U.S. weapons to rebuild Iraqi forces distributed to Shiite militias, Sunni leaders say

“We did not get anything — we just have a few weapons we are using for the training,” said Atheel al-Nujaifi, governor of Nineveh Province, a large Sunni-majority territory to the north and east of Baghdad that is home to the city of Mosul.

Al-Nujaifi said more than 5,000 recruits, mostly Sunni, have trained with U.S. and coalition forces under the expectation they would be allowed to create a Sunni-dominant National Guard as part of Iraq’s security forces — a force they argue that would be instrumental in retaking Mosul, because the National Guard would have the trust of Mosul’s majority Sunni population.

“We now have two training camps in the region,” al-Nujaifi said at the Brookings Institution. “In these camps, Americans, Canadian and Turkish special forces are training thousands of Mosul police and military volunteers to provide combat skills and maneuvers they need to succeed in the fight for the liberation of Mosul.

“By now we have thousands of volunteers who have graduated from these camps and are ready to fight but they don’t have weapons,” he said. The sites “trained them, but did not give them weapons. The weapons — most of them have gone to the militias.”

The recruits are continuing to train after they graduate since they don’t have weapons to fight with, he said.

Earlier this year, the U.S. committed $17 million worth of equipment — 10,000 M-16 rifles, 23,000 rounds of ammunition, 250 Mine Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles and 1,750 Hellfire missiles — to help Iraq rebuild its army, after entire divisions collapsed against the Islamic State in summer 2014.

Capt. John Moore, a spokesman for the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve said the weapons provided by the U.S. are under the control of the Iraq government.

“The small arms and ammo provided by the U.S. have been distributed to the [government of Iraq.] From there, it is the [government of Iraq’s] responsibility to distribute equipment as necessary,” Moore said.

In a follow-up email on whether Iraqi army members received the M-16s, al-Nujaifi said, “I know that some of the Iraqi army in Baghdad [got] the M-16 guns, [but were replaced with AK-47s.]”

The volunteers training for the future National Guard have been asking for weapons for the last five months, al-Nujaifi said. “But they didn’t do that [until] now,” al-Nujaifi said, referring to a decision by the Iraq government to begin training Sunni tribal fighters and provide them with AK-47s.

But the AK-47s are not sufficient to fight the Islamic State compared with the more capable U.S.-provided M-16s, Sunni leader and former Iraqi minister of finance Rafe al-Issawi said.

“The AK-47 … is nothing in front of the heavy weapons of Daesh,” al-Issawi said at Brookings, referring to the Arabic term for the Islamic State.

Al-Nujaifi’s province houses Mosul, Baghdad’s second largest city of two million residents, which has been held by the Islamic State since last summer. Al-Nujaifi said besides getting a Sunni force prepared to take the city from the outside, he has been working with cells of forces inside Mosul that will fight the Islamic State “if needed.”

But after more than a decade of promises that the government will include Sunnis, al-Nujaifi said the population will need proof from the government that it is serious about reconciliation before they will buy in to the effort to oust the Islamic State.

“In a city of two million people, soldiers, no matter how many — even in the thousands — or how well equipped and trained, can do only so much. We need the people of Mosul to rise up and help the soldiers throw out Daesh,” al-Nujaifi said.

Al-Issawi agreed, saying the result of the Iraqi government’s long reluctance to provide arms to the Sunni forces is more distrust by Sunnis that it is in their best interest to fight the Islamic State. “Unfortunately — this will prolong the stay of Daesh,” al-Issawi said.