Reuters
Baghdad
A campaign led by Shia paramilitaries to drive Islamic State militants from Iraq’s Sunni heartland was rebranded yesterday after criticism that the name chosen for the push was overtly sectarian.
The move was a response to fears that Iraq’s reliance on Shia paramilitaries to defeat IS fighters, instead of the disordered and demoralised national army, could alienate Sunni Iraqis and deepen the region’s sectarian divide.
The United States said it was “unhelpful” that the militias had dubbed the operation to retake Iraq’s western province of Anbar “Labeyk Ya Hussein.” The name translates to “At your service, Hussein.”
The name also provoked complaints from Iraqis in Anbar.
“This is extremely sectarian,” said unemployed resident Salam Ahmed, 41. “We have no more trust in them (the paramilitaries). They follow a foreign, Iranian agenda.”
State TV said the paramilitaries had renamed the campaign “Labeyk Ya Iraq” (At Your Service Iraq) yesterday. A spokesman for the paramilitary groups, known as Hashid Shaabi, said both names had “the same meaning”.
“Now we have opted for ‘Iraq’ and there is no problem,” Karim al-Nouri said.
Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has been reluctant to send Iran-backed Shia militias to Anbar, concerned they could provoke a sectarian backlash from the province’s predominantly Sunni population.
But he was forced to deploy thousands of Shia militiamen to Anbar after Islamic State insurgents overran the provincial capital of Ramadi on May 17, his government’s biggest military setback in almost a year.
