Watch: author Robert Fry records fighting between al-Qaeda and American troops in the Anbar Province, Iraq, May 2006. Witnessed from Governor Sami Rasheed al-Alwanis’s office.
The man at the centre of the accompanying video (click here) is Maamoon Sami Rasheed al-Alwani. When the video was taken on a mobile phone in May 2006, he was the governor of Anbar Province in Iraq, and was based in Ramadi, a town recently liberated from IS control. Tough and utterly uncompromising, he would eventually survive no fewer than 31 assassination attempts, and the footage depicts an average day at the office as American marines repel an attack by al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Then, as now, Ramadi was being fought over as the key to Anbar and Anbar as the key to the Sunni population of Iraq; whoever holds the loyalty of the complex tribal structure of the province has the affiliation of a vital fraction of the Iraqi population.
Later, in 2007, that loyalty would be won by a highly successful American operation. A combination of terrorist excesses and a US special forces campaign of industrial scale turned the tribes against AQI and then fatally reduced it as a fighting force. Recognising self-interest when they saw it, the tribes accepted money and weapons from the Americans, and later the Iraqi government, in what became known as the Anbar Awakening (though, interestingly, the original negotiations were led by British officers who were assumed to have some post imperial vocation for work that the Americans initially found distasteful). In return, the tribes recognised the legitimacy of the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad led by Nouri al-Maliki. What followed was a military success and a lost political opportunity.
The combination of the tribes’ local knowledge and US firepower was overwhelming. But, once AQI had been destroyed, the payments dried up and the Maliki government went back on it promises of reconciliation and inclusion in a plural democracy. This small-minded sectarianism created the long-term conditions that led to the rise of Islamic State (IS) in Iraq, and the fall of Ramadi to IS in May 2015. If Iraq is to survive as a unitary state, the Anbar Sunni tribes must never again be lost to political process.
Read more:
IS–doomed to failure
Is Iraq ready for its first gay Prime Minister?
Why Islamic State wants to destroy the past
What has been taking place in Ramadi over the last few weeks, as Iraqi government forces have fought through the town, is the most nerve shredding experience available in contemporary combat. Horizons are measured in feet and inches, fighting is often conducted in subterranean darkness accompanied by deafening noise and with the constant fear of the sniper, the booby trap and the suicide bomber; it is atavistic, terrifying and hugely expensive in human life and material resources. What the Russians learned in fighting the Germans at Stalingrad in 1942, IS is applying today: the closer you get to the enemy, the less his technological advantages count. It is also a form of warfare better suited to those already reconciled to a martyr’s death and the rewards of divine largesse than a conscript infantryman.
That is not to say technology has no role. The terminal accuracy of air delivered weapons, guided by western teams supporting Iraqi forces, means that a device can be dropped on the building next door. But there are better places to be than within the blast radius of a 500-pound bomb and pity the luckless Iraqi soldier leading the fight. His survival is substantially in the hands of foreigners guiding a pilot he will never meet, speaking a language he probably does not understand and commanded by a structure quite separate from his own. To say that this places a premium upon trust is an understatement. Our own tabloid press has recently included breathless accounts of British and US special forces at the heart of the operation. They will certainly be there, but one step removed from the action—the last place to put such an expensively trained commodity is in the middle of a meat grinder.
Delayed action fuses will continue to detonate for some time and the odd recalcitrant jihadi may survive amongst the rubble, but it looks as though the third battle of Ramadi has been won. In turn, that now means that the plans to retake other Iraqi towns held by IS, like Fallujah and Mosul, can begin. Iraqi forces will first be rested, reconstituted and then retrained to incorporate techniques recently learned the hard way.
For IS, the loss of Ramadi is a significant defeat. Whatever mistakes AQI made, and there were many, it always remained a terrorist organisation fighting an insurgent campaign; as such, it was never tied to the defence of territory. For IS, it’s different. With the pretensions of statehood comes the requirement to defend what is claimed as sovereign and the new caliphate is reduced by Ramadi’s loss. Governor Maamoon would approve.
The man at the centre of the accompanying video (click here) is Maamoon Sami Rasheed al-Alwani. When the video was taken on a mobile phone in May 2006, he was the governor of Anbar Province in Iraq, and was based in Ramadi, a town recently liberated from IS control. Tough and utterly uncompromising, he would eventually survive no fewer than 31 assassination attempts, and the footage depicts an average day at the office as American marines repel an attack by al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Then, as now, Ramadi was being fought over as the key to Anbar and Anbar as the key to the Sunni population of Iraq; whoever holds the loyalty of the complex tribal structure of the province has the affiliation of a vital fraction of the Iraqi population.
Later, in 2007, that loyalty would be won by a highly successful American operation. A combination of terrorist excesses and a US special forces campaign of industrial scale turned the tribes against AQI and then fatally reduced it as a fighting force. Recognising self-interest when they saw it, the tribes accepted money and weapons from the Americans, and later the Iraqi government, in what became known as the Anbar Awakening (though, interestingly, the original negotiations were led by British officers who were assumed to have some post imperial vocation for work that the Americans initially found distasteful). In return, the tribes recognised the legitimacy of the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad led by Nouri al-Maliki. What followed was a military success and a lost political opportunity.
The combination of the tribes’ local knowledge and US firepower was overwhelming. But, once AQI had been destroyed, the payments dried up and the Maliki government went back on it promises of reconciliation and inclusion in a plural democracy. This small-minded sectarianism created the long-term conditions that led to the rise of Islamic State (IS) in Iraq, and the fall of Ramadi to IS in May 2015. If Iraq is to survive as a unitary state, the Anbar Sunni tribes must never again be lost to political process.
Read more:
IS–doomed to failure
Is Iraq ready for its first gay Prime Minister?
Why Islamic State wants to destroy the past
What has been taking place in Ramadi over the last few weeks, as Iraqi government forces have fought through the town, is the most nerve shredding experience available in contemporary combat. Horizons are measured in feet and inches, fighting is often conducted in subterranean darkness accompanied by deafening noise and with the constant fear of the sniper, the booby trap and the suicide bomber; it is atavistic, terrifying and hugely expensive in human life and material resources. What the Russians learned in fighting the Germans at Stalingrad in 1942, IS is applying today: the closer you get to the enemy, the less his technological advantages count. It is also a form of warfare better suited to those already reconciled to a martyr’s death and the rewards of divine largesse than a conscript infantryman.
That is not to say technology has no role. The terminal accuracy of air delivered weapons, guided by western teams supporting Iraqi forces, means that a device can be dropped on the building next door. But there are better places to be than within the blast radius of a 500-pound bomb and pity the luckless Iraqi soldier leading the fight. His survival is substantially in the hands of foreigners guiding a pilot he will never meet, speaking a language he probably does not understand and commanded by a structure quite separate from his own. To say that this places a premium upon trust is an understatement. Our own tabloid press has recently included breathless accounts of British and US special forces at the heart of the operation. They will certainly be there, but one step removed from the action—the last place to put such an expensively trained commodity is in the middle of a meat grinder.
Delayed action fuses will continue to detonate for some time and the odd recalcitrant jihadi may survive amongst the rubble, but it looks as though the third battle of Ramadi has been won. In turn, that now means that the plans to retake other Iraqi towns held by IS, like Fallujah and Mosul, can begin. Iraqi forces will first be rested, reconstituted and then retrained to incorporate techniques recently learned the hard way.
For IS, the loss of Ramadi is a significant defeat. Whatever mistakes AQI made, and there were many, it always remained a terrorist organisation fighting an insurgent campaign; as such, it was never tied to the defence of territory. For IS, it’s different. With the pretensions of statehood comes the requirement to defend what is claimed as sovereign and the new caliphate is reduced by Ramadi’s loss. Governor Maamoon would approve.
