He said it happened “in 2013, three or four days before IS entered Iraqi territory through the border” with Syria in western Anbar province. IS took Fallujah in early January 2014, some six months prior to its more spectacular seizure of Mosul in June 2014.
Near the Euphrates on the road toward Rawa, corn stalks were high and tubes for irrigation systems lay along the roadside. The sheep and cows looked dazed as dusty convoys blasting “Ya Sattar” and other popular battle songs made their way through villages.
Several “Ya Hussein” flags, evoking the historical figure revered by Shiite Muslims, flew from Humvees and armored vehicles alongside Iraqi national flags. Helicopters dove and swirled overhead.
Along the road, a teenage member of the PMU from Rawa under Hajji Muthanna told Al-Monitor that his unit was serving as ancillary security for the Iraqi army. He remarked, “[I've] been waiting for this moment for years.”
Vehicles carrying soldiers and officers wound their way through villages displaying a plethora of torn white sheets, white shirts, anything that could constitute a white flag, which the villagers had been told to put on their cars, homes and cattle sheds.
Men with red-and-white checkered turbans and teenage boys and girls under 10 years of age ventured to the road carrying sick infants and toddlers, asking where medical treatment could be found. One officer put a 50-dinar bill into the hand of a man with a bundled, ill infant in the crook of his arm.
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