AP, Baghdad :
On the western edge of Iraq’s capital, Islamic State group militants battle government forces and exchange mortar fire, only adding to the sense of siege in Baghdad despite airstrikes by a U.S.-led coalition.
Yet military experts say the Sunni militants of the Islamic State group, who now control a large territory along the border that Iraq and Syria share, won’t be able to fight through both government forces and Shiite militias now massed around the capital.
It does, however, put them in a position to wreak havoc in Iraq’s biggest city, with its suicide attacks and other assaults further eroding confidence in Iraq’s nascent federal government and its troops, whose soldiers already fled the Islamic State group’s initial lightning advance in June.
“It’s not plausible at this point to envision ISIL taking control of Baghdad, but they can make Baghdad so miserable that it would threaten the legitimacy of the central government,” said Richard Brennan, an Iraq expert with RAND Corporation and former Department of Defense policymaker, using an acronym for the Islamic State group.
The siege fears in Baghdad stem from recent gains made by the Islamic State group in the so-called Baghdad Belt – the final stretch between Anbar province, where the group gained ground in Janaury, and Baghdad. The group has had a presence in the Baghdad Belt since spring, Iraqi officials say, but recent advances have sparked new worries.
Last week, Islamic State group fighters seized the towns of Hit and neighboring Kubaisa, sending Iraqi soldiers fleeing and leaving a nearby military base with its stockpile of weapons at risk of capture. The U.S.-led coalition recently launched two airstrikes northwest of Hit, U.S. Central Command said Saturday.
Perhaps most worrying, Islamic State group fighters now battle Iraqi forces in Abu Ghraib, the town home to the infamous prison of the same name that’s only 18 miles (29 kilometers) from the Green Zone, the fortified international zone protecting Baghdad-based embassies and government office.
A senior military official in Anbar told The Associated Press on Saturday that government helicopters fire on targets daily in Abu Ghraib, though the town remains in the hands of security forces.
