Impending Shia Militia Counteroffensive in Ramadi Puts US in Tough Spot

The Iraqi city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province located about 70 miles west of Baghdad, fell to Islamic State (ISIS) on Sunday after weeks of intense fighting. ISIS’s final surge began Friday when four bombs targeting police officers detonated simultaneously, leaving 10 dead and 15 wounded.

Remaining Iraqi security forces fled as ISIS wreaked havoc on Anbar’s capital, taking weapons and supplies while murdering hundreds in an effort to impose strict sharia law and consolidate control over the remaining population. An estimated 114,000 people have left Ramadi since April when ISIS first took territory surrounding the city. One Iraqi commander said the troop withdrawal was tactical, although some argue it exposed serious weaknesses in the country’s security forces.

Seeing no other option, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has called on the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella organization of Shia militias, many of which are supported and directed by Iran, to launch a counterattack against ISIS. 3,000 Shia fighters have assembled 12 miles away from Ramadi at Habbaniya military camp and are on standby. PMF played an integral role in retaking the city of Tikrit from ISIS last month.

Beyond being Iranian proxies, several Shia militias killed American soldiers during the Iraq War. Kata’ib Hezbollah (Hezbollah Brigades), for example, is one of the groups mobilizing towards Ramadi, and proudly promotes on its website past attacks against US troops. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the man who built the group, was convicted of bombing the US embassy in Kuwait in 1983 and is the deputy commander for PMF.

Moreover, several Shia militias have committed atrocities against Sunni civilians not associated with ISIS throughout Iraq, including murder, torture, and abduction. One Amnesty International report goes into explicit detail about these acts, serving as a reminder that some of these militias are ideologically driven like their Sunni counterparts.

A stronger Shia militia deployment in Anbar Province, Iraq’s Sunni heartland, could also stoke sectarian tensions, increasing violence in the country. Because Anbar is heavily Sunni and many tribesmen are hesitant to join Baghdad against ISIS, a significant Shia presence may cause locals to refuse to help the government or join ISIS in an attempt to counter the militias. Bloomberg News reports that yesterday Sunni Sheikh Abdulrazzaq al-Dulaym was in Washington DC, and warned that the introduction of PMF could lead to civil war.

This reality poses a problem for US operations in the counter-ISIS campaign, which suspended airstrikes during the retaking of Tikrit because of Shia militia involvement. The US has a de facto alliance of sorts with Iran against ISIS, and airstrikes targeting the Sunni insurgent group help Shia militias. The strikes, however, are necessary to push back ISIS on the ground, so Washington needs to determine how to handle this no-win dynamic in Ramadi.

The loss of Ramadi also illustrates that Iraqi security forces are not prepared yet for the upcoming campaign to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, which ISIS captured last year and has had ample time to fortify. Iraqi forces will have to improve drastically for such an offensive to be successful.

The fall of Ramadi on its own is a significant setback, but an Iraqi government-sanctioned Shia militia counterattack may enflame sectarian violence in the area, bring more local Sunni recruits to ISIS, and give Iran greater influence over Baghdad. This puts the US in a tactical and strategic catch-22 where it is unable to fight ISIS without helping Tehran. Furthermore, Ramadi shows that Iraqi security forces are insufficiently prepared to take Mosul at this point.

While today is a setback for the US-led coalition to counter ISIS, it is nothing compared to what local residents in Ramadi now face under jihadist rule. The alternative, however, cannot be an expanding Iranian empire.