Anbar governor thanks PMUs, tells them to get out
The new governor of Anbar province faces critical challenges regarding providing services to the recently liberated area from the Islamic State and dealing with the Shiite Popular Mobilization Units coming from outside the province.
BAGHDAD — The governor of Anbar, Iraq’s largest and arguably most-insurgent-prone province, took office last fall just as the fight against the Islamic State (IS) was winding down. Mohamed al-Halbusi will now have to provide services to the heavily damaged province with what he considers woefully inadequate funding and steer it through the lead-up to parliamentary elections in May, with thousands of residents still displaced or missing.
In an interview with Al-Monitor at his home in Baghdad, he said that he will also have to deal with non-local Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), which were instrumental in the fight against IS but which remain despite local sentiment against their presence.
In his early 40s, small of stature and with an easy smile, Halbusi cuts a more personable figure than many Iraqi politicians. His social media pages show him meeting with constituents and public officials, in suits as well as more traditional blue dishdashas and a black leather bomber jacket, hair slicked back.
Halbusi, previously the head of the parliamentary Finance Committee, stressed that his region continues to be treated unfairly in terms of border regulations and budgetary matters, with inadequate funding for a province so heavily damaged by the war. He claims that new measures have been imposed that would affect only the border crossings recently reopened in Anbar and not those elsewhere, and that "if they are going to do something," they should do it "in Trebil and Basra and Diyala," and not only in Anbar province.
