FALLUJA — More than six months after Iraqi forces retook Falluja from Daesh (the so-called IS) group, reconstruction is slow and the government risks alienating those residents who have returned to the city.
“There are no members of the Daesh terrorist organization left in Falluja,” the police chief, Col. Jamal Al-Jumaili, told AFP.
“Falluja is a safe city,” he insisted.
Iraqi forces retook Falluja, an emblematic militant bastion just 50 km west of Baghdad, in June 2016 with relative ease but that victory came at a hefty price.
A large number of homes were destroyed by the fighting and several neighborhoods are still off-limits to civilians due to the possible presence of booby-traps planted by Daesh in their retreat.
The Norwegian Refugee Council said last month that only about 10 percent of homes in Falluja were inhabitable.
“Nothing works here, there’s no water, no electricity and houses have been destroyed,” said Firas Mahmud, a 25-year-old who returned to Falluja after Daesh was defeated and is currently unemployed.
Another man met on the street in Falluja had the same grievances and complained of lack of services and jobs. “The authorities must do something,” said the young man, who gave his name as Mustafa.
Lack of funds
Baghdad has promised to enable the speedy return of Falluja residents, who were all displaced during the reconquest of their city, but the government is cash-strapped.
Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi’s government “lacks or may lack the focus and resources to adequately budget for an adequate reconstruction effort,” said Omar Lamrani, an analyst with the Stratfor think tank.
“Baghdad’s finances are already stretched with low energy prices and the costly demands of war, and corruption and cronyism affect the direction of the limited funds available,” he said.
The risk that observers were warning against before the operation to retake Falluja even started is that unkept promises will fuel a sense among its Sunni residents that they are being marginalized by the government, which is dominated by Shiite parties.
Falluja has long been known as a rebel city and over the past decade and a half been a hub of opposition, first to occupying US-led forces and then to the Iraqi government. In the winter of 2012-13, protests spread across Anbar province, in which Falluja lies, complaining that Iraq’s Sunni minority was being stigmatized by then prime minister Nuri Al-Maliki.
In January 2014, rebels took control of the city, which was eventually overrun by militants from what became known as the Daesh group. To retake Falluja, Baghdad relied on its regular forces but also on the Hashed Al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization), a paramilitary organization dominated by Shiite militia groups with close ties to Iran.
Hashed presence
The police chief insisted that “only the army and the police are present” inside the city. Hashed Al-Shaabi forces hold positions in towns and rural areas around the city, he said.
Some residents of the overwhelmingly Sunni area continue to be afraid of the Hashed Al-Shaabi, some of whose components have been accused of sectarian-motivated abuses against civilians.
United Nations human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said in July that there was strong evidence that Ketaeb Hezbollah, one of the main militias that fought alongside security forces in the operation, carried out atrocities. — AFP
