Anbar council blames recurrent security breaches on bribery, infiltration

Anbar (IraqiNews.com)  Anbar’s local council has blamed recurrent breaches by Islamic State militants of the province’s security on corruption within security bodies besides what it described as the infiltration of paramilitary troops fighting the group alongside the government.

Naeem al-Kaoud, head of the Anbar council’s security committee, told Almaalomah on Thursday that besides the fragile intelligence capabilities in Anbar, the Tribal Mobilization was already infiltrated by Daesh (Islamic State) members.

“There are IS loyalists inside the tribal mobilization, which facilitates security breaches,” Kaoud said, noting that IS militants had been trying to seep again into recaptured areas after their defeat in Mosul.

“Many IS leaders had also been set free by interrogators for huge sums of money,” the official pointed out as another reason for the security violations. He said that insufficient numbers of police personnel was also a factor.

He urged an urgent meeting by security officials to define delinquent security members.

Islamic State has been holding the towns of Annah, Rawa and Qaim in western Anbar, near the borders with Syria, since 2014, when the group occupied a third of Iraq to proclaim an “Islamic Caliphate”. Iraqi government forces had retaken other cities in the province from militants and plans to invade the remaining the havens in the near future.

Kaoud’s statements came a few hours after a suicide attack by IS killed a police official and wounded a lower-ranking officer in Ameriya, Fallujah.

Past statements by some Iraqi MPs and local officials had also talked about IS militants paying bribes to flee detention in Mosul.