Battle Fallujah: ISIL’s Days Are Numbered

By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer These are difficult times for the terrorist group of  ISIL and its financial backers. In fact, the days of the terrorist goons are numbered.

Date: 14 July 2015 - 21:28

News ID: ۱۶۱۱۴

This is because Iraqi army and volunteer Shia-Sunni forces  loyal to the government in Baghdad have begun a long-awaited operation to retake the ISIL-held city of Fallujah. ISIL has held onto the capital city of Anbar province for the past 18 months and it is now clear that liberation is right around the corner.
As always, in the lead now are Iranian-trained and -equipped Shia-Sunni volunteer forces. According to the Iraqi Defense Ministry, the volunteer troops have surrounded the city of 500,000 and are beginning operations to capture it – a task that in 2004 took US Marines two separate assaults six months apart and, in total, three months of hard fighting.
The ongoing assault, which began after six weeks of preliminary bombardment, as always has been greeted with heavy resistance from the terrorists, including suicide car bombs and a number of gunfights on various axes around the city – in addition to using the civilians as shield.
Western media outlets would like to give the impression that Fallujah has from the beginning of the American occupation been the heart of the Sunni insurgency, first against the American occupation and then against the Baghdad-based Shia-led government that Sunnis have long accused of mistreating them and ignoring their needs.
This is far from the truth. Iraq has a Sunni-Shia government. Moreover, ISIL has been committing crimes against humanity in the city since its capture 18 months ago. Its Sunni population have no sympathy for the medieval butchers. Many fled the city when the terrorist goons marched in and they are now part of the Sunni-Shia alliance carrying out the ongoing offense. Indeed, Sunni tribes of Anbar province were the first major group to join the anti-ISIL alliance in Baghdad.
So there is a  reason why the Iraqi government says soon they will liberate the strategic town: They have the much-needed support of the Sunni population. Besides, Iraqi officials have been candid that the brunt of the fighting about to engulf the city will be borne by an umbrella group of Shia volunteer forces.
As it stands, the offensive is expected to last weeks, if not months. The Iraqi military and volunteer allies have shown great ability to fight effectively in urban areas without taking huge casualties; the assault on Tikrit, another Sunni city that had been in ISIL hands for months, claimed few volunteer lives.
In closing, American military advisers claim sectarian groups – overtly hostile to both Americans and Sunni Muslims – will break the already deeply frayed relationship between the Shia government in Baghdad and the Sunni tribes that dominate the large swaths of Iraq currently under ISIL control.
Needless to say this is far from the truth likewise. The American strategy of divide and rule or sectarianism doesn't work anymore. At least not in Iraq.
The people of Iraq have finally realized that what foreign powers are doing is not necessarily in the best interest of their war-torn country. They have come to the conclusion that only they themselves can defeat the terrorist goons and liberate their country – and not the US-led air war of deceit and domination.