Sunni activists deny Iraq claims that protests led to rise of Daesh

A group of Sunni Arab activists have hotly rejected allegations that Daesh arose from their organisation, or that the extremist militant group developed as a result of the popular peaceful protest movement of 2013 before the militants burst onto the scene.

Abdul Qadir Al-Nail, a prominent Iraqi Sunni activist, together with a group of anti-government organisers from Iraq’s western Anbar province refused government allegations that Daesh originated from within the ranks of peaceful protesters. Al-Nail originally organised anti-government protests in 2013, before the emergence of Daesh in Iraq, who later took control of over a third of the country after a lightning campaign in mid-2014.

Anti-government protests which began in July 2013, and lasted late into the same year, followed complaints that the Shia-led government, headed by Shia Islamist Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki in Baghdad, were neglecting the Sunni provinces and depriving them of basic rights, investment, government jobs and employment.

The protesters demanded that government troops leave Sunni populated areas, guarantee basic rights to Sunnis, scrap controversial anti-terror laws they claimed were being used against them and also calling for an internationally-observed census to take place and settle the question of ethno-sectarian demography in the country once and for all.

Instead of listening to their demands, the protests ended with violence as the Maliki administration cracked down on the protesters and organisers after using sectarian rhetoric against them, killing hundreds and triggering tribes to take up arms against the government.

Al-Nail was one of many who fled Iraq, fearing Maliki’s government as they were accused of having links to radical militant groups. Maliki claimed that Al-Qaeda elements had infiltrated the Anbar protests, an allegation that was strongly denied.

Speaking to the Kurdish-language site Rudaw, Al-Nail said the protesters had no links to or affiliation with Daesh and he described himself as only being in opposition to the government.

“Daesh does not believe in any political work. Daesh is an organization outside of all common frameworks as they do not recognize the United Nations, government or any party,” Al-Nail said. He added that the Sunnis have never embraced any radical group.

Al-Nail described Al-Maliki as being “responsible” for any hardships that the Sunnis have been enduring in the Ninawa province after Daesh took over, as well as blaming him for other misfortunes that have befallen the Sunni Arab demographic, one of Iraq’s main communities..

Maliki paved way for Daesh

Rudaw also cited the activist as claiming that Al-Maliki paved the way for Daesh to take over Mosul “after it failed to end the public revolution in the Anbar province.”

He also stated that Al-Maliki “intended to let the borders open in agreement with the Syrian regime after it withdrew five army divisions and left weapons worth $30 billion for Daesh to seize them.”

Al-Nail also commented on a coalition of military Sunni organisations that he called the “resistance forces”, which came into being after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. These resistance factions were comprised of Iraqis who rejected the occupation of their land by the Americans and Iranian-backed Shia jihadist organisations. These groups called themselves the General Military Council for the Iraqi Revolution (GMCIR).

Al-Nail accused Paul Bremer, the US governor of Iraq and administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, of allowing militant groups like Daesh to emerge since “he [Bremer] neglected 16 million Sunni Arabs.”

Al-Nail believes that there is a possibility for a group similar to Daesh to emerge “if a just resolution is not found and the [Shia] militias of the Hashd [Al-Sha’abi]…continue to destroy the Sunni populated areas,” using the Arabic name for the state-sanctioned Popular Mobilisation Forces.

He warned that if the destruction of Sunni towns and cities continued at the hands of the Shia jihadists with no intervention from the government, then “in this case no other options are left but to defend ourselves.”

Sunni ‘stooges’

Sunni leaders currently present in the Iraqi political process do not represent the Sunnis, he claimed, describing them as the stooges of Al-Maliki.

“They were created by Al-Maliki in the name of representing the Sunnis.  But they do not represent us,” he said.

He went on to say that part of the plights Sunnis go through is due to the Sunni leaders as they “were ready to get involved in a political process which initially was designed to marginalise the Sunnis.”

There are still Sunni social, political, military and religious leaders in Iraq.  However, regional players, notably Iran, do not allow them to come forward as they see them as threats to their hegemony in the country, and often times assassinate them or force them into exile.

“They know that if Iraq becomes stable, huge countries like Iran will be damaged,” Al-Nail said, indicating that Iranian hegemony over Iraq would be broken, in addition to Iranian interests in Syria and other Arab countries.