Iran May Take Advantage Of Iraq’s Military Incompetence
The challenge that ISIS fighters in Iraq pose to U.S.-trained Iraqi troops does not bode well for the future of Iraq, an Arab security official told Breitbart Jerusalem.
The official said Iran-backed militias have been scoring major victories in efforts to retake neighborhoods surrounding Fallujah, and warned that Iran is gaining a foothold in Iraq as a result.
Over the last week, Iraqi military units and Iranian-sponsored Shi’ite militias have been engaged in an offensive aimed at expelling the militants from areas surrounding Fallijah to use as staging ground to retake the city, located about 40 miles west of Baghdad.
The Arab security official said that Fallujah will likely be liberated, but the first five days of the fighting to regain surrounding neighborhoods led to the “inevitable conclusion that the U.S.-trained troops are very weak despite their advanced weaponry. The fact that IS has launched counteroffensives is unbelievable, taking into account that tens of thousands of soldiers, accompanied by tens of thousands of Iran-supported Shi’ite militiamen, have been fighting. We have unconfirmed reports that the number of fighters against IS has reached 150,000.”
Another conclusion, he said, was that “the militia commanders are subordinated to Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Al Quds Brigades in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and have proved a lot more effective than the Iraqi army. In fact, they lay down the battle tactics for the army. Beyond the disciplinary impact, the diplomatic fallout is immense – if things continue this way, the liberation of the city may be seen first and foremost as an Iranian achievement, not an Iraqi-American one.”
Such a victory would reinforce Iran’s hold in Iraq “and will turn the Iran-backed Shi’ite militias into a central player in Iraq in a similar way to the immensely successful [in Iran’s view] Lebanese model, with Hizbullah.”
According to intelligence reports, there are 700-1,500 ISIS fighters in Fallujah, “and this raises the same questions that were raised when Ramadi, Tikrit, Mosul, and Faluja itself were captured by IS. Why is the Iraqi army, in which billions of American dollars were invested, so constantly inept and cannot clinch significant victories without the help of the Iranian militias?”