NAJAF — The head of one of Iraq's fiercest Shiite militias called the US-led coalition's campaign against Daesh (the so-called IS) ineffective and accused Washington of lacking the will to uproot the radical group. Qais Al-Khazali, leader of the paramilitary group Asaib Ahl Al-Haq, said the anti-Daesh campaign had failed because of an American agenda to redraw the map of the Middle East along new borders. "We believe the United States of America does not want to resolve the crisis but rather wants to manage the crisis," he told Reuters. "It does not want to end Daesh. It wants to exploit Daesh to achieve its projects in Iraq and in the region. The American project in Iraq is to repartition the region." Khazali said the US-led coalition had failed to ramp up the number of airstrikes over time as he said it had pledged to do. Asaib, along with the Badr Brigades and Kataib Hezbollah, are at the forefront of the Popular Mobilization Committee, the official Iraqi government entity organizing volunteers in the battle against Daesh. Khazali said Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi was under US pressure to limit the presence of Shiite fighters in the campaign to retake Anbar province from Daesh. — Reuters
