The governor of Iraq’s Sunni heartland province of Anbar said he has secured a promise of US support in a battle against the Islamic State, reviving an alliance that helped thwart an earlier Sunni militant threat, from al-Qaeda.
Ahmed Khalaf al-Dulaimi told Reuters his request, made in meetings with US diplomats and a senior military officer, included air support against the militants who have a tight grip on large parts of his desert province and northwestern Iraq.
Dulaimi said the Americans had promised to help.
“Our first goal is the air support. Their technology capability will offer a lot of intelligence information and monitoring of the desert and many things which we are in need of,” he said in a telephone interview.
No date was decided but it will be very soon and there will be a presence for the Americans in the western area
“No date was decided but it will be very soon and there will be a presence for the Americans in the western area.”
There was no immediate comment from US officials.
After its capture of the northern metropolis of Mosul in June, a swift push by the Islamic State to the borders of the autonomous ethnic Kurdish region alarmed Baghdad and last week drew the first US air strikes on Iraq since the withdrawal of American troops in 2011.
US involvement in Anbar is a far more sensitive matter.
The region, sparsely populated and forming much of Iraq’s border with Syria, was deeply anti-American during the US occupation.
Tribal leaders and local people saw the replacement of fellow Sunni Saddam Hussein by a US-backed leadership dominated by Iraq’s Shi’ite Muslim majority as a threat and took up arms.
Al-Qaeda fighters flooded in to join them.
The US mounted its biggest offensive of the occupation against a variety of Islamist militants in the Anbar city of Falluja, just west of Baghdad. Its soldiers experienced some of their fiercest combat since the Vietnam War.
Eventually, the US military was able to persuade some of its most diehard Sunni opponents to turn against al-Qaeda.
The strategy brought a period of calm. But Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, now being replaced by a less polarising colleague among the Shi’ites, went on to alienate many Sunnis.
The Islamic State, disowned by al-Qaeda as too radical after it took control of large parts of Syria, capitalised on its Syrian territorial gains and sectarian tensions in Iraq to gain control of Falluja and Anbar’s capital Ramadi early this year.
Iraq’s President has named a new Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, who is seen as a moderate Shi’ite with a decent chance of improving ties with Sunnis.
The Sahwa, the US-funded militia drawn from the country’s Sunni Muslim tribes, were a driving force in fighting al-Qaeda from 2007. A US decision to hand over responsibility for the Sahwa to the Shi’ite-dominated government in 2009 alienated them and drove some to join IS.
Abadi is in the sensitive process of trying to form a new government in a country where sectarian tensions are rising; bombings, kidnappings and executions are part of daily life. Bloodshed is back at the levels of 2006-2007, the peak of a sectarian civil war.
Abadi faces the challenge of trying to rein in Shi’ite militias accused of kidnapping and killing Sunnis and persuading the once dominant Sunni minority that they will have a bigger share of power.
Maliki is still refusing to step aside despite months of pressure to do so from Sunnis, Kurds, some fellow Shi’ites, Shi’ite regional power Iran and the US.
It is not clear whether he still commands the loyalty of special forces or Shi’ite militias – just about the only leverage he may have left.
Dulaimi was especially concerned by the militants’ determination to seize control of Anbar’s Haditha dam – they have lately captured Iraq’s biggest dam, a fifth oilfield, more towns and areas that are home to vital wheat crops in the north.
“The situation in Haditha, where the dam is, is controlled by security forces and tribes. But the problem is how long can they endure the pressure?” said Dulaimi.
“I held several meetings since one month ago with the American embassy and the commander of the central troops all in this regard, and very soon there will be a joint coordination centre and operations in Anbar. They gave a promise.”