IRAQ A nation in pieces The new Iraq is being forged block by block, house by house, often out of sight of the government BY ISABEL COLES, AHMED RASHEED AND NED PARKER SPECIAL REPORT 1 IRAQ A NATION IN PIECES BAGHDAD, DECEMBER 29, 2014 of a unified and functioning state, trigger- more than just three parts, and the longer ing multiple sectarian fractures and push- those fragments exist on their own the he machine gun poking out from be- ing rival groups to protect their turf or be harder it will be to rebuild the country even tween a framed portrait of a Shi’ite destroyed. as a loose federation. Such an arrangement Timam and a stuffed toy Minnie The far north is now effectively an inde- would require the defeat of Islamic State, Mouse was trained on anyone who ap- pendent Kurdish region that has expanded a massive rebuilding programme in the proached the checkpoint. into oil-rich Kirkuk, long disputed between Sunni regions, unity among Iraq’s fractious Like dozens of other communities in the Kurds and Iraqi Arabs. Other areas in political and tribal leaders, and an accom- Iraq, this small Sunni settlement in north- the north have fallen to Shi’ite militias and modation between the Kurds and Baghdad ern Salahuddin province’s Tuz Khurmatu Kurdish peshmerga fighters, who claim on the Kurds’ territorial gains. district has been reduced to rubble. In land where they can. Even the optimists recognise all that October, Shi’ite militiamen and Kurdish In Baghdad’s rural outskirts and in the will be difficult. Finance Minister Hoshiyar peshmerga captured the village from the Diyala province to the east and north to- Zebari, a Kurd who wants Iraq to stay Sunni militant group Islamic State. The wards Samarra, militias, sometimes backed united, says he can picture Iraq eventually victors then laid it to waste, looting any- by Iraqi military, are seizing land and de- regaining its “strength and balance.” But, he thing of value and setting fire to much of stroying houses in Sunni areas. concedes, “the country is severely fractured the rest. Residents have still not been al- Last there is Baghdad and Iraq’s south- right now.” lowed to return. ern provinces, which are ostensibly still Ali Allawi, a former minister of trade, “Our people are burning them,” said one ruled by the country’s Shi’ite-led govern- defense and finance, and author of two of the Shi’ite militiamen when asked about books on Iraqi history, agrees. “There is so the smoke drifting up from still smoulder- much up in the air,” he said. “There are the ing houses. Asked why, he shrugged as if It is like a functioning state trappings of a functioning state, but it is like the answer was self evident. lying on a sea of Jello. a functioning state lying on a sea of Jello … The Shi’ite and Kurdish paramilitary The ground is so unstable and shifting.” groups now patrol the scorched landscape, Ali Allawi KURDISTAN eager to claim the most strategic areas or Former minister of trade, defense and finance the few houses that are still intact. For now, Iraq’s Kurds often see opportunity in times the two forces are convenient but uncom- ment. But the state is a shell of what it once of trouble. This year they moved quickly to fortable allies against the nihilist Islamic was. As respect for the army and police has take lands long disputed with Arab Iraqis, State. faded, Iraqis in the south have turned to the including Kirkuk. For a while, talk of se- This is how the new Iraq is being forged: Shi’ite militia groups who responded to the cession increased, but then quieted after block by block, house by house, village by rallying cry of Iraq’s most senior clergy to Islamic State mounted a successful at- village, mostly out of sight and control of take on Islamic State. tack into Kurdistan in August. Since then, officials in Baghdad. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, a buoyed by U.S. air strikes designed to hurt What is emerging is a different country Shi’ite moderate who became Iraq’s new Islamic State, the Kurds have recaptured to the one that existed before June. That leader in September, four months after na- areas they lost and forged an agreement to month, Iraq’s military and national police, tional elections, hopes that the country can export oil from Kirkuk and its own fields rotten with corruption and sectarian poli- be stitched back together. Abadi has tried for Baghdad. tics, collapsed after Islamic State forces at- to engage the three main communities, tak- Kurdish business tycoon Sirwan Barzani, tacked Mosul. The militant group’s victory ing a more conciliatory tone than that of a nephew of Iraqi Kurdish President in the largest city in the north was one step his predecessor Nuri al-Maliki, who was Masoud Barzani, sees this as a moment on its remarkable dash across Iraq. often confrontational and divisive. Abadi, to advance his people’s nationalist dream. Islamic State’s campaign slowed to- the Kurds and even some Sunni politi- He was in Paris chairing a board meet- wards the end of the summer. But it has cians now all speak of the need for federal ing of the telecom company he founded in left the group in charge of roughly one- regions, so the country’s communities can 2000 when he received news that Islamic third of Iraq, including huge swathes of its govern themselves and remain part of a State militants had overrun Mosul. A for- western desert and parts of its war ravaged unified state. mer peshmerga fighter in the 1980s, he central belt. It also shattered the illusion Iraq, though, has been splintered into Text continues on page 5 SPECIAL REPORT 2 IRAQ A NATION IN PIECES SCENES FROM A COUNTRY DIVIDED: (Clockwise from above) A car bomb attack at a Shi’ite political rally in Baghdad in April; Iraqi security forces arrest suspected Islamic State militants in Hawija in April; Iraqi security forces clash with Islamic State militants in Babel, also in April. On the cover: The aftermath of a car bomb attack in Baghdad’s Sadr City district in August. REUTERS/THAIER AL-SUDANI; YAHYA AHMAD; ALAA AL-MARJANI; WISSM AL-OKILI SPECIAL REPORT 3 IRAQ A NATION IN PIECES EXODUS: (Clockwise from above) Displaced people from the minority Yazidi sect flee Islamic State forces in Sinjar in August; A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter keeps guard in Gwar in September; Displaced Iraqis arrive in Sulaimaniya in August. REUTERS/RODI SAID; AHMED JADALLAH; STRINGER SPECIAL REPORT 4 IRAQ A NATION IN PIECES cancelled his holiday plans in Marbella and be possible for Sunnis to reconcile even The United States tries rushed back to Kurdistan to help prepare among themselves. for war, taking command of peshmerga Sheikh Ali Abed al-Fraih has spent “passive tough love” forces along a 130 km (81 mile) stretch of months fighting Islamic State. A tribal the Kurds’ front line with Islamic State. soldier in Anbar province, he has sunken, When the United States withdrew its last Washington sees the Kurds as its most tired eyes and a frown. His clothes are one troops from Iraq at the end of 2011, both dependable ally in Iraq. For Barzani and size too big for him. He sees the conflict as Washington and Baghdad said Iraq was other Kurds, though, the fight against an internal battle among the Anbar tribes. ready to defend itself. The rise of radical Islamic State is simply the continuation of Some have chosen to join Islamic State, Sunni group Islamic State has proven that a long struggle for an independent nation. others to fight the group. Some of his en- belief wrong. Yet senior White House and Before leading an offensive last month emies, he says, are from his own clan. The Pentagon officials are determined to show to drive Islamic State militants back across fight will not end even if areas around his “strategic patience” and not be drawn into the river Zab towards Mosul, Barzani said town of Haditha and other Anbar cities are Iraq’s new civil war. he met with an American general to talk cleared, he says. All sides will want revenge. Washington has sent 1,900 troops to strategy and coordinate airstrikes. “Blood demands blood. Anbar will never Iraq, while U.S. forces and their allies have “They asked about my plan,” Barzani stop.” conducted more than 1,300 air strikes told Reuters in a military base on the front- Fraih flew to Baghdad in late December against Islamic State, in both Iraq and Syria. line near Gwer, 48 kilometers (30 miles) to beg the government to send help to But American officials say their goal is to get south of the Iraqi Kurdish capital Arbil. Iraqis to resolve their deep political differences “I said, ‘My plan is to change the Sykes- and battle Islamic State themselves. Picot agreement’” – a reference to the 1916 “The message to Iraqis was you must do it agreement between France and Britain that yourself,” said a senior American official who marked out what would become the bor- was part of a U.S. military delegation that recently visited Baghdad. “We can’t solve it ders of today’s Middle East. 2.08 for you.” “Iraq is not real,” Barzani said. “It ex- ists only on the map. The country is killing million Jonathan Stevenson, who from 2011 to itself. The Shi’ites and Sunnis cannot live Estimated number of Iraqis 2013 served as the National Security Council’s together.