The Jim Bakker Show

Iraqi forces clash with ISIS near Falluja

Shi'ite fighters forces launch a rocket towards Islamic State militants on the outskirts Falluja

By Ahmed Rasheed and Stephen Kalin

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi government forces fought Islamic State militants near Falluja on Monday and bombarded central districts at the outset of an offensive to retake the longtime jihadist stronghold on the western approaches to the capital Baghdad.

Some of the first direct clashes occurred in al-Hayakil area on Falluja’s southern outskirts, a resident said. Iraqi troops also approached the northern suburb of Garma, the top municipal official there said, to clear out militants before turning their attention toward the city center.

Air strikes and mortar salvoes overnight targeted neighborhoods inside the city proper where Islamic State is believed to maintain its headquarters, but the bombardment had eased by daybreak.

Iraqi military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, speaking on state television, described the government’s advance as “careful” and reliant on engineers to dismantle roadside bombs planted by the militants.

Falluja, a longtime bastion of Sunni Muslim jihadists 50 km (30 miles) from Baghdad, was the first city to fall to Islamic State, in January 2014. Six months later, the group declared a caliphate spanning large parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Iraqi forces have surrounded Falluja since last year but focused most combat operations on IS-held territories further west and north. The authorities have pledged to retake Mosul, the north’s biggest city, this year in keeping with a U.S. plan to oust IS from their de facto capitals in Iraq and Syria.

But the Falluja operation, which is not considered a military prerequisite for advancing on Mosul, could push back that timeline. Two offensives by U.S. forces against al Qaeda insurgents in Falluja in 2004 each lasted about a month and wrecked significant portions of the city.

There are currently between 500 and 700 IS militants in Falluja, according to a recent U.S. military estimate.

Iraqi army helicopters were rocketing IS positions in nearby Garma and targeting movement in and out of the area in order to weaken resistance enough for ground troops to enter, Mayor Ahmed Mukhlif told Reuters.

The defense minister and army chief of staff visited part of that northern axis on Monday, a ministry statement said.

POPULATED CITY

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, also grappling with political and economic crises in the OPEC member state, visited a command center set up nearby to oversee operations, exchanging his suit for the black uniform of an elite commando unit.

Announcing the offensive in a late-night speech, Abadi said it would be conducted by the army, police, counter-terrorism forces, local tribal allies and a coalition of mostly Shi’ite Muslim militias.

Iraqi officials say the militias, including ones backed by Shi’ite power Iran, may be restricted to operating outside the city limits, as they largely did in the successful battle to retake the Anbar provincial capital of Ramadi six months ago, to avoid aggravating sectarian tensions with Sunni residents.

State television aired footage of armored vehicles sitting among palm groves on Falluja’s outskirts, a green tracer glow emanating from shell and machine gun fire. A family stood in the daylight outside a simple one-storey home, cheering and waving a white flag as a military convoy passed by.

Iraqi and U.S. officials estimate there are as many as 100,000 civilians still in Falluja, a city on the Euphrates river whose population was three times that size before the war. A six-month siege has created acute shortages of food and medicine, pushing the city toward a humanitarian crisis.

The Baghdad government has called on civilians to flee and said it would open safe corridors to southern areas, but roadside bombs have prevented most of them from leaving.

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said 80 families that managed to flee in recent days via a main road or through agricultural fields were undergoing screening by the security forces.

It said in a statement that at least three people had been killed trying to escape while 10,000 families were stuck inside “in a very precarious situation”.

Residents living in central Falluja said they had moved at dawn to relative safety in outlying northern areas but Islamic State patrols have since begun limiting movement even between neighborhoods.

Militants were also using mosque loudspeakers to urge civilians to donate blood, residents said.

(Additional reporting by Saif Hameed; Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Finland says refugees can return to Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia

Iraqi refugees returning from Finland arrive at Baghdad airport, Iraq February 18, 2016.

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Finland tightened restrictions on giving residence permits to asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia on Tuesday, saying it was now largely safe for them to return to their war-torn homes.

Authorities in Helsinki, where anti-immigration political groups have been on the rise, said security had improved to such an extent that refugees would generally not be at risk in any parts of the three countries, despite the running conflicts.

There was no immediate reaction from refugee agencies. But the statement by the Finnish Immigration Service came in the face of a string of international assessments of the scale of the ongoing bloodshed and refugee crisis.

“It will be more difficult for applicants from these countries to be granted a residence permit,” the immigration service said in a statement.

“It is currently possible for asylum seekers to return to all areas in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia without the ongoing armed conflicts as such presenting a danger to them only because they are staying in the country.”

Asylum seekers would now only be allowed to stay if they could prove that they were individually at risk.

Somalia has been slowly recovering from more than two decades of war. But the government is still fighting an Islamist insurgency by the militant group al Shabaab, which regularly launches gun and bomb attacks in the capital Mogadishu and other cities.

Islamic State still holds key cities and vast swathes of territory in northern and western Iraq which it seized in 2014.

Despite battlefield setbacks over the past year, the militants have continued to attack civilians in areas under government control including a string of attacks last week in and around the capital that killed more than 100 people.

The Taliban launched a spring offensive in Afghanistan last month, vowing to drive out the Western-backed government in Kabul and restore strict Islamic rule.

Finland’s center-right coalition government – which includes nationalist Finns party – has tightened its immigration policies since the influx of asylum seekers last year.

Groups of self-proclaimed patriots have launched regular patrols and marches, saying they want to protect locals from immigrants.

Around 32,500 people applied for asylum in 2015 from 3,600 in 2014, with most of them coming from Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. Numbers have come down significantly this year.

(Reporting by Jussi Rosendahl; Additional reporting by Edmund Blair in Nairobi, Stephen Kalin in Baghdad; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Iraq says Islamic State control shrinks to 14 percent of its territory

Iraqi security forces stand with an Islamic State flag which they pulled down in the town of Hit in Anbar

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq said on Wednesday its U.S.-backed military campaign against Islamic State had retaken around two-thirds of the territory seized by the militants in their lightning sweep across the country’s north and west in 2014.

“Daesh’s presence in Iraqi cities and provinces has declined. After occupying 40 percent of Iraqi territory, now only 14 percent remains,” government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi said in a televised statement, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

That calculation appeared rosier than recent estimates from Washington. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told Alhurra TV late last month that Islamic State had lost 44 percent of the territory it had held in Iraq.

Iraq’s military, along with Kurdish peshmerga forces, Shi’ite Muslim militias and Sunni tribal fighters, have recaptured several cities in the past year, including Ramadi, Tikrit and Baiji.

Yet Islamic State still manages to launch deadly attacks in areas under the government’s nominal control. On Wednesday, a suicide car bomb in Baghdad’s Sadr City district killed at least 52 people and wounded more than 78.

Iraqi officials say they will retake the northern city of Mosul this year, but in private many question whether that is possible.

Iraq’s military opened a new front in March against the militants in the Makhmour area, which it called the first phase of a wider campaign to recapture Mosul, around 60 km (40 miles) further north. Progress has been slow, and to date Iraqi forces have taken just five villages.

(Reporting by Stephen Kalin and Ahmed Rasheed; Editing by Dominic Evans)

U.S. leads 25 strikes against Islamic State

A plume of smoke rises above a building during an air strike in Tikrit March 27, 2015. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

WASHINGTON(Reuters) – The United States and its allies conducted 25 strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria on Sunday, according to the coalition leading the daily operations against the militant group.

In a statement released on Monday, the Combined Joint Task Force said 16 strikes near nine Iraqi cities were concentrated near Falluja and Mosul, where they hit six units of Islamic State fighters as well as two dozen rockets and a dozen rocket rails, among other weapons.

The strikes also hit a bunker, weapons caches and four tactical units near other cities, including Al Baghdadi, Albu Hayat, Bayji, Habbaniyah, Hit, Kisik and Sultan Abdallah, the task force said.

In Syria, nine strikes near Al Shadaddi, Manbij, Mar’a and Palmyra hit six units of militant fighters as well as six Islamic State fighting positions, four vehicles, an improvised explosive device, and other targets, according to the statement.

(Reporting by Washington newsroom)

‘No Boots on the Ground’ has its limits as U.S. Navy Seal killed in Iraq

U.S. Navy Warfare Operator 1st Class Charles Keating IV, 31, of San Diego. U.S. Navy via Reuters

By Isabel Coles

TEL ASQOF, Iraq (Reuters) – A pickup truck races toward a burning village in northern Iraq, slamming to a halt behind an armored convoy that forms the only barrier between U.S. forces and Islamic State.

“We are fighting alongside our American brothers,” says the Kurdish fighter filming the scene, shouting to be heard over the sound of gunfire and explosions on the outskirts of Tel Asqof.

The clip, purportedly filmed on Tuesday during a fierce battle in which a U.S. Navy SEAL was killed, records the United States’ deepening involvement in the nearly two-year-old war against the jihadist militants.

Loath to become mired in another conflict overseas, the White House has insisted there will be no American “boots on the ground” in Iraq, instead deploying hundreds of troops to “advise and assist” local forces.

But footage of the firefight shown to Reuters by the Kurdish forces who filmed it, along with the accounts of others who took part, show how easily that distinction can blur.

The exact circumstances of Petty Officer First Class Charles Keating’s death remain unclear. Kurdish officials say he was hit by a sniper and evacuated by helicopter within the hour, but died of his wounds.

He is the third U.S. serviceman killed in direct combat with Islamic State since a U.S.-led coalition launched a campaign in 2014 to “degrade and destroy” the insurgent group.

U.S. forces then withdrew, according to Kurdish fighters involved in the battle, leaving an armored Toyota Landcruiser by the side of the road, its tyros flat.

SIGNS OF BATTLE

The armor was not penetrated, but the outer shell of the vehicle bears the marks of an intense firefight: a hole punched through the door by a rocket-propelled grenade and shattered glass where bullets hit the windshield.

Spent casings were still strewn around the car on Wednesday when Reuters visited the village, 28 km (17 miles) north of Mosul. In the nearby grass lay an empty packet of bandages “for treatment of moderate hemhorrage”.

A U.S. military spokesman said Keating was part of a “quick reaction force” called in after American advisers got caught up in the firefight.

Kurdish fighters said a small team of five or six U.S. advisers had been stationed in Tel Asqof, often visiting the front line around 3.5 km (2.2 miles) away and assisting with reconnaissance and air strike coordination.

“It is the first time they fight with us on the ground,” said Wahid Kovali, the head of the force that battled alongside the Americans. “They were heroic.”

It was Islamic State’s largest attack in months against Kurdish peshmerga forces, who are considered the coalition’s most trusted and effective ally in Iraq and have cleared large areas in the north with the help of air strikes.

Close coordination with the coalition means Islamic State is rarely able to breach peshmerga defenses, which stretch several hundred kilometers in an arc around the north and east of Mosul – by far the largest city in the militants’ self-proclaimed caliphate.

Early on Tuesday, however, the militants advanced from the village of Batnaya and blasted through the peshmerga positions, bringing a portable metal bridge to cross a defensive trench.

PICKUPS AND HUMVEES

From there they traversed open fields to Tel Asqof in a convoy including pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns, a bulldozer reinforced with metal plates and at least two Humvees, the charred remains of which could be seen inside the village.

“Daesh (Islamic State) came from here,” said a fighter named Adel, pointing down a street where flies converged on the splayed corpses of three militants.

Spreading out through Tel Asqof, the insurgents took up positions in houses, firing at the Americans on the outskirts of the village.

Craters in the asphalt mark where suicide bombers, some driving cars, blew themselves up as Kurdish forces closed in, eventually routing the militants.

Kurdish forces went house-to-house on Wednesday looking for any hold-outs and recovering their weapons and ammunition.

Back at a base, they laid out their haul, including machine guns, two explosive belts, four rocket-propelled grenades and several Kalashnikovs. There was also a small rucksack containing an unused roll of bandage and some dried figs.

One Kurdish fighter wore a digital watch taken from the wrist of a dead militant. “It’s a souvenir,” he said.

Saad, a peshmerga lieutenant who was wounded in the foot and still had a drip in the back of his hand, showed off an automatic rifle on which the previous owner had inscribed the name “Abu Khattab”. Stamped on the metal near the trigger was “Property of the U.S. government”.

At a press briefing on April 25, U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said the administration’s promises that there would be “no boots on the ground” in Iraq did not mean U.S. soldiers would never be involved in combat, only that there would be no “large-scale conventional ground combat operations”.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Islamic State mines kill dozens of civilians returning to Ramadi

By Stephen Kalin

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Explosives planted by Islamic State have killed dozens of Iraqi civilians who returned to Ramadi despite warnings that much of the western city remains unsafe nearly four months after its recapture from the militants.

Tens of thousands of displaced residents have returned to the Anbar provincial capital in the past two months, mostly from camps east of the city where they took refuge prior to the army’s advance late last year.

A shortage of experts trained in dismantling the explosives has slowed efforts to restore security, but that has not stopped people from responding to calls from local religious and government leaders to go back home.

The Anbar governor’s office, which is overseeing much of the effort to restore Ramadi, declined requests for comment.

But the United Nations said it had learned from the authorities that 49 people have been killed and 79 others wounded in Ramadi since the beginning of February. Those figures are “almost certainly an underestimation,” it said.

“The U.N. is deeply worried about the safety of returning families and the widespread infestation of many neighborhoods with unexploded devices and booby traps,” Lise Grande, U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, told Reuters.

“The responsible thing is to clear these areas as quickly as possible using the most up-to-date, modern and professional methods. Anything else just risks too much.”

De-mining is seen as a critical first step in returning civilians to Ramadi, which a U.N. team said last month suffers from destruction worse than anywhere else in Iraq after months of fighting that saw Islamic State bomb attacks and devastating U.S.-led coalition air strikes.

A U.S. de-mining company was contracted last month to remove explosives and train Iraqis to dismantle the devices planted by Islamic State in Ramadi, 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad.

Sources in Ramadi said another Western company was expected to help with de-mining efforts and Iraqi companies are also now competing for potentially lucrative government contracts.

Still there is just not enough expertise to keep pace with the return of civilians, said Mohamed Ali, a tribal fighter who helps dismantle explosives.

In addition to littering Ramadi’s streets with bombs, Islamic State has also planted them in residences, hiding them under rugs and other fixtures or connecting them to the power grid so they detonate when residents attempt to restore electricity.

“One house in al-Bakr neighborhood exploded (on Monday), killing its owner,” said Ali. “The man returned after explosives had been removed from his house and he started clearing the rubble. While he was moving the cooking gas canister, a bomb stashed under it exploded.”

A security officer stationed in northern Ramadi said he had forbidden civilians from walking around their neighborhoods after several people were killed as they inspected nearby destruction.

The influx of refugees is unlikely to slow, driven by the desperation of displaced people and political rivalries within the Sunni community.

Two local government sources said political and religious figures had ignored warnings against rushing civilians’ return, accusing them of seeking financial gain by launching reconstruction projects before others.

More than 3.4 million Iraqis across the country have been displaced by violence according to U.N. statistics, most of them from the minority Sunni Arab community.

(Additional reporting by Saif Hameed, Writing by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Assad’s future not up for discussion at peace talks

Hijab, chief coordinator HNC addresses a news conference aside of Syria peace talks in Geneva

AMMAN (Reuters) – The Syrian government’s chief negotiator said President Bashar al-Assad’s future was not up for discussion at peace talks, underlining the bleak prospects for reviving U.N.-led negotiations postponed by the opposition.

Bashar Ja’afari, speaking to Lebanese TV station al Mayadeen, also said his team was pushing for an expanded government as the solution to the war – an idea rejected by the opposition fighting for five years to topple Assad.

Ja’afari was reiterating the Syrian government’s position as spelt out last month ahead of the latest round of talks, indicating no shift on the part of Damascus as it continues to enjoy firm military backing from Russia and Iran.

“In Geneva we have one mandate only to arrive at an expanded national government only, this is our mandate … this is the goal we strive to achieve in the Geneva peace talks,” Ja’afari said in comments broadcast overnight. He added that these views were relayed to U.N. Syria mediator Staffan de Mistura.

Ja’afari also said Assad’s fate could never be raised in peace talks nor was it a matter that any U.N.-backed political process could deliberate.

“This matter (the presidency) does not fall under the jurisdiction of Geneva … this is a Syrian-Syrian affair, Security Council or no Security Council,” he said.

The Western-backed Syrian mainstream opposition decided on Monday to take a pause in peace talks. It said Damascus was not serious about moving towards a U.N.-backed political process they say would bring a transitional governing body with full executive powers without Assad.

A U.N. Security Council resolution in December called for the establishment of “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance”, a new constitution, and free and fair elections within 18 months.

Ja’afari also said any ideas such as those floated recently by de Mistura that sought to bridge the gap between the two sides should not touch existing state institutions or the army.

“We won’t allow any constitutional vacuum to take place. What does that mean? It means the army stays as it is and state institutions continue to function,” he added.

The opposition says restructuring the army and security apparatus is an essential step towards establishing a democratic Syria.

Ja’afari accused the Western-backed opposition of seeking to bring about a collapse of the country and replicate the chaos seen in Iraq and Libya after Western military intervention brought down long severing authoritarian rulers.

“They want to repeat the experience of Libya and Iraq … and turn Syria into a failed state,” he said.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Tom Perry and Tom Heneghan)

U.S. to send more troops to Iraq

U.S. Defence Secretary Ash Carter speaks at the closing ceremony of a U.S.-Philippine military exercise dubbed "Balikatan" in Quezon City, Metro Manila

By Yeganeh Torbati

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The United States will send more troops to Iraq, potentially putting them closer to the front lines to advise Iraqi forces in the war against Islamic State militants.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter made the announcement on Monday during a visit to Baghdad during which he met U.S. commanders, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, and Iraqi Defence Minister Khaled al-Obeidi.

About 200 additional troops will be deployed, raising the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to about 4,100, a senior U.S. Defense official said.

The Pentagon will also provide up to $415 million to Kurdish peshmerga military units.

Carter did not meet Kurdish leaders in person during his visit, but spoke with the president of the Kurdish region, Massoud Barzani, on the telephone.

Monday’s announcement is the move in the past several months by the United States to step up its campaign against the hardline Sunni Islamist group. U.S. special forces are also deployed in Iraq and Syria as part of the campaign.

Iraqi forces – trained by the U.S. military and backed by air strikes from a U.S.-led coalition – have since December managed to take back territory from Islamic State, which seized swathes of Iraqi and Syrian territory in 2014.

The new U.S. troops will consist of advisers, trainers, aviation support crew, and security forces. Most of the new military advisers are expected to be army special forces, as is the case with the approximately 100 advisers now in Iraq.

The advisers will be allowed to accompany smaller Iraqi units of about 2,500 troops that are closer to the frontlines of battle, whereas now they are limited to larger divisions of about 10,000 troops located further from the battlefield.

That will allow the U.S. military to offer quicker and more nimble advice to Iraqi troops as they try to retake Mosul, the largest Iraqi city still under Islamic State control.

But by placing them closer to the conflict, it could leave them more vulnerable to enemy mortars and artillery.

The United States has also authorized the use of Apache attack helicopters to support Iraqi forces in retaking Mosul, Carter said. The United States had originally offered the Apaches to the Iraqi government in December. The Iraqis did not take up the offer then but did not rule out their use.

The United States will also deploy an additional long-range rocket artillery unit to support Iraqi ground forces in the battle for Mosul, Carter said. There are two such batteries already in place in Iraq.

(Additional reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Kevin Liffey

As Islamic State is pushed back in Iraq, worries about what’s next

By Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel and Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As U.S.-led offensives drive back Islamic State in Iraq, concern is growing among U.S. and U.N. officials that efforts to stabilize liberated areas are lagging, creating conditions that could help the militants endure as an underground network.

One major worry: not enough money is being committed to rebuild the devastated provincial capital of Ramadi and other towns, let alone Islamic State-held Mosul, the ultimate target in Iraq of the U.S.-led campaign.

Lise Grande, the No. 2 U.N. official in Iraq, told Reuters that the United Nations is urgently seeking $400 million from Washington and its allies for a new fund to bolster reconstruction in cities like Ramadi, which suffered vast damage when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces recaptured it in December.

“We worry that if we don’t move in this direction, and move quickly, the progress being made against ISIL may be undermined or lost,” Grande said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

Adding to the difficulty of stabilizing freed areas are Iraq’s unrelenting political infighting, corruption, a growing fiscal crisis and the Shiite Muslim-led government’s fitful efforts to reconcile with aggrieved minority Sunnis, the bedrock of Islamic State support.

Some senior U.S. military officers share the concern that post-conflict reconstruction plans are lagging behind their battlefield efforts, officials said.

“We’re not going to bomb our way out of this problem,” one U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

(Graphic showing Islamic State’s territorial control: http://tmsnrt.rs/23aQU31)

Islamic State is far from defeated. The group still controls much of its border-spanning “caliphate,” inspires eight global affiliates and is able to orchestrate deadly external attacks like those that killed 32 people in Brussels on March 22.

But at its core in Iraq and Syria, Islamic State appears to be in slow retreat. Defense analysis firm IHS Janes estimates the group lost 22 percent of its territory over the last 15 months.

Washington has spent vastly more on the war than on reconstruction. The military campaign cost $6.5 billion from 2014 through Feb. 29, according to the Pentagon.

The United States has contributed $15 million to stabilization efforts, donated $5 million to help clear explosives in Ramadi and provided “substantial direct budget support” to Iraq’s government, said Emily Horne, a National Security Council spokeswoman.

Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged the need for more reconstruction aid while in Baghdad last week.

“As more territory is liberated from Daesh, the international community has to step up its support for the safe and voluntary return of civilians to their homes,” Kerry said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

Kerry, who announced $155 million in additional U.S. aid for displaced Iraqis, said U.S. President Barack Obama planned to raise the issue at a summit of Gulf Arab leaders on April 21.

“PILE OF RUBBLE”

Ramadi’s main hospital, train station, nearly 2,000 homes, 64 bridges and much of the electricity grid were destroyed in fighting, a preliminary U.N. survey found last month. Thousands of other buildings were damaged.

Some 3,000 families recently returned to parts of the city cleared of mines, according to the governor, Hameed Dulaymi, but conditions are tough. Power comes from generators. Water is pumped from the Euphrates River. A few shops are open, but only for a couple of hours a day.

Ahmed Saleh, a 56-year-old father of three children, said he returned to find his home a “pile of rubble,” which cannot be rebuilt until the government provides the money. With no indication of when that might happen, authorities have resettled his family in another house whose owner is believed unlikely to return before this summer.

Saleh earns less than $15 a day cleaning and repairing other people’s homes. There are no schools open for his children, and he lacks funds to return to a camp for internally displaced outside Baghdad where he says life was better.

Obama administration officials say they have been working to help stabilize Iraq politically and economically since the military campaign against Islamic State began in 2014.

“The success of the campaign against ISIL in Iraq does depend upon political and economic progress as well,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Monday. “Economically it’s important that the destruction that’s occurred be repaired and we’re looking to help the Iraqis with that.”

Asked about the upcoming $400 million U.N. request, Horne said the United States welcomed the new fund’s establishment and “will continue to lead international efforts to fund stabilization operations.” The United States hasn’t yet announced what it will contribute.

U.S. officials said Washington is also pushing for an International Monetary Fund arrangement that the head of the fund’s Iraq mission has said could unlock up to $15 billion in international financing. Baghdad has a $20 billion budget deficit caused by depressed oil prices.

Washington has helped train 15,000 Sunni fighters who are now part of the Iraqi government’s security forces.

But there has been little movement on political reforms to reconcile minority Sunnis, whose repression under former prime minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government led thousands to join Islamic State.

Unless that happens, and Sunnis see that Baghdad is trying to help them return home to rebuild, support for the militants will persist, experts said.

“If you don’t get reconciliation, the Sunnis will turn back to ISIS,” said former CIA and White House official Kenneth Pollack, who is now at the Brookings Institution think tank and conducted a fact-finding mission in Iraq last month.

“It’s just inevitable.”

The United States has prevailed militarily in Iraq before, only to see the fruits of the effort evaporate.

President George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, deposed dictator Saddam Hussein and disbanded his army without a comprehensive plan for post-war stability. Civil war ensued.

REBUILDING GETS HARDER

International funding to rebuild towns and cities ravaged by Islamic State has always been tight, said Grande, deputy special representative of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq.

“This meant we had to come up with a model that could be implemented quickly and at extremely low cost,” she said.

International donors contributed $100 million to an initial fund to jump-start local economies, restoring power and water and reopening shops and schools.

The model worked in Tikrit, the first major city reclaimed from Islamic State in March 2015, Grande said. After initial delays, most residents returned, utilities are on and the university is open. Total spending was $8.3 million.

But Ramadi, a city of some 500,000 people before the recent fighting, poses a much greater challenge.

“Much of the destruction that’s happening in areas that are being liberated … far outstrips our original assumptions,” Grande said.

Restoring normality to Mosul, home to about 2 million people before it fell to Islamic State, could prove even more difficult.

It remains to be seen whether Islamic State digs in, forcing a ruinous battle, or faces an internal uprising that forces the militants to flee, sparing the city massive devastation.

If Islamic State is defeated militarily, it likely will revert to the guerrilla tactics of its predecessor, al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), current and former officials said.

AQI and its leaders, including Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, “survived inside Iraq underground for years and there’s no reason they couldn’t do it again,” a U.S. defense official said.

(Additional reporting by David Rohde, Lou Charbonneau and John Walcott. Editing by Stuart Grudgings.)

U.N. says food situation in Iraq’s Falluja extremely worrying

A displaced Iraqi child, who fled from Islamic State violence from Saqlawiyah, near Falluja, is seen in the town of Khalidiya, north of Baghdad

GENEVA (Reuters) – The food situation for 60,000 civilians trapped in the besieged Iraqi city of Falluja is extremely worrying and likely to deteriorate unless aid gets into the city, the U.N. World Food Programme said on Monday.

The Iraqi army, police and Iranian-backed Shi’ite Muslim militias – backed by air strikes from a U.S.-led coalition – have maintained a near total siege on the Islamic State-held city, which is located 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad, since late last year

“As the siege continued in Falluja for the third consecutive month, no sign of improvement was recorded in March; food prices remain extremely high, and stocks in shops and households are depleting. In March, the price of wheat was six times more expensive than in December,” the report said.

“For the third consecutive month, respondents from Hay Alwahda sub-district reported that shops and markets had exhausted all food supplies including wheat, sugar, rice, vegetable oil and lentils,” the report said.

The report was based on a mobile phone survey conducted in March. But it said reaching respondents had become increasingly difficult and very limited information was available, especially as armed opposition groups had shut down transmitter towers to stop people using mobile phones.

“Aid has not reached Falluja since the government recaptured nearby Ramadi in December 2015, with supply routes cut off by Iraqi forces and the armed groups preventing civilians from leaving,” the report said.

There were reports that people wanting to leave the city and seek safety were unable to do so, it said.

Last week a report from New York-based Human Rights Watch said desperate residents were making soup from grass and using ground date seeds to make flour for bread.

(Reporting by Tom Miles, editing by Richard Balmforth)

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