Militias of popular crowd indicated to crush each one who object to the participation of it in the battle to liberate the city of Mosul (Nineveh province in northern Iraq) from the terrorist Daash organization . this perceived threat by militias of popular crowd comes under a broad rejection to their participation in the great strategic battle . the League of the Righteous ( Kataib ahl- al- Haq) announced last Saturday that the military preparations for the battle of Mosul is under way in full swing with high determination, and indicated that any one who object the participation of the crowd to the battle of Mosul ” will be crushed by foot and not to blame but himself .”
The military spokesman of Alasaib Jawad Tlabawi, “Military preparations for the battle of Mosul are underway in full swing and actively high ,” noting that ” the legitimate, national and moral duty impose on us to liberate Mosul and end the suffering of the people of the city, and the return of the people of Tal Afar, and Nineveh Plain to their areas after the elimination Daash gangs. ” Tlabawi added that ” the one who oppose to the participation of factions of the sacred popular crowd in the liberation battles will be crushed by foots and not to blame but himself.” The militia of the popular crowd, earlier confirmed that the crowd forces will not wait for a license from the one to liberate the city of Mosul being an Iraqi city .
As the President of the coalition of Motahidoon Osama Najafi saw the nature of the battle of Mosul do not need the participation of the popular crowd to prevent the exploitation of “Daash” the sectarian paper, and pointed out that this fight requires large preparations and the most important of it is to increase the number and the equipments of National crowd to have a crucial role to the liberalization and the maintenance of the land. the Nineveh provincial council and their clans have refused the participation of militias of the popular crowd in the restoration operation of Mosul from the terrorist Daash , and stressed that any force does not go through the provincial council would not be recognized. In this context , we put two questions: first , why does the Iraqi army alone to fight the terrorist Daash , and the second: the risks of the participation of the popular crowd where the forces are run by the Iranian regime in the battle against the terrorist Daash in Iraq?
In Iraq, the decay process of the Iraqi army was began when the United States decided to dismantle it with a political decision taken by the G W. Bush administration deliberately, and not by a mistake, as they say today. The Iraqi army was among the most powerful Arab armies and was a threat to Israel and Iran together. The Iraqi army, the most powerful in the strategic Arab – Israeli military equation, and it was amazing with regard to Syria’s decision to join a war against Iraq to destroy the Arab weight in the military strategic equation with Israel . Thus, it was began the dismantling of the Arab armies in the Iraq war, benefited Israel and benefited Iran which will not forget the Gulf countries support for Iraq during the Iraq – Iran war while it forgot the role of the United States in support of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the war itself. Here it is the Iraqi army lacks the ability, after more than a decade of mismanagement by the government and its international supporters. The weakness of the Iraqi army pushed to rely on other military authorities in land battles against the terrorist «Daash» and others.
Hence the idea of founding of the popular crowd forces such as the desire to show that the State is privileged by the popular support, so the government used the anti «Daash» operation as an opportunity to show that people wraps around it, so the desire to prove the legitimacy of the current government, especially as it faces mounting pressure from opposition parties such as the Sadrists as well as many within the Sunni community, led to praise the «popular crowd» as a movement led by citizens aimed at helping the institution of the State which is the armed forces. The presence of fighters from the Sunnis and other communities within the «popular crowd» to enable the Iraqi government in its attempt to frame the fight against «Daash» as the non- sectarian move to ease the pressure on it.
However, the behavior of the popular crowd was not always identical to the speech used by the state. Some Shiite groups within the popular crowd participated in acts of violence against Sunni civilians. And the non-recurrence of such acts, it has been agreed on what was termed “Tikrit rules” -the informal agreement provided not to enter Sunni cities by the Shiite militias backed by Iran that are to be recovered from the “Daash” for fear of igniting a new sectarian tensions there. But the popular crowd forces did not abide by these rules and entered the city of Fallujah, as an Iraqi security sources and other popular press reported that the crowd forces were looting and burning of houses in Fallujah after the liberation of neighborhoods in the city from the grip of the terrorist organization Daash. Also Fallujah residents suffered , who managed to escape , from the beatings, disappearances, and even from the field executions at the hands of the popular crowd forces, Shiite militias, according to “credible reports” cited by the report of the organization “Human Rights Watch, and ” Bruno Guido, head of the agency of the UN refugee mission in Iraq, said the militia’s behavior was “totally unacceptable.” Guido told AFP news agency that the allegations of ill-treatment by the Shiite militias, “proven by many sources … and from reports we have received, it has been practiced torture by militias.”
It is interesting that revenge on the civilians did not occur after the end of fighting, somehow got in Tikrit, but it was got in its beginning . However, as it was already noted that the basis for the participation of the popular crowd at the battle of Fallujah is an attempt to achieve political gains because of the symbolism of this battle, it seems that the motives of a number of factions of the crowd are pure revenge filled with hatred to satisfy their appetite in a sectarian context; this is what can explain the aggressions and to boast of it by spreading it in intensive images and videos depicting an insult, and torture, and killed numbers of civilians fleeing from Fallujah.
But even if the popular crowd forces adapted their behavior to stop these abuses, noting that the increase of its status as a role in a major military conflict it means that it is, in the long run, will not be satisfied with the settlement of the conflict that will satisfy only the political elites . As Lebanon’s experience has shown, it is likely that the popular crowd forces turn into political actors in the post-conflict phase. In Lebanon, «Hezbollah» has not been created by the state but was grown in part because of the weakness of the state against external Israeli aggression. But while the Lebanese state blessed in the eighties «Hezbollah» role as a resistance movement against the Israeli occupation, as at that time it did not anticipate the evolution of this group to the most powerful political party in the country, which derives much of its strength from the Iranian regime support at all levels. As the Secretary General of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah confirmed in his speech at the twenty-fourth of June on the occasion of the forty days after the killing of Mustafa Badr al-Din in Syria, the Iranian regime’s support for his party, saying: “To eat- Party of Allah- and drink and its arms and missiles are coming from the Islamic Republic of Iran “and certainly this Iranian support comes within the framework of the Iranian regime’s strategy in the first to destabilize the Levant and secondly the expansion in it.
With this understanding , the Iranian regime support to PDF crowd , also it means that it will become later the Iranian political tool inside Iraq, and thus contribute more to undermine the sovereignty of the state. This is what happened in Lebanon with «Hezbollah», which works not as a state within the state as much as it is a state within a semi- state. And as an external Military tool if Iran’s interests require it.
If this scenario applies to Iraq, one could imagine the likely future of the PDF crowd as groups using the current military roles as a platform to demand political role in Iraq. The danger in this scenario is not a change in the status quo, which comes with the emergence of new political voices. If Lebanon had taken an example, the building of political power based on the weakness of the state as well as the possession of weapons means that these groups will be less likely to approve the merger in state institutions. Moreover, they can actively working to keep the weakness of the state in order to justify the goal of maintaining their weapons, while its foreign sponsorship contributes to the continuing for the weakness of the state. So, while Iraq today may find the militias as a tool to enhance the legitimacy of the state, noting that this tactic may be counterproductive in the long run. On the other hand, the insistence of the militias of the popular crowd to participate in the battle of Mosul will pour primarily for the benefit of the Iranian geopolitical regime, which wants to maintain the land “corridor” , which link it to its allies in Syria and Lebanon. And that does not leave to participate in this battle for Turkey’s allies in Iraq, so the upcoming battle of Mosul, like zero theory in international relations. This battle , with the insistence of the militia to participate in it and the refusal of the Sunni of Mosul and Iraq in general , will witness a new phase of sectarian war that may hit the Iraq’s unity and its range may be extended regionally . It is here we wonder Who can restrain the militias of the Popular crowd in Iraq fighting against the terrorist organization Daash?
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies