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Section:GDN BE PaGe:1 Edition Date:150205 Edition:01 Zone:S
Special
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Kick off: your guide
to the teams and
the tactics
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My life in property
Linda Grant
looks back on
a life in bricks
and mortar
cYanmaGentaYellowblack
Meet your
ur
new bankk
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Page 3
Long read
£1.60 (Ch. Islands £2.00)
Thursday 05.02.15
Published in London
and Manchester
theguardian.com
Newspaper of the year
Winner of the
Pulitzer prize
Step up the
fight against
Isis, say MPs
Argument for more ‘robust’ approach
including drones and special forces
Ewen MacAskill
Defence correspondent
12A
*
Britain needs to play a greater role in the
fight in Iraq against Islamic State, according to a scathing report published today by
the cross-party Commons defence committee, which describes the UK contribution so far as “strikingly modest”.
Against a background of widespread
public horror over Isis’s brutal murder of
the Jordanian pilot Muadh al-Kasasbeh,
MPs express dismay over Britain’s limited
involvement and contrasts this position
unfavourably with allies such as the US,
Germany, Italy, Spain and Australia.
Rory Stewart, the committee’s chairman, an independent-minded Conservative, said Britain was doing too little. “We
must clearly acknowledge the previous
failures in Iraq and reform our approach.
But that does not mean lurching to doing
nothing,” he said.
In what is an unusually trenchant report
by the defence committee, the MPs also
accuse UK officials, ministers and officers
of having “failed to set out a clear military
strategy for Iraq or a clear definition of the
UK’s role in the operations”.
Given that Isis is regarded by the MPs
as the most dramatic and significant
threat to regional stability and international security to have emerged from the
Middle East in decades, they say: “We are
surprised and deeply concerned that the
UK is not doing more.”
The MPs highlighted the direct risk
posed from Britons returning to the UK
from Iraq and Syria. An estimated 600
British nationals have gone to Syria and
Iraq; of these about 30 to 40 have been
killed, half are still there and the remainder have returned.
The MPs are not proposing that Britain
deploys large numbers of combat troops
to Iraq, as there appears little public
appetite for that. But they are urging the
government to adopt a much more robust
approach with provision of special forces
and drones as well as help with training,
help at senior officer level, and money and
equipment to bolster the Iraqi army.
Opposition to military intervention
overseas has grown in Britain since the
controversial invasion of Iraq in 2003,
culminating in a surprise Commons
backbench revolt that led to a vote against
involvement in the Syrian conflict in 2013.
However, the public and political
resolve to avoid Middle Eastern entanglements is being tested by graphic film footage of beheadings of journalists and aid
workers by Isis, and of atrocities against
Iraqis and Syrians.
Senior British commanders remain
reluctant to become involved in a military escalation without clear objectives,
a significant problem during their time in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
The strong tone of the report may
reflect the affinity felt for Iraq by Stewart,
who helped administer the south of the
country after the invasion.
“The nightmare of a jihadist state
establishing across Syria and Iraq has
finally been realised. Daesh [an alternative
name for Isis] controls territory equivalent
to the size of the UK, has contributed to
the displacement of millions, destabilising and threatening neighbouring states
and providing safe haven to an estimated
20,000 foreign fighters, many dedicated
to an international terrorist campaign,”
Stewart said, adding that, in spite of all
that, the UK role was modest.
He added: “The committee was shocked
by the inability or unwillingness of any of
the service chiefs to provide a clear and
articulate statement of the UK’s objectives
or strategic plan in Iraq. There was a lack
of clarity over who owns a policy – and
indeed whether such a policy exists.”
The UK has so far conducted only 6% of
the air strikes against Isis. The committee,
which visited Iraq in December, found at
that time there were only three UK military
personnel outside the Kurdish regions of
Iraq compared with 400 Australians, 280
Italians and 300 Spanish.
Britain has provided 40 heavy machineguns to the Kurdish regional government
whereas Germany has provided a long list
of armaments.
Jordanians show their support for their government while waiting for the king to arrive from the US Photo: Raad Adayleh/AP
‘We will do what it takes to finish them’
Martin Chulov
Amman
Before the savage death of their pilot,
many Jordanians worried their role in
fighting Islamic State (Isis) could end up
bringing the region’s woes back home.
Now, the shocking images of Muadh
al-Kasasbeh being burned alive have
galvanised a country, leaving even
sceptics of Jordan’s contribution to
the international coalition demanding
revenge and vowing “whatever it takes”
to fight the terror group.
The day after the horrific images
of the caged pilot being burned alive
were released, the streets of the capital
Amman were subdued, except for the
crowds that lined the road from the
airport to the royal palace to welcome
home their monarch King Abdullah
from his shortened visit to Washington.
Privately though, inside tea houses,
universities, shopping malls and restaurants, people seethed. Radio and television stations played patriotic hymns on
high rotation and all 23 minutes of the
gruesome images were being widely
circulated on social media. Occasionally,
passions flared.
“I swear to God we will kill all those
pigs,” said Musab Ibrahim, from inside a
cafe in Amman’s Old City. “Whatever it
takes to finish them is what we will do.”
On a nearby table four men interrupted a card game to condemn the executioners and eulogise Kasasbeh. “He
is our son, he is a hero. All of Jordan is
with him and with our king,” said Yousef
Barghouti, a primary school principal.
“We are all Hashemites and we are
following the government with no
reservations in this fight against these
godless terrorists,” said another man,
Yousf Majid al-Zarbi. “Have you seen
that video? I mean really, how in
humanity could this be a just punishment for any person?”
At intersections in the heart of
Amman, street vendors sold flags and
funeral bouquets prepared for Kasasbeh. There were few takers though. A
society that had been gripped for almost
a month by the plight of Kasasbeh, and
the pleas for mercy from his desperate
parents, had seen the raw horror of his
death eclipse their worst fears. Ghader
Shathra, a nurse, said she had been
numbed by the news, and the reality it
would likely lead the country to war.
“We have watched as the region has
disintegrated. We have taken in almost
2 million refugees, and we have hoped it
wouldn’t come our way. But sometimes
you have to stand and fight.
17 We have no option.”
Continued on page 2