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IDPs in Iraq and the progress of the Islamic State: An interview with Hebatalla Taha (IISS)

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By: Jack Curran-Persell

The UN estimates there are now over 3 million Internally Displaced Persons in Iraq with that figure only set to rise further. http://www.geo.tv/article-167331-Displaced-top-2-million-as-winter-hits-northern-Iraq
The UN estimates there are now over 3 million Internally Displaced Persons in Iraq with that figure only set to rise further. http://www.geo.tv/article-167331-Displaced-top-2-million-as-winter-hits-northern-Iraq

Hebatalla Taha is a Research Analyst for the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London where she focuses on the Middle-East and North Africa.

Jack Curran-Persell: Earlier this month, you wrote a very interesting article for IISS on the situation for IDPs in Iraq. With the UN estimating over 3 million Iraqis have been displaced, could you explain what the current situation is like for these people?

Hebatalla Taha: Conditions for IDPs in Iraq have been dire. In the article, I focused on how ISIS in particular limits the movement of civilians in areas under its control, but there are actually various armed groups and actors across Iraq that make any movement across the country quite difficult. This is especially the case for IDPs in Anbar province, who represent 40% of displaced people in Iraq. Many head to Baghdad, which has one of the highest IDP populations alongside Anbar, but some are unable to enter and remain trapped in Anbar province. In Anbar there is humanitarian presence due to the high security risks, which restricts assistance to IDPs there. Other IDPs from provinces such as Diyala or Salah al-Din tend to go to Kurdish areas and Kirkuk.

According to the International Organisation for Migration, 70% of IDPs are living in private settings, such as homes that they are renting, with families, or hotels; 19% are in ad-hoc buildings, and another 8% in camps.

Funding for Iraqi IDPs is also becoming an issue. The UN’s 2015 appeal for Iraq is still 90% underfunded, and because of this, it has had to shut down, or scale back, various programmes assisting IDPs. Such conditions are related to the decision by many displaced people to flee the country altogether, whether to Europe or elsewhere, seeing no prospects for improvement.

What is the attitude of the Baghdad government, ISIS, and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to those fleeing conflict in Iraq?

Regarding the attitudes towards IDPs, the government is worried about ISIS-linked infiltrators within refugee groups–especially in Baghdad which tends to have the highest number of monthly fatalities due to frequent bombings, many of which claimed by ISIS. Therefore the Baghdad government has implemented heavy restrictions and background checks, and the process often requires a long wait and sponsors. The Bzeibiz bridge between Anbar and Baghdad is mostly closed, according to UNOCHA, and only people who require medical treatment are actually allowed to cross into Baghdad.

The KRG is similar in that it is worried about ISIS operatives launching attacks in its territories, but it also cites economic reasons. The KRG says it is cash-strapped and doesn’t have the resources to deal with the influx of refugees. The situation is exacerbated by the KRG’s own rivalry with the Baghdad government; it feels that Baghdad is not sharing the burden. The political dynamics between the KRG and Baghdad are also affecting ‘contested’ areas such as Kirkuk, where the Kurds fear ‘Arabisation’ by IDPs and both sides are suspicious of one another’s actions in Kirkuk.

ISIS has tried to prevent people from leaving the territory under its control, placing explosives around cities, confiscating identity cards, and executing people who are caught trying to flee. Its bureaucracy has allowed people to leave in the past but under particular conditions, such as leaving their families hostage, giving up their homes, or paying large sums of money. ISIS is using the plight of the displaced people as a recruitment tactic. It uses images of Sunni IDPs struggling to enter Baghdad in its audio-visual material with the message, lamenting their inability to enter various provinces, including their own capital. It tries to depict itself as the only actor defending Sunnis and therefore they should to their homes in areas under ISIS control, or even volunteer to join the group.”

So Sunni people fleeing undermines ISIS’s image of a cohesive Islamic state-building project?

Very much so. And you can see this in recent propaganda videos directed at refugees leaving Iraq. A recent video urged refugees to join the ‘caliphate’, rather than fleeing to what it regards as a xenophobic Europe. Indeed, the fact that many people are fleeing ISIS contradicts the image of itself as a coherent state which it has been trying to project. Having people to govern over is essential for ISIS’s vision.

You mention at the end of your article that fleeing has become increasingly difficult because of a crackdown on internal resistance groups. How effective have groups such as the Mosul Brigade been and what types of resistance have they been putting up?

Information on resistance groups in Mosul is difficult to obtain and verify; this is the case with most of the information coming out of Mosul in general. That is why is it’s difficult to assess the impact or magnitude of such an internal resistance, or to speculate as to whether it is an organised resistance movement, Some claim they are coordinating with the Iraqi security forces and the coalition, but others appear to be individuals reacting to the violence perpetrated by ISIS or settling scores with ISIS fighters.

My guess would be that it is a combination of both. One of the main indicators that there is significant internal resistance in Mosul is that ISIS has actually instigated these heavy crackdowns in Mosul, executing hundreds of people (some sources have cited figures as high as 2,000). The make-up of those who have been executed is also telling: most are linked to the Iraqi security forces, who are thought to have been behind many of the attacks against ISIS fighters.

It has been exactly a year since the first UK airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq. How effective have these US-led air strikes in Iraq and Syria been?

The airstrikes on their own do not have a decisive effect, but combined with ground operations, they have assisted Kurdish groups in regaining significant swathes of territory in northern Iraq and restricting expansion by ISIS. In the operation against Tikrit in March 2015, for example, which was led by the Hashed al-Shabi militia, the belated airstrikes by the US-led coalition were in fact key in expelling ISIS from the city. The airstrikes have not been as effective in Syria, aside from assisting Kurdish groups in the north, such as the well-known battle for Kobani. This is linked to the more complicated dynamics of the Syrian crisis: there is a lot more happening than just ISIS.

What do you make of the recent Russian military commitment to Syria in order to support Assad supposedly against ISIS?

It is a disturbing development especially since the conflict contains many actors beyond Bashar al-Assad and ISIS, and, as you were suggesting, the first airstrikes didn’t target ISIS, but rather, rebel groups.

Tragically, I think this will most likely only enable the war to drag on longer, with severe humanitarian effects—ones that we already witnessing and that will not simply go away.

Away from Iraq and Syria, how much progress are ISIS making in areas such as Libya or Yemen?

In Yemen, ISIS-linked groups that have slowly emerged throughout the past year appear to be making progress in the chaos of the current war. A recent report from a journalist based in Aden noted that ISIS seem to be more organised than Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and has been successful in directing some of Al-Qaeda’s recruits and infiltrating its support bases. This is important because it suggests that the situation is changing. Earlier, ISIS-linked groups (which usually call themselves ‘Wilayet Sanaa’ or ‘Wilayet Aden’ or others based on the province) did not seem to be as organised as AQAP and were unable to challenge it. Most of the attacks by ISIS-linked groups in Yemen have been against the Houthi or Shia mosques in Sanaa, although there have been other smaller-scale incidents elsewhere, such as in the south.

In Libya, ISIS-linked groups are one of many groups vying for control, including various jihadi organisations and Islamist groups. ISIS-linked operatives have taken advantage of the chaotic war to establish a presence there and create a ‘jihadi front’ in North Africa—to which many foreign fighters have fled. It is important to emphasise that although the group has expanded due to foreign fighters, it has failed to gain many recruits from within Libya. So overall, within Libya’s military and political context, ISIS remains quite marginal.

In Egypt, the situation is different because there is a functioning state and a functioning army, but the ISIS-linked group, Wilayet Sinai in North Sinai has posed a serious threat, and its capacity has continued to grow, despite escalating crackdowns by the army.

While many of these groups have adopted tactics used by ISIS, such as beheadings, they don’t merely reflect an expansion by ISIS into these territories. Both sides effectively benefit from this partnership. ISIS can give the impression that it is unstoppable, undefeatable, and is everywhere. Its local affiliates – predominantly opportunistic groups – gain notoriety by leveraging ISIS’s name, which helps them win over recruits and possibly get funding or weapons. This is also discernible in who the ISIS-linked groups view as the main adversary in each of the different contexts, i.e. the army in North Sinai in Egypt, the Houthis in Yemen, and the Libya Dawn coalition in Libya.

In your opinion, how does a state like Libya which is effectively a failed state benefit groups like ISIS?

Armed groups such as ISIS thrive in that atmosphere of a political and security vacuum, and their emergence is fundamentally linked to the state of war. This state of war provides obvious logistical advantages, such as the ability to smuggle foreign fighters into the country, and the lack of a functioning security apparatus enables them to organise, expand, etc., but they also benefit from the political reasons that lead to the descent into a failed state. ISIS-affiliated groups, as I mentioned, are not created by ISIS, but are informed by the political crises governing each of the countries.

Thank you.

Jack Curran-Persell is currently completing an MA in Conflict, Security, and Development within the War Studies Department at King’s College London. 

The World's Forgotten Migrants

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By Isobel Petersen:

A displaced woman sits on a bed next to the remnants of her burnt house in Khor Abeche, South Darfur. April, 2014. Photo: Albert Gonzalez Farran, UNAMID (CC 2.0)
A displaced woman sits on a bed next to the remnants of her burnt house in Khor Abeche, South Darfur. April, 2014. Photo: Albert Gonzalez Farran, UNAMID (CC 2.0)

Human migration exists on a large scale across the globe, but in a variety of forms and for a variety of reasons. Conflict is one of the key causes of displacement, which is unsurprising considering the devastating effects of living in a conflict zone: poor health; economic instability; familial tragedy and lack of education opportunities, amongst others.

Today’s conflicts are increasingly asymmetric with non-state armed groups (NSAGs) taking the lead in waging wars, resulting in a multitude of competing factions and loyalties heightening the threat to citizens of a state in conflict. Furthermore, the lines are blurred between combatant and civilian all too easily, normalising both the intentional targeting of civilians as well as their destruction as ‘collateral damage’. During the past 50 years, wars of independence evolved into civil wars, which splintered into NSAGs pursuing their own gains, the targeting of minorities, battles for resources, and border disputes. Today across Iraq and Syria there is a new supra-state crisis with the rise of Islamic State (IS).

In Europe the issue of displaced persons is most visible as thousands cross the Mediterranean into Italy and Greece or by land into the Balkan states. The rate at which they have arrived has doubled in the past year, although Europe is still home to less than 10% of the world’s displaced persons. This is a life-threatening journey with the risk of injury, separation from family, poverty and arrest along the way to a hopefully better life. We are all aware of the tragedies along the southern coastlines of the Med’s beaches, but with the rising political popularity of the European Right there has been a tendency to overlook the more disastrous bigger picture.

The significance of a European Right is that it has become a prominent mouthpiece for anti-immigration, nationalist voices. On the international scale, this has consequently presented the issue of immigration as a concern for the destination countries for immigrants rather than the reasons behind migration. This problem has been exacerbated by the lack of global responsibility to tackle the issue, and focuses instead on the socio-political climate of the countries that have the capacity to assist.

Migrants are displaced peoples, admittedly not always by force, but with sufficient reason to dare to start somewhere unfamiliar and potentially hostile. Displaced peoples can also be refugees, political exiles, stateless peoples and unwelcome minorities. Migration is considered as a last resort, whether to escape persecution, natural disaster, and extreme poverty or conflict zones, and it is not a new phenomenon.

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) by the end of 2014 there were 59.5 million people forcibly displaced – that is, involuntarily displaced people. That is only a few million shy of the total UK population. This figure is too large to ignore and states must recognise that they are increasingly going to have to accommodate non-nationals as part of the wider solution to solve the problem. This is arguably precisely why the understanding of migration has narrowed, so much so that the vast majority of those displaced by conflict have been forgotten. These forgotten migrants are internally displaced peoples (IDPs); those who – predominantly as a result of conflict – have had to move within their own countries leaving them economically unstable and at risk from persecution. The issue of cross-border migration is so headline-grabbing that the vast number of IDPs have been pushed to one side, although they are in need of humanitarian assistance too.

A little over a month ago the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) released their latest annual report for the global trends and figures of IDPs. The report makes for powerful and shocking reading, as one realises just how many people are in transitory and volatile living situations within their own country. Across the 60 countries that the IDMC included in the study, there was an equivalent of 30,000 new IDPs every day between January and December 2014, bringing the global total to a staggering 38 million people; a 15% rise from 2013. When one then considers that this is about 65% of all displaced people, it becomes hard to ignore that this is a matter for academics, practitioners and policy-makers alike.

Photo: UNHCR
Photo: UNHCR

Earlier this month the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Lise Grande, made an urgent plea for £316m in assistance for Iraqis affected by the IS campaign, this includes over 3 million Iraqi IDPs. The financial contribution of international organisations and states is an essential part of the immediate and life-saving relief that people affected by conflict need. However, displacement cannot quickly be reversed or solved simply with funding; it must be a long-term policy movement to help not just the state structure but also the individuals. States impacted by intense conflict are likely to struggle through economic instability and weak state governance, thus making it difficult to provide for their own citizens and migrants.

In a 2009 report published by the International Committee of the Red Cross about IDPs, a key suggestion the organisation made was to assist in providing economic security in areas which are both likely to face the repercussions of conflict and those areas which receive IDPs in order to prevent future destabilisation. Post-conflict peacebuilding is accepted as a role for the UN and its member states; this must include acknowledging IDPs and assisting post-conflict governments in adjusting to the new social, economic and political demands of internal displacement.

The African Union’s (AU) 2009 Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons, (informally known as the Kampala Convention), was the first legally binding instrument specifically catering to IDPs. By December 2014 22 AU member states had ratified it, with a further 20 member states signing it. This is an example of positive action taken by states affected directly, or as regional actors, by IDPs. It particularly reaffirms the obligation of governments to address the needs of those in their own states.

Implementation of concrete change is still, however, a challenge because states hosting displaced persons tend to be fragile, without the economic means to sufficiently address the issue. The Kampala Convention is an example of a decision that needs international support for it to be effectively implemented.

The numbers of IDPs in Colombia are the second worst in the world after Syria with 6 million counted in 2014, although UNHCR has said that may be an underestimate. This is as a result of a 50-year civil war between government forces and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), alongside other paramilitary groups and bandit gangs.

The poor of Colombia are becoming poorer and the ethnic minorities are suffering the most, as they live in the rural areas where most armed conflict takes place. There are legal frameworks in place to respond to internal displacement; however, this is hampered by poor enforcement on the part of the Colombian government, administrative errors, and most importantly a reactive rather than a proactive attitude. The weaknesses in the Colombian strategy of dealing with IDPs demonstrates the all-too-easy potential to provide reactive, short-term responses instead of prioritising a collaborative, long-lasting effort.

Once a ceasefire agreement has been signed, this does not mean that those IDPs who have fled the violence are once again able to continue with their lives. It should not be accepted that forcible displacement is an inevitable result of conflict; a new norm must take hold. Leaving the economic and physical security of one’s home as a result of conflict has long-term consequences for the future stability of a country, jeopardizing sustainable peace. This is the most important reason for why governments of countries with large numbers of IDPs must take the issue seriously and prioritise legal, financial and social assurances in the post-conflict environment. This requires the help of the international community who must continue to contribute to the essential humanitarian needs of those affected by conflict, including IDPs.

Most importantly, however, is the long-term recognition that migrants are not always cross-border refugees who are visible and demand a political response; a political response is needed for the ‘invisible’ migrants who have been displaced within their own countries too. Both issues must be tackled, but the issues are also separate, and demand separate responses.

Finally, it is essential that in countries such as the UK there is an attitude transformation regarding migration, as increasingly our domestic policy and attitude towards foreign relations is becoming narrow-minded and selfish. If this public attitude continues to prevail then there is no hope for a positive British contribution by policy-makers to the international tragedy of forcible internal displacement.

Isobel Petersen studied International Relations at the University of Exeter and is currently reading for an MA in Conflict, Security and Development at King’s College London. Her particular interest is post-conflict resolution with a specific focus on the Arab-Israeli crisis. Isobel is an Editor at Strife.