thar
Thar,” Long War Journal, 4/14/15
Salaheddin, Sinan and Yacoub, Sameer, “Car bombs driven by
foreigners hit Iraq-Jordan border post,” Associated Press, 4/25/15
Xinhua, “Iraqi troops wage tit-for-tat battles with IS in
Anbar,” 4/23/15
Zee News, “Senior officers killed in Iraq’s Anbar: General,”
4/25/15
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