BAGHDAD -- Iraqi forces battling the Islamic State group focused their offensive Sunday on the city of Ramadi, backed by Sunni tribal fighters whom the U.S. plans to arm.
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Authorities in the city implemented a 24-hour curfew as Iraqi armed forces and tribesmen fought to regain Ramadi's eastern Sijariya neighborhood, which the extremist group said it captured Friday.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has ordered more aerial support and weapons for both soldiers and Sunni militiamen battling the Islamic State in Anbar province, where Ramadi is the provincial capital.
The U.S. and Iraqi governments have been working to get Sunni tribesmen to support the fight, proposing the establishment of a national guard program that will include arming and paying loyal tribesmen.
The Pentagon plans to buy arms for Iraq's tribesmen, including 5,000 AK-47s, 50 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 12,000 grenades and 50 82mm mortars. The arms supply, described in a document that will be sent to Congress for its approval, said the estimated cost to equip an initial Anbar-based force of tribal fighters is $18.5 million, part of a $1.6 billion request to Congress that includes arming and training Iraqi and Kurdish forces.
"Failure to equip these forces mean a less effective armed opposition to counter the Islamic State and its ability to gain the local support necessary to effectively control the areas it holds," the document says.
Already, the Islamic State fighters have lined up and shot several men from the al-Bu Fahd tribe, which is taking part in the fight against them. The Islamic State also has killed more than 200 men, women and children from Anbar's Sunni Al Bu Nimr tribe in recent weeks, apparently in revenge for the tribe's siding with Iraqi security forces and, in the past, with U.S. forces.
Rajeh Barakat, a member in Anbar's provincial council, said the massacre has pushed more people to fight for survival.
"What Islamic State did to Al Bu Nimr tribe has given the Iraqi tribes defending Ramadi and other cities the momentum and motivation to fight until the end," he said.
The Islamic State sought to seize control of the regional council of Anbar in the city of Ramadi, 56 miles west of Baghdad, before being repelled by airstrikes and tribal fighters, local officials said late Saturday. The fighting prompted al-Abadi to order the military to arm citizens in the province after tribal leaders and politicians complained of inadequate government support.
Al-Abadi promised a delegation from the Anbar council Saturday "to extend the necessary support and meet the province's need" to dislodge the militant group, his office said.
Al-Abadi ordered air support for fighters in Anbar and instructed the military to boost its presence in the province, his office announced Saturday. Three cargo planes carrying weapons arrived at a military airport east of Ramadi, Al Mada Press reported Saturday, citing Anbar's military commander Qassem al-Muhammadi.
The fight in Anbar pits the Sunni extremist group against fellow Sunni tribes, some of whom helped the U.S. defeat al-Qaida during the so-called troop surge after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
The Islamic State holds parts of Anbar including the city of Fallujah, the scene of violent battles between U.S. forces and al-Qaida during Iraq's last round of sectarian conflict more than five years ago. The fall of Ramadi would deal a blow to efforts to curb the Islamic State, which in June declared a so-called caliphate in areas under its control in Syria and Iraq after capturing Mosul, the most-populated city in northern Iraq.
"Unfortunately, the central government's support so far is very weak," Faleh al-Issawi, deputy head of the Anbar provincial council, said by phone from Ramadi.
Elsewhere, Iraqi and Kurdish forces pushed Sunday to retake towns seized by the Islamic State in the eastern Diyala province. Jabar Yawer, a spokesman for the Kurdish peshmerga, said intense clashes raged in the towns of Saadiya and Jalula, which fell to the militant group in August.
In Saadiya, a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden Humvee into a security checkpoint, killing seven Iraqi soldiers and Shiite militiamen and wounding 14, police said. A separate car bombing at an outdoor market south of Baghdad killed seven people and wounded 16, police said.
Hospital officials corroborated the casualty figures. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to brief journalists.
Meanwhile, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is calling for a declaration of war against the Islamic State, as President Barack Obama prepares to ask Congress to grant him formal authority to use force.
Paul offered a very circumscribed definition of war in his proposal, which he outlined Saturday. He would, for instance, limit the duration of military action to one year and significantly restrict the use of ground forces.
Unlike other resolutions circulating on Capitol Hill that would give the president various degrees of authority to use force against Islamic militants, Paul would take the extra step of declaring war -- something Congress has not done since World War II.
Shiite, Sunni clerics meet
In Iran on Sunday, Shiite and Sunni clerics from about 80 countries gathered in the holy city of Qom to develop a strategy to combat extremists, including the Islamic State.
Shiite-majority Iran has been helping Iraqi, Syrian and Kurdish forces battle the Sunni extremist group on the ground while a U.S.-led coalition has been bombing it from the air. The Islamic State views Shiites as apostates deserving of death and has massacred hundreds of captured Syrian and Iraqi soldiers, as well as Sunni rivals.
Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, the chief organizer of the conference, appealed for consensus among Islam's two main branches, urging all Muslim clerics to work to discredit groups espousing extremism.
"Military attacks against this deviant group are necessary but insufficient. The roots of their violent ideology must be dried up. This is the job of Muslim scholars, to preach the true, moderate face of Islam and expose the ugly face of IS [Islamic State] ideology," said Shirazi, a prominent Shiite cleric who has a large following in Iran and abroad.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, said the Islamic State is the biggest threat to Islam. "They were created to undermine Islam and destroy Muslim societies. IS kills both Shiite and Sunni Muslims," he said.
In Berlin, the head of Germany's domestic intelligence agency said authorities now know of 550 people from the country who have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join extremist groups and that about 60 of them have died.
The number of extremists given by Hans-Georg Maassen in an interview with Sunday's Welt am Sonntag newspaper is up from the figure of 450 previously used.
He was quoted as saying that "about 60 of these people coming from Germany so far have been killed or killed themselves -- at least nine of them in suicide attacks."
Officials worry that radicalized extremists returning from Syria and Iraq could pose a risk to security in Europe. Maassen said authorities believe about 180 have returned to Germany.
Meanwhile on Sunday, Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council sentenced a former Sunni lawmaker to death for killing two Iraqi soldiers in 2013. The arrest of Ahmed al-Alwani last year stirred sectarian tensions as he had become a symbol for Sunni protests against Iraq's Shiite-led government. Al-Alwani can appeal the verdict.
Information for this article was contributed by Vivian Salama, Sameer N. Yacoub, Ali Akbar Dareini and staff members of The Associated Press; by Jeremy Peters of The New York Times; and by Zaid Sabah and Aziz Alwan of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 11/24/2014