Iraq's war against IS terrorism | Updates and Discussions

[Alienoz_TR]

Battle for Baghdad: ISIS now within 8 miles of airport, armed with MANPADS
Published time: October 11, 2014 07:51
Edited time: October 11, 2014 09:24
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Reuters / Str

Islamic State’s offensive on the Iraqi capital intensified as the jihadist fighters advanced as far as Abu Ghraib, a suburb only 8 miles away from Baghdad’s international airport.

The outer suburb of Abu Ghraib is also the site of the infamous prison the US military used tohumiliate and torture Iraqi detainees.

There are reports by the Iraqi military that the militants are in possession of MANPAD anti-aircraft missiles. The short-range, shoulder-fired missiles can shoot down airplanes within a range of 15,000 feet.

The Iraqi military, aided by US military personnel, have so far failed in foiling the advance toward Baghdad of the Islamic State militia (also known as ISIS, or ISIL), which has expanded its control of huge swathes of Iraq and Syria despite the increase in US-led airstrikes.

A total of 60,000 Iraqi soldiers are assigned to defend the capital, alongside 12 teams of American advisors, an Iraqi officer told CBS News.

Meanwhile, undercover IS militants active within Baghdad are setting off bombs and carrying out attacks. Swift advances have also been by the jihadist militia in Anbar, where Iraqi officials have made an open plea for military aid, warning the city will soon fall to IS.

The situation in Anbar, a town due west of Baghdad, is “fragile” a US official told AFP. IS has seized army bases in Anbar province, and has been shelling the provincial capital, Ramadi, 75 miles (120 kilometers) from Baghdad.
CNN reported that Iraqi troops in Anbar are in danger of being bottlenecked, citing a senior US defense official.

"We do see ISIL continue to make gains in Anbar province and [are] mindful of how Anbar relates to the security of Baghdad," another senior US defense official said.

Anbar province is home to Iraq's second biggest dam at Haditha, a major source of water and electrical power.

The dam is currently controlled by Iraqi forces, and US airstrikes have targeted IS forces in the area .

It has been stated both by the US and Iraq that preventing IS from capturing the area is a key objective, as is holding Baghdad.

In Syria, IS forces are vying for control of Kobani, which they now control 40 percent. Kobani is on the Syria-Turkish border and has a Kurdish majority.

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura warned Friday that if Kobani falls to ISIS, civilians there would“most likely be massacred.”

In June, ISIS insurgents quickly captured Iraq’s second-biggest city, Mosul, north of Baghdad. When they took the city, they seized a large amount of military US equipment originally given to the Iraqi army.

Battle for Baghdad: ISIS now within 8 miles of airport, armed with MANPADS — RT News

 

[United]

An American UAV downed in Ramadi. "Tayyara-t Tajassus" LOL

ISIS did not shoot down a drone over Ramadi, Iraq - it's actually Tomahawk cruise missile

 

[Dizer]

Whole Anbar has fallen except Haditha.

Ramadi hasn't fallen only battles on the outskirts and military bases attakced, Heet is contested and so is haditha.

@1000

Is it true? Or what percentage they control?

View attachment 121659

They control south of kirkuk, Hawija and other small cities.

 

[Alienoz_TR]

 

[Alienoz_TR]

Iraq asks for US ground troops as Isil threaten Baghdad

Iraqi officials have issued a desperate plea for America to bring US ground troops back to the embattled country, as heavily armed Islamic State militants came within striking distance of Baghdad.

Amid reports that Isil forces have advanced as far as Abu Ghraib, a town that is effectively a suburb of Baghdad, a senior governor claimed up to 10,000 fighters from the movement were now poised to assault the capital.

The warning came from Sabah al-Karhout, president of the provisional council of Anbar Province, the vast desert province to the west of Baghdad that has now largely fallen under jihadist control.

The province’s two main cities, Fallujah and Ramadi, were once known as “the graveyard of the Americans”, and the idea of returning there will not be welcomed by the Pentagon.

But were the province to be controlled by Isil, it would give their forces a springboard from which to mount an all-out assault on Baghdad, where a team of around 1,500 US troops is already acting as mentors to the beleaguered Iraqi army.

Iraqi government officials claim that while international attention has been focused in recent weeks on the Syrian border town of Kobane - where Kurdish fighters are still battling to keep advancing Isil gunmen at bay – Anbar province has been on the verge of collapse.

Government forces in the provincial capital Ramadi were holding out against the Isil offensive on Saturday, but US officials have warned that the city was in a “tenuous” position.

“I think it’s fragile there now,” said one senior US defence official, speaking to the AFP news agency. “They are being resupplied and they’re holding their own, but it’s tough and challenging.”

The surge of jihadi activity has also led to speculation that the group’s operation in Kobane was part of an elaborate decoy mission orchestrated by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Isil ’caliph’.

Observers point out that while the capture of Kobane would not greatly increase Isil’s military clout, the capture of Ramadi or other cities in Anbar would be catastrophic both for the Iraqi government and Western hopes of attempting to contain the group.

Most of the Euphrates valley – which runs south east from Turkey through Syria, into Iraq and towards the capital – is now under Isil control. Were Ramadi to fall, jihadi commanders would control a vital supply chain running from Baghdad directly back to their Syrian headquarters in Raqqa. They would also control the Haditha dam, the second largest in Iraq.

“It’s not a good situation,” admitted one US official.

The region of Anbar remains haunted by the ghosts of America’s 2003 invasion. It was there, a year after the war started, that US troops fought the infamous Battle of Fallujah, an attempt to root out extremists which was described as one of the most brutal urban conflicts for American marines since Vietnam.

Anbar was also the cradle of the so-called “Sunni Awakening” movement – an attempt by the US to prise Sunni tribal chiefs away from the influence of Islamist insurgents wreaking havoc on occupation troops.

Many had sided with Sunni jihadists due to fears of being sidelined under a government of Shia Muslims, but were won over by power deals or payment.

Their disillusionment over recent years is one of the reasons why Isil, a Sunni group, has found such favour across vast swathes of Iraq.

If Barack Obama were to sanction a return of American troops to the province, it would mark a seismic shift in strategy. Following the bloody nine-year campaign initiated by his predecessor, George W. Bush, the US president made it a cornerstone of his administration’s policy to bring American troops home from the Middle East.

Iraq’s new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, has repeatedly refused to countenance the return of foreign troops, while the White House itself has so far stuck to a selective campaign of air strikes, which launched six missiles against Isil forces on Friday and Saturday.

But rather than silencing calls for a boots-on-the-ground operation, the campaign has so far served to expose the limits of air power against a well-drilled army of battle-hardened militants.

Jets belonging to the US-led coalition have so far launched nearly 2,000 air strikes against Isil targets, dropping hundreds of bombs on convoys, encampments and other jihadi positions.

And yet still the group’s gunmen march on – both in Kobane and throughout Anbar province. It emerged on Saturday that one of the reasons why they were having only a limited effect was because of the lack troops on the ground to gather intelligence on targets and then guide the strikes in using laser technology.

Speaking to the Daily Beast website, US pilots warned that air strikes were being compromised as a result.

“The problem,” noted one pilot, “is that once you get American boots on the ground… one of those guys gets captured and beheaded on national TV.”

This week US Apache helicopters were forced to launch airstrikes against militants west of Baghdad, while yesterday a suicide bomber detonated his explosives belt in a northern Baghdad market, killing 11 people.

Some Iraqi officials believe an Isil assault to take Baghdad is still unlikely, given that around 60,000 government security personnel, including soldiers, police officers, and militiamen, are currently in position outside the city. But other satellite towns have already fallen, giving Isil launching points for suicide attacks and other assaults designed to spread panic among the capital’s residents.

Iraq asks for US ground troops as Isil threaten Baghdad - Telegraph

 

[usernameless]

@1000
What is Iraq's aim and strategy at the moment? Baghdad wont fall, but this is a serious threat nonetheless. Would you say the Iraqi army is on the offensive or on the defensive against isis?

How could those satellite villages fall? did isis rout the Iraqi army there? Or was the main focus point of the army elsewhere?

Sorry for the many questions.

 

[United]

................... was the main focus point of the army elsewhere?
......

Iraqi armies focus is always elsewhere actually everywhere except Iraq

Iraqs sectarian doctrine is responsible for its failures

 

[Ceylal]

@1000
What is Iraq's aim and strategy at the moment? Baghdad wont fall, but this is a serious threat nonetheless. Would you say the Iraqi army is on the offensive or on the defensive against isis?

How could those satellite villages fall? did isis rout the Iraqi army there? Or was the main focus point of the army elsewhere?

Sorry for the many questions.

The strategy is limited to prayer that the aussie and the Gi's in Baghdad will be able to stall ISIS...But the likelihood is the remake of Saigon...Baghdad will fall. The Iraqi army is non-existent, and American and Aussies are not prepared to take casualties or defend a country who's citizens refuse to go to battle.

 

[Alienoz_TR]

IS Parade in Muqdadiyah, Diyala Province

Middle East Updates / Bomb explosion kills police chief of Iraq's Anbar province
Haaretz's latest Middle East analyses and opinions: Hezbollah’s border attack: PR for the resistance (Anshel Pfeffer)

See Saturday's Middle East Updates

Latest updates:

12:27 P.M. At least 25 people reportedly killed after three car bombs explode in government compound north of Iraqi city of Baquba. (Reuters)

11:20 A.M. A provincial official says a bomb explosion has killed the police chief of Iraq's restive Anbar province.

Councilman Faleh al-Issawi says the bomb went off Sunday morning near a convoy including Brig. Gen. Ahmed al-Dulaimi in the vast province west of Baghdad. The convoy had been traveling through an area to the north of the provincial capital, Ramadi.

It was not immediately clear if others were killed. The councilman said Iraqi security forces had recaptured the area from the militants a day earlier.

Anbar has seen a growing Sunni-led insurgency since early this year. Sunni armed groups led by an al-Qaida breakaway group, known as Islamic State, have fully controlled the city of Fallujah, parts of Ramadi and rural areas.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. (AP)

1:50 A.M. U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Saturday Iraqi security forces were in full control of Baghdad but that the embattled Syrian city of Kobani was a very difficult problem.

Hagel told a news conference in the Chilean capital that the U.S. is making "considerable progress" in its negotiations with Turkey over plans to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels fighting Islamic State militants. (AP and Reuters) Read full article

Saturday:

9:28 P.M. At least 45 people were killed in bombings in Baghdad and its rural outskirts on Saturday as the government continued to defend the capital against jihadists who four months ago seized major cities in northern Iraq.

Islamic State (fighters, who took control of large sections of Iraq this year, regularly target Shi'ite districts in Baghdad and are penetrating surrounding farmland where Iraqi security forces and Shi'ite militias try to push them back. In west Baghdad, 34 people were killed by three car bombs in Shi'ite neighbourhoods on Saturday evening, police and medical officials said.

A suicide bomber blew up his vehicle up at a traffic roundabout in Kadhimiya, killing 11 people, three of them police officers, officials said. Another 27 were wounded.

In the Shaoula neighborhood, two bombs were detonated on the same street just 30 minutes apart. In the first attack, a bomb in a parked car exploded outside an ice cream shop, killing eight and wounding 18 people. In the second blast, 600 meters down the same shop-lined street, a militant detonated his car, killing 15 people and wounding 44 others, police and medical officials said. (Reuters)

Middle East Updates / Bomb explosion kills police chief of Iraq's Anbar province - Middle East Updates Israel News | Haaretz

 

[Alienoz_TR]

Triple suicide bombing in Iraq kills 26 Kurds

BAGHDAD (AP) — A triple suicide bombing killed 26 Kurdish security forces northeast of Baghdad on Sunday and a roadside bomb killed the police chief of the western Anbar province, dealing major blows to Iraqi security forces struggling to combat the Islamic State extremist group.

The triple attack took place in Qara Tappah, in the ethnically and communally mixed Diyala province, according to an official from the Kurdish Asayish security forces. He said the first bomber detonated an explosives vest at the gateway to a security compound that also houses the office of a main Kurdish political party. Minutes later, two suicide bombers plowed cars filled with explosives into the compound, causing heavy damage. At least 60 people were wounded in the attack.

Hours later, the Islamic State extremist group claimed responsibility, saying it was carried out by three non-Iraqi jihadists. The authenticity of the online statement could not be independently verified, but it was posted on a Twitter account frequently used by the militant group.

The group has seized some towns in the volatile Diyala province and has clashed with Kurdish forces there.

Hospital officials confirmed the casualties. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

In the Anbar attack, Brig. Gen. Ahmed al-Dulaimi was killed while traveling in a convoy north of the provincial capital Ramadi through an area cleared by Iraqi security forces a day earlier, according to Anbar councilman Faleh al-Issawi. It was not immediately clear if others were killed or wounded.

The Islamic State group and allied Sunni militants seized the Anbar city of Fallujah, parts of Ramadi and large rural areas of Anbar early this year. The loss of Fallujah -- where American troops engaged in some of the heaviest fighting of the eight-year U.S. intervention in the country -- foreshadowed the later loss of second city Mosul and much of the north.

Iraq's Interior Ministry confirmed al-Dulaimi's death, calling him a "hero who set a good example for self-sacrifice." It praised his role in reorganizing the provincial police force and leading major fighting that caused heavy casualties among the militants.

The attack in Anbar followed a bloody day in the capital Baghdad, where a series of car bomb attacks killed at least 45 people in Shiite-majority areas.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attacks, but officials in the Shiite-led government and Shiite neighborhoods are frequently targeted by Sunni insurgents.

Triple suicide bombing in Iraq kills 26 Kurds

 

[Alienoz_TR]

Haditha is now under siege by IS militants.

Baghdad (CNN) -- ISIS fighters stand on the verge of victory on two fronts, and poorly equipped local forces do their best to resist.

The Islamist extremists appear set to take a key Syrian town along the Turkish border and an entire province on Baghdad's doorstep.

Leaders in Iraq's Anbar province pleaded for U.S. ground troops to halt the group's rapid, relentless assault. Officials in Baghdad and Washington have not given recognition to their appeal.

ISIS, the self-proclaimed "Islamic State" which also is referred to as ISIL, controls about 80% of the province, said Anbar Provincial Council president Sabah Al-Karhout.

Reports Saturday suggest the militants have encircled Haditha, the last large town in Anbar province not yet in ISIS' hands.

Should all of Anbar fall, the Sunni extremists would rule from the perimeter of Iraq's capital to Raqqa in Syria (at least), according to the provincial council's deputy head, Falleh al-Issawi.

They would control a swath 350 miles long.

'U.S. will not deploy'

Iraqi army forces and Anbar tribesmen fighting alongside them have threatened to abandon their weapons if the U.S. military does not intervene, al-Issawi said.

The army soldiers lack training and equipment, he said. Already, some 1,800 tribesmen in the province have been killed or injured in the struggle.

But the Iraqi government has been adamant that it does not want U.S. forces on the ground, and U.S. President Barack Obama has not shown any intent to deploy any.

The Iraqi government said it has not received any official request from Anbar province for U.S. ground forces to help in the fight, Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi's media office said.

A U.S. defense official said Saturday that Iraq's government hasn't asked for any more American troops beyond those already in Iraq.

And if they did, the official added, "The U.S. will not deploy combat ground forces to Iraq. And we remain focused on enabling the (Iraqi military) in the fight against ISIL through our advise/assist efforts and the air campaign."

Iraq's Anbar province: Send U.S. troops to stop ISIS - CNN.com

 

[Alienoz_TR]

Iraqi soldier firing a M249 SAW, then gets shot in the chest. I couldnt count the cartridges he fired. Wonder if he shot anything?!

 

[Oublious]

he wasted more then 1000 bullets without aiming..

 

[al-Hasani]

Iraqi soldier firing a M249 SAW, then gets shot in the chest. I couldnt count the cartridges he fired. Wonder if he shot anything?!

When you fight for a failed regime, a country that is falling apart and has been a failure for the past 35 years (unfortunately) and moreover fight in areas where you are largely unwelcome by the locals your morale can be quit low. Add to that retards in the military, a failed political system and no to poor training.

"Ya Ali" chants are not going to make the difference or Iranian sponsored Shia militias.

Thankfully the Iraqi government can count on the international community in terms of military support, financial support, sale of weapons etc. Otherwise I don't know what could have happened.

 

[Ceylal]

Decadence of the Arabs...celebration of a death of an infant...

those who value life, saved this life and she become the beacon of hope for the muslim young generation..