Numbers of militants increase in Fallujah

Al Qaeda-linked fighters and weapons have continued to flow into the Iraqi city of Fallujah despite it being surrounding by government forces.

BAGHDAD // Al Qaeda and other insurgent groups have tightened their grip on Fallujah, defying the Shiite-led Iraqi government’s efforts to persuade local tribesmen to expel them from the Sunni Muslim city, residents and officials say.

Despite an army siege, fighters and weapons have been flowing into the city, where United States troops fought some of their fiercest battles during their 2003-11 occupation of Iraq.

In an embarrassing setback for a state that has around a million men under arms, the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) and its tribal allies overran Fallujah and parts of the nearby city Ramadi on January 1.

Iraq’s prime minister Nouri Al Maliki, who is seeking a third term in a parliamentary election in April, deployed troops and tanks around the city of 300,000 and funnelled weapons to anti-Al Qaeda tribesmen but has ruled out a full-scale military assault.

Ramadi, the provincial capital of the vast western province of Anbar, is mostly back under state control, but Mr Al Maliki’s calls on local tribesmen to evict the militants from Fallujah, just 50 kilometres west of Baghdad, have so far come to nought.

Instead, scores more fighters have sneaked into the city along with an array of weaponry ranging from small arms and mortars to Grad missiles and anti-aircraft guns, according to security and local officials, residents and tribal leaders.

“Our sources in Fallujah indicate that militant numbers have increased to more than 400 in the last few days and that more anti-aircraft guns were received,” said a senior local official who declined to be named. His figure could not be confirmed.

The weapons and fighters are reaching Fallujah mainly from its southern environs, an area entirely under the sway of tribes hostile to the government, security officials said.

“The tribes scattered around Fallujah have zero loyalty to the central government,” said Sheikh Mohammed Al Bajari, a tribal leader and negotiator in the city.

“Now they (the army) are not controlling anything and no roads can be closed,” he said of Fallujah’s southern approaches.

The Al Qaeda-linked militants, which are also playing an aggressive role in Syria’s civil war, are greatly outnumbered by armed tribesmen in Fallujah, a symbol of Sunni identity and resistance in Iraq, many of whom lean towards the militants or other insurgent factions.

Since the city fell out of government control, various rebel groups have loosely aligned with the militants or are asserting their own influence, officials, tribal leaders and residents said.

These include Islamist factions such as the 1920 Revolution Brigades, the Islamic Army, the Mujahedin Army, the Rashidin Army and Ansar Al Sunna, as well as the Army of the Men of the Naqshbandi Order, a Baathist militia created by Izzat Al Duri, a former lieutenant of Iraq’s deposed leader Saddam Hussein.

Despite its limited numbers, Isil dominates by its zeal and fearsome reputation on and off the battlefield, frequently using suicide bombers in Iraq and in Syria — where it has even turned them on rival rebel factions in a bitter power struggle.

* Reuters