Iraq militias say they don't need US help in Anbar operation

KESSARRAT, Iraq (AP) — Ali Ahsan paced back and forth carrying a rifle more than half his height in the searing heat as his militia convoy made a pit stop in the Anbar desert to rest and pray.

Unlike the rugged men in fatigues around him, his prepubescent face has barely sprung a whisker. Now that school is out, the petite 14-year-old is spending his summer break fighting the Islamic State group with his father and other members of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces, which includes the Shiite militias.

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IS fighters captured Anbar's provincial capital of Ramadi last month, prompting Defense Secretary Ash Carter to lament that the U.S.-trained Iraqi troops lacked "the will to fight." The Popular Mobilization Forces were called to battle in Anbar after the fall of Ramadi, despite concerns that their involvement in the province would antagonize the Sunni population, and they are now setting their sights on Fallujah.

"We think the liberation of Fallujah will allow us to enter Ramadi without any fighting, so the battle that we are preparing is the battle of Fallujah," Hadi al-Amiri, the head of the Popular Mobilization Forces, told journalists Friday at an outpost on the Salahuddin-Anbar border. "God willing, it will be imminent."

http://www.apnewsarchive.com/2015/Iraqi-militias-say-they-don-t-need-US-help-in-Anbar-operation-against-Islamic-State-group/id-d06c7b18dd7546c5bf547e502192d94c