News Analysis: IS expansion haunts Iraq as sectarian strife raging

It has been one hell of year since the so-called Islamic State (IS) militant group, an al-Qaida offshoot, captured Iraq's key northern city of Mosul and later seized swathes of territories in the Sunni dominated provinces.

IS expansion unleashed waves of hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians and threatened to split up the country which originally was suffering from deep rupture by the poor governance of the Iraqi government led by the former Shiite prime minister Nuri al-Maliki.

In September Iraq elected Haider al-Abadi to form an inclusive government, but the man, who was supposed to deal with difficult tasks to prepare the country to battle the extremist militants, apparently, was not successful enough so far.

"A whole year passed since the fall of Mosul and the Iraqi forces are still not capable of recapturing the city. Abadi's measures of social reforms and rebuilding professional security forces were not effective and not enough," Sabah al-Sheikh, a professor of politics with Baghdad University, told Xinhua.

For more than a dozen years after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the Iraqi army and police were repeatedly accused of lacking professionalism because of being largely formed by merger of Shiite militias, and after the IS blitzkrieg in June the then prime minister Nuri al-Maliki made things worse when he mergered more Iranian-trained Shiite militias and dozens of thousands of Shiite volunteers in the security forces, turning the Iraqi forces to be part of the militias who took the command in the military operations.

The Shiite militias, also known as Hashd Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization, are seen as lacking discipline, easily lose control of freed lands after battlefields and lacking proper military training.

The Sunnis are worried that if the Shiite militias seize their towns after defeating IS militants, there might be possible burning and looting to their homes by the Shiite militias based on sectarian and revenge motives.

"Abadi's measures to prepare Iraqis for big battle against IS were so slow and setbacks continued until we witnessed the fall of Ramadi last month," al-Sheikh said.

"It was crucial to bring Sunni tribal fighters, who are the land owners, to battlefield but the efforts to bring them were hampered by the embattled political parties, when they failed to enact a law to form the national guard from tribal Sunni fighters in order to join the Shiite-dominated security forces," he said.

The national guard law was supposed to be a necessary message of reassurance to the Sunni community, under which the Sunni provinces can form their own troops from local residents under the command of the federal security ministries so they can participate in defeating the IS from their hometowns without the need for direct intervention of government troops and feared Shiite militias. But the Shiites are worried that such law could encourage split up of the country.

"The residents in some Sunni towns and villages seized by the IS militants have been caught between two fires; if they leave their homes they will face unknown future of displacement, poverty and humiliation. If they stay at homes they will live under bombardment and maybe be targeted by the Shiite militias and security forces when they drive the militants out of the towns and villages," he said.

Meanwhile, fighting IS requires a rather powerful economy to finance the war machine. Yet Iraq is fast losing more money when its traditional key revenues sources are withering, and no new supplements have emerged.

"Abadi was supposed to pursue an effective anti-corruption measures to retrieve the waste of billions of dollars from the pockets of the corrupt officials and generals, but nine months since he took office as Iraq's premier, he apparently faced tough and complicated anti-corruption mission from influential corrupts, including from his own party," al-Sheikh said.

In most cases, the corrupt officials are well protected by some powerful and leading political parties, and are connected to networks of local and international companies and organizations.

For his part, Ahmed al-Kraiym, head of Salahudin provincial council, told Xinhua that the prevail of IS group in Mosul, Anbar and other areas is attributed to long term of differences and divisions among Iraq's main communities -- mainly the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds -- which have been deepening, reflecting the failure of the political process to curb the power struggle among the country's factions that erupted after the U.S.- led invasion in 2003.

"Daash (IS group) extension in Iraq is part of long-standing sectarian and ethnic polarization in the Iraqi society, which created an appropriate breeding ground of violence and extremism in the country," al-Kraiym said.

"The degree of trust among the leaders of the Iraqi factions is almost zero. Such situation creates one of the most dysfunctional states in the history of Iraq," al-Kraiym added.

Any reform efforts would not be easy in a country like Iraq, which has been under pressure of mounting political, social and economic crises, which threaten to disintegrate the country.

"If political situation continue with not effective efforts of national reconciliation, then no future for Iraq as a state, and Daash would be stronger," al-Kraiym warned.

"I call on all political parties and politicians to work together to take brave decisions to reform the political process and to work as a single team in order to bring about stability to save Iraq and its people," al-Kraiym said.

So far, Iraqi security forces, Hashd Shaabi militias backed by U.S-led coalition airstrikes managed to take over the main IS redoubts in Diyala province and some of areas in Iraq's northern central province of Salahudin, including its capital Tikrit, but the IS group hit back on May 17 and seized Anbar provincial capital city of Ramadi.

Ramadi fall worsened the already deteriorated situation of refugees in the country, after hundreds of thousands of people fled their homes and resorted to Baghdad and the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan. The large number of displaced citizens are added to more people displaced earlier from their homes in the provinces of Nineveh, Salahudin, Diyala and parts of Kirkuk.

According to UN figures, at least 2.7 million Iraqis have been displaced since January 2014, including 400,000 from Anbar province, making the Iraq crisis one of the most complex humanitarian emergencies in the world today.

The displacement of such numbers of people is embarrassing for Abadi's government and could lead to a further division inside his cabinet, as the painful situations of the displaced families and the lack of assistance offered by the government pushed some of the Sunni politicians and officials to criticize his Shiite-led government.

The failure in Ramadi pushed Abadi, during his presence at the G7 conference in Germany, to call for further support from the international community to Iraq in its war against the IS group, which he said "a menace not only threatening Iraq, but region and the whole world as well."

Kadhim al-Shimmari, a member of Iraqi parliament said in a statement that "lack of a clear vision of the government toward national reconciliation since 2006 was the main reason for the reluctance of the international community in supporting Iraq during the current crisis of IS expansion."

"The national reconciliation and building a modern state on the basis of competence -- not on bases of religion, sect or parties -- is the right standard for a state of institutions," al-Shimmari said.

"Otherwise, we have no hope for the future, even if we defeat Daash, there would other Daash with different names," al-Shimmari concluded.

Iraq has been witnessing some of the worst violence in years. Terrorism and violence have killed at least 12,282 civilians and wounded 23,126 others in 2014, making it the deadliest year since the sectarian violence in the 2006-2007 period, according to a recent UN report. Endit