Sunnis to meet in Erbil to draw common strategy against ISIS
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s Sunni leaders will hold a crucial meeting in Erbil on Thursday to draw up a common strategy against the Islamic State (ISIS), a Sunni official told Rudaw.
Muhammad Taha, a Sunni spokesman, said the congress “will try to send a clear message that they denounce ISIS actions, without undermining the Sunni population’s just grievances.”
Prominent Sunni leaders, including Iraqi Vice President Usam Nujaifi and Speaker of Parliament Saleem Jaboori, will take part in the congress.
The Iraqi and Kurdistan Region presidents, as well as Arab League representatives, are expected to join the congress, which is seen as the first Sunni-organized effort in Iraq to confront the challenge posed by the de facto ISIS reign in Mosul and much of the other Sunni territories in the war-torn country.
Military officials have said the recapture of Mosul will likely be postponed to next year, partly due to the covert support ISIS enjoys among Sunni tribes in the Nineveh plains, where Mosul is the capital.
The tribes fear an ISIS retreat could bring about an increased presence of the Iraqi army, which they accuse of being Shiite.
Iraqi Vice President Aiyad Allawi, a secular Shiite, said on Tuesday that without national reconciliation in the country, “the ISIS challenge is likely to remain.”
“There should be a clear strategy over how we want to deal with this group,” Allawi said, referring to ISIS.
Last month, the deputy governor of Mosul warned it would be harder to recapture Iraq’s second-largest city from ISIS the longer the operation is delayed.
“The sooner the operation begins, the better,” Nuraddin Kaplan said. “The more time that passes, the harder it will become” to regain control of the fallen city, he added.
Leaders of Nineveh province have announced plans for early next year to reclaim the provincial capital in an offensive which may draw support from the US military.
The planned military operation will involve a total of 80,000 troops, including Iraqi federal forces from Baghdad, the Nineveh police and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, military sources have revealed.
Rudaw
