Sound The Trumpet : Top Iranian General and Advisers Join Front Lines of Iraqi Military Fight Against Militants Qassim

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“Top Iranian General and Advisers Join Front Lines of Iraqi Military Fight Against Militants Qassim”
by The National Post
July 18th, 2014

AP Photo/FileFILE - In this Saturday, July 12, 2014 file photo, Iraqi Shiite fighters with the "Peace Brigades" patrol during a sand storm in Samarra, Iraq. Gen. Ghasem Soleimani, a powerful Iranian general, has emerged as the chief tactician in Iraq’s fight against Sunni militants, working on the front lines alongside 120 advisers from his country’s Revolutionary Guard to direct Shiite militiamen and government forces in the smallest details of battle, militia commanders and government officials say.

BAGHDAD — A powerful Iranian general has emerged as the chief tactician in Iraq’s fight against Sunni militants, working on the front lines alongside 120 advisers from his country’s Revolutionary Guard to direct Shiite militiamen and government forces in the smallest details of battle, militia commanders and government officials say.

The startlingly hands-on role of Iranian Gen. Ghasem Soleimani points to the extent of the Shiite-led Iraqi government’s reliance on its ally Tehran. It also strikes a strong contrast with the more methodical, cautious approach of the United States, Iran’s rival for influence in Iraq. Shiite fighters have come to idolize the Iranians who have moved into the heat of battle alongside them — with two Iranian advisers killed in fighting — while government officials grumble the United States has failed to come to their aid.

The Iranian role, however, risks further sharpening the sectarian rifts in the conflict. At a time when the U.S. and others are pressing Iraq’s government to reach out to Sunnis to reduce support for the insurgency, the effective Iranian command of Iraq’s defence is likely to further alienate Sunnis, who have long accused Shiite-led Iran of trying to dominate Iraq through its allies here.

Soleimani, commander of the elite Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, is a frequent visitor to multiple battlezones in Iraq, most particularly in Samarra, a city north of Baghdad under siege by Sunni extremists in their march toward the capital. The city is vital to Baghdad’s Shiite-led government because it is the location of a revered Shiite shrine that Sunni insurgents have destroyed in the past and are targeting again now.

In his frequent stays in Samarra, Soleimani bases himself in the al-Askari shrine, even sleeping in its basement as he co-ordinates the city’s defence, said two Shiite militia commanders who saw him there. On one recent visit, he joined militiamen in group prayers in the shrine, said one of the commanders, who like the other spoke on condition of anonymity because the government has sought to keep the Iranian role behind the scenes.

The Revolutionary Guard military advisers with Soleimani have provided guidance for Shiite militiamen in shelling positions of the Sunni insurgents and have directed them in a strategy of carving out a large enough margin of territory around the city that Sunni mortars can’t reach the shrine, the commanders said. “Without them (the Iranians) and the militias, we would have lost Samarra,” one militia commander said.

A handful of advisers from Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah guerrilla group are also offering front-line guidance to Iraqi militias fighting north of Baghdad,

“We sorely need these advisers,” said Wahab al-Taei, a senior commander of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, one of several Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq. “They have the expertise we lack in urban guerrilla warfare.”

The United States has a team of around 210 troops in Iraq. Their main mission has been to assess the readiness of the Iraqi military to fight the Sunni insurgency, led by a radical al-Qaida breakaway group called the Islamic State, which over the past month has overrun most Sunni-majority parts of the country. The Pentagon this week confirmed it had received the team’s assessment, but that it will take some time to review it and come up with recommendations on how the U.S. should help Iraq in the fight.

Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13