Iraq opened an offensive to drive the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) from Ramadi on Tuesday, sending in troops to cut off supply lines to jihadists controlling the provincial capital.
The advance into the Sunni heartland province of Anbar is this time led by the Hashid Shaabi, an alliance of predominantly Shia paramilitaries, who have proven to be both a more effective fighting force than Iraqi troops, but also, at times, ruthlessly sectarian in their behaviour.
The paramilitaries did little to assuage the fears of sectarian enmity on Tuesday, provocatively dubbing the mission “We are at your service, Hussein”; a reference to one of the most revered imams in Shia Islam, which is likely to infuriate local Sunni leaders.
The Iraqi government has been scrambling to reverse the loss of Ramadi, its biggest military setback in almost a year.
The Shia militiamen, supported by a smaller cadre of government troops, advanced on Tuesday to within a few miles of a university on Ramadi’s south-western edge, police sources and Sunni tribal fighters allied to the government said.
Iraqi security forces and paramilitaries deploy, during an operation aimed at cutting off Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Anbar
A policeman who recently fled Ramadi, who spoke to the Telegraph on condition of anonymity, said jihadists inside the city were nervous of air strikes from the US-led international coalition: “Isil are worried. They are not driving their vehicles in the streets anymore and government buildings are empty,” he said.
Shia militias had until now stayed out of Anbar province, whose Sunni tribal leaders have traditionally been overtly hostile to outsiders.
The United States had pressured Baghdad not to rely on the manpower of Shia fighters, fearing that the sectarian enmity would only drive local support to the Isil occupiers. But with its own troops in a beleaguered state, under equipped and under prepared Baghdad appears to have decided that has no other choice.
The Iraqi government has succeeded in persuading some Sunni tribal leaders to accept help from the Shia fighters, but mistrust runs deep after years of sectarian war in which atrocities were committed on both sides.
One Sunni tribal leader in the area told the Telegraph that his men were still participating in the fight against Isil and that reinforcements had been sent to aid his tribe’s last stand against the jihadists in the east of the city.
But though the tribesmen have taken heavy casualties in recent days, they remain wary of the involvement of Shia militias, he said.
The Ramadi policeman grudgingly accepted the Shia paramilitaries were probably the only “hope to remove Isil” but said he expected their advance to be followed by “looting and killings”.
Iraqi forces luanch a major offensive to retake the city of Ramadi
“My cousins are civilians trapped in Ramadi. They don’t support Isil but I am afraid the Hashid will accuse them of being as such because they are Sunnis who stayed under their rule and so kill them.”
Experts warned that battle for Ramadi itself could be among the bloodiest of the war.
“If there is a big offensive, a lot of blood will be shed and it’s unclear who will control the place when this is all over,” said Patrick B. Johnston, a political scientist at RAND Corporation.
Criticism from the US government of the Shia militia dominating the offensive was more muted, with Col Steve Warren, a spokesman of the Pentagon calling the sectarian code name the fighters have given to the operation “unhelpful”.
The US-led coalition continued to pound Isil positions in Iraq and Syria from the air, dropping 19 payloads on “tactical units, vehicles, heavy machine guns and buildings” in a 24-hour period ending on Tuesday, a coalition statement said.
The Syrian government said it had killed as many as 140 Isil combatants in an air raid on a jihadist headquarters in their provincial capital of Raqqa.
But local residents denied the claims, saying the attacks had killed less than a dozen men.
Despite the attacks, the jihadists have continued to make gains deep inside Syrian territory, putting the Syrian military ever on the back foot.
On Tuesday Isil Twitter accounts posted pictures of the jihadists taking control of Khunayfis, a phosphate mine some 45 miles south of the central city of Palmyra, located on the long highway to Damascus.
