Iraq's war against IS terrorism | Updates and Discussions

[Falcon29]

seems like abadi used the opportunity to return PMF and Iraqi army to kerkuk

In your opinion, does PMF play better role in liberation operations or maintaining stability in post liberation regions? I believe PMF needs to have presence in volatile areas in Iraq, for years after successful operations, they seem to do better holding ground and maintaining stability than the IA, correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[OldTwilight]

In your opinion, does PMF play better role in liberation operations or maintaining stability in post liberation regions? I believe PMF needs to have presence in volatile areas in Iraq, for years after successful operations, they seem to do better holding ground and maintaining stability than the IA, correct me if I'm wrong.

if I don't mistake , PMF is Iraqi version of Bassij ( although they had Hashd al Shabi even in Iraq-Iran war ) ....
in Iran , member of Bassij are mostly from same area and stay in their own area and try to secure their own area/town/city/region ...

 

[f1000n]

In your opinion, does PMF play better role in liberation operations or maintaining stability in post liberation regions? I believe PMF needs to have presence in volatile areas in Iraq, for years after successful operations, they seem to do better holding ground and maintaining stability than the IA, correct me if I'm wrong.

When the army collapsed in 2014 both US and Iraqi officials were speaking of forming the national guard. The national guard would mean local forces become an official ISF force as in the past to guard their own territories. They first had to pass a bill for the forming of the national guard, this however became a political issue costing lots of time. Meanwhile the PMF was formed, today the PMF has forces from every background/region. The PMF took the role they intended for the national guard, they will as you said remain as a holding force along with the police forces. PMF has less centralized command, they don't need to request permission from so many commanders, they're more flexible. Recently the gov also recognized the PMF as an official ISF force.

It's still messy but that's something they'd have to work on after the big Mosul OP.

 

[Hindustani78]

http://zeenews.india.com/news/world...two-civilians-hundreds-fall-sick_1942515.html

Qayyarah (Iraq): Toxic fumes released when jihadists torched a sulphur plant near Mosul have killed two Iraqi civilians, made many ill and forced US troops at a nearby base to wear masks.


Qayyarah hospital has checked at least 500 people complaining of breathing problems over the past two days but officials announced Saturday that the fire had been extinguished.

"Daesh blew up the sulphur plant two days ago and that has led to the deaths of two people among the civilians in nearby villages," Iraqi General Qusay Hamid Kadhem told AFP, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group (IS).

The senior officer of the interior ministry`s elite rapid response force said "many others were injured as a result of the toxic smoke."

According to security and health sources in the area, where tens of thousands of Iraqi forces are involved in a massive offensive to wrest Mosul back from IS, the group torched at least part of the Mishraq sulphur factory on Wednesday.

The blast released toxic fumes that were seen and felt by residents in the area and, early on Saturday, by forces and reporters around Qayyarah, one of the main staging bases of the anti-IS operation south of Mosul.

On Saturday morning, a haze of white smoke covered the Qayyarah base, making anything more than a few hundred metres away difficult to see.

It made people present in the area cough and their eyes water.

On the road north from Qayyarah, a huge column of white smoke marked the site of the sulphur factory fire, while black smoke rose from burning oil wells set alight by IS.

At the rudimentary health centre in Qayyarah, Doctor Khairi Awad said around 500 cases of people of all ages complaining of breathing problems had been recorded.

"They were treated with oxygen and eight cases were transferred to Makhmur hospital because we don`t have the capabilities to handle more serious cases," he told AFP by phone.

General Kadhem admitted that the toxic fumes were also having an impact on military operations: "Of course, this is affecting our planned progress."A US official in Baghdad told reporters that American forces stationed at the main staging base of Qayyarah, south of Mosul, had taken out their gas masks as a precaution.

"There is a sulphur plant near Q-West," the military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

IS militants "found a storage pile of sulphur" and set it on fire, he said. "This caused a very large smoke plume."

The official explained that the wind had recently turned and started blowing the toxic cloud towards Qayyarah.

"There are people who have chosen to wear their protective gear," he said, playing down the risk and stressing that only basic protective equipment was being used.

"Nobody is hurt at this point," he added, referring to US personnel on the base.

"As a precaution, coalition personnel at sites affected by the smoke have been directed to limit their activity outdoors," a coalition statement said later Saturday.

"The enemy has used chemical weapons in the past, and we`re going to make sure we are taking every measure to mitigate the risk to our forces," said Major General Gary J. Volesky, commander of the coalition`s land component.

"Force protection is my number one priority here," he said in a separate statement, which also announced that 24,000 protective chemical masks had been distributed to Iraqi forces during training in preparation for the Mosul offensive.

US officials said samples were sent to a lab to determine "what, if any, concerns may result from this incident."

The sulphur release was believed to have been much smaller than that caused at the same plant in June 2003.

 

[Hindustani78]

Iraqi forces gather during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq, on October 21, 2016. (REUTERS)

 

[Hindustani78]

 

[50cent]

Syrian teroist friend in Iraq caught dressing as women trying to escape bad luck

 

[Major d1]

Masul for US and alleppo for russia. Citizens are in middle for die.

 

[Hindustani78]

A Kurdish peshmerga fighter aims to fire during an operation to attack ISIS militants in the town of Naweran, near Mosul, October 23, 2016. (Reuters)


Sunday, 23 October 2016


Kurdish fighters said they had taken the town of Bashiqa near Mosul from ISIS on Sunday as coalition forces pressed their offensive against the militants’ last stronghold in Iraq.

A US official said Masoud Barzani, President of the Iraqi Kurdish Region, had informed US Defense Secretary Ash Carter that the Kurds had succeeded in liberating Bashiqa from ISIS.

Kurdish peshmerga fighters told reporters at the scene they had entered Bashiqa, but journalists were not being allowed into the town.

As the Pentagon chief went into talks with Barzani, US officials said Kurdish peshmerga forces had almost reached their goals in the week-old offensive.

The battle plan is for the peshmerga forces to stop along a line at an average of 20 kilometers (12 miles) outside of the city of Mosul, ISIS’s last major stronghold in Iraq.

“They are pretty much there,” a US military official said Saturday when Carter was holding meetings in Baghdad.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/fo...iraq.aspx?pageID=238&nID=105266&NewsCatID=352

Four militants with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Iraq’s Dohuk district were “neutralized” on Oct. 23 during an operation with an armed drone, according to the Turkish military, state-run Anadolu Agency has reported.

Another operation with an armed drone was conducted near Chale Mountain in the same region.

The Turkish army uses the term “neutralized” to denote PKK militants that have been killed or incapacitated in battle.

October/23/2016

 

[f1000n]

Rutba attack was repelled, several IS captured. (According to a video and army source). This town should have a trench dug on its front line

 

[Aramagedon]

ISIS executes at least 284 area villagers in Mosul as Iraqi forces close in to take city

DENIS SLATTERY OCT 21, 2016 4:19 PM
The bloody battle for Mosul took a deadly turn Friday as cowardly jihadists executed at least 284 innocent people.

ISIS militants rounded up men and boys from villages near the northern Iraqi city and shot them before dumping their corpses in a mass grave using a bulldozer, CNN reported, citing an Iraqi intelligence source.

The barbaric move followed a dire and eerily prescient warning from the United Nations about the lengths that the militant group would go to as Iraqi forces close in on the ISIS stronghold.

Earlier in the week, Islamic radicals abducted 550 families and moved them to strategic locations in the city, said Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The terrorist tactic — intended to deter air strikes — came as the extremist fighters offered deadly resistance, unleashing a wave of snipers, suicide bombers, and a trail of hidden explosives as Iraqi forces made their way toward the city.

“We know (ISIS) has no regard for human life, which is why it is incumbent upon the Iraqi government to do its utmost to protect civilians,” Zeid said.

The UN had “verified information” that ISIS forced residents from the nearby villages of Samalia and Najafia into Mosul earlier in the week, part of an “apparent policy of preventing civilians from escaping to areas controlled by Iraqi security forces.”

A member of the Iraqi Kurdish forces receives treatment after being injured during clashes with jihadist gunmen in the southern suburbs of Kirkuk.IMAGE BY: MARWAN IBRAHIM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
On top of the disturbing number of dead reported Friday, Zeid said his office was also investigating reports that the group had killed at least 40 civilians for suspected disloyalty.

“There is a grave danger that ISIL fighters will not only use such vulnerable people as human shields but may opt to kill them rather than see them liberated,” he said, using an alternate name for the sadistic group.

Other terror groups have used innocent civilians as human shields. Israeli officials have said for years that Hamas used the tactic, waging war from crowded apartments and hospitals.

Gunfire erupted and more than a dozen cars strapped with explosives were set off before a cautious calm enveloped the historically Christian town.

As the smoke cleared and fighting subsided, the peal of church bells replaced the cacophony of bullets and the clamor of mortars.

Smoke billows from an area near the Iraqi town of Nawaran, just northeast of Mosul, as Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters march down a dirt road Thursday.IMAGE BY: SAFIN HAMED/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
“Bartella is now safe and secured. It is under our complete control,” said Major Gen. Maan Saadi, the head of Iraqi special forces.

The stone sanctuary of Saint Matthew’s Syriac Orthodox Church, where militants had removed crosses and defaced statues, was cluttered with remnants of an ISIS training facility.

Unused rockets stood in the adjoining cemetery, resting on the gravestones. More than 80 militants were killed in the battle, Saadi added.

About 3,900 people have fled Mosul and the nearbyu Hamdaniyah district over the past five days.IMAGE BY: CARL COURT/GETTY IMAGES
It was not clear how many casualties were suffered by the Iraqi forces.

A day earlier, tragedy struck as a sailor with the U.S. Navy, 34-year-old Jason Finan, was killedwhen the armored car he was riding in struck a roadside bomb, officials said.

The California native was one of roughly 100 U.S. service members assisting in the operation.

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters stand as the ambulance drives by during fighting with Islamic State militants outside the town of Naweran near Mosul.IMAGE BY: ZOHRA BENSEMRA/REUTERS
In an effort to divert attention from their losses near Mosul, ISIS militants launched a bloody wave of predawn attacks on the city of Kirkuk, killing at least 14 people.

Explosions rocked the Kurdish-controlled town, about 100 miles from Mosul, as smoke was seen billowing from the provincial headquarters.

The long-awaited offensive to reclaim Mosul was launched Monday, more than two years after jihadists seized the territory, along with much of northern Iraq.

A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter looks over as he stands on the top of the humvee in front of an Islamic State militants' position.IMAGE BY: ZOHRA BENSEMRA/REUTERS
About 30,000 Iraqi security forces and Kurdish peshmerga fighters, assisted by U.S.-led coalition warplanes and military advisors, are taking part in the liberation effort. Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi said the initial stages of the operation were moving quickly, but that could change.

“I believe it will be more clear within the coming weeks ... how quickly this war will end,” al-Abadi said. “If they (ISIS) decide to defend the actual city then the process will slow down.”

The country’s top Shiite cleric called on soldiers taking part in the offensive to protect civilians, and asked residents of Mosul, a mainly Sunni city, to cooperate with security forces.

“We stress today upon our beloved fighters, as we have before on many occasions, that they exercise the greatest degree of restraint in dealing with civilians stuck in the areas where there is fighting,” the reclusive Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said in a Friday sermon read by an aide.

“Protect them and prevent any harm to them by all possible means.”

Some 3,900 people, or about 650 families, have fled Mosul and the nearby Hamdaniyah district over the past five days, according to Adrian Edwards of the UN refugee agency.

As the battle for territory continues, the UN has warned as many as 200,000 people could be displaced in the first two weeks of the conflict. Camps are being built in preparation for the flood of people leaving the city.

 

[Major d1]

Two sides sticks. US for masul and russia is for allippo. both are killing civilians.

 

[Hindustani78]

By Saif Hameed and Babak Dehghanpisheh | ERBIL

Kurdish fighters said they had taken the town of Bashiqa near Mosul from Islamic State on Sunday as coalition forces pressed their offensive against the jihadists' last stronghold in Iraq.

Masoud Barzani, President of the Iraqi Kurdish region, told U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter that the Kurds had succeeded in liberating Bashiqa from Islamic State.

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters told reporters at the scene that they had entered Bashiqa. Journalists were not being allowed into the town, which lies 12 km (8 miles) northeast of Mosul.

The offensive to take Mosul, by Iraqi and Kurdish forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition, is expected to become the biggest battle in the country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

The capture of Bashiqa, if confirmed, would mark the removal of one more obstacle on the road to the northern city.

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, said his own information - while limited - "suggests that President Barzani is right, that there has been a considerable success at Bashiqa".

But he added: "I have not received a report that says every house has been cleared, every Daesh (Islamic State fighter) has been killed and every IED (roadside bomb) has been removed."

Townsend told journalists that Bashiqa was one of the villages outside Mosul that Islamic State had emptied of civilians and fortified over the past two years.

Reuters television footage from Nawran, a town near Bashiqa, showed Kurdish fighters using a heavy mortar, a machine gun and small arms as smoke rose over the area.

As Peshmerga forces moved though the area, armored vehicles moved along a road and a helicopter flew overhead.

The Peshmerga are also using tanks, rocket launchers and snipers. A Reuters photographer saw the fighters destroy at least three suicide car bombs dispatched against their forces.

Turkish artillery is supporting the Peshmerga, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim was quoted as saying by CNN Turk and other media outlets.

An Iraqi army soldier stands atop of an armoured vehicle as a smoke from a nearby sulfur plant set alight by Islamic State militants rises behind, on the outskirts of Qayyara, south of Mosul, Iraq, October 23, 2016. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

A member of Iraqi forces operates an unmanned drone to make it fly over Islamic State position outside the town of Safayah near Mosul, Iraq October 23, 2016.

REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

A Kurdish peshmerga fighter shoots during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in the town of Naweran, near Mosul, October 23, 2016. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari

Peshmerga forces prepare to launch a mortar during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in the town of Naweran near Mosul, October 23, 2016. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari

"The Peshmerga have mobilized to cleanse the Bashiqa region from Daesh. They asked for help from our soldiers at the Bashiqa base. So we are helping the tanks with our artillery there," CNN Turk quoted him as saying.

Turkey has troops at a base in the area where it has been helping to train Iraqi Kurdish fighters. The artillery support could further strain relations between Ankara and the Baghdad central government, coming a day after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declined an offer from Turkey to take part in the Mosul campaign.


Peshmerga spokesman Brigadier General Halgord Hekmet told reporters that 25 Kurdish forces had been killed so far.

"There (are) a lot of wounded," Hekmet said, speaking through a translator. He spoke positively about air support his forces were receiving from the coalition but said more military assistance was needed, starting with armored vehicles and equipment to detect roadside bombs.

"Most of our Peshmerga got killed because they were riding in regular cars, not armored," Hekmet said.

 

[United]

IRAQ with Saddam Hussein​

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IRAQ without Saddam Hussein

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[Serpentine]

IRAQ with Saddam Hussein​

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IRAQ without Saddam Hussein

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I hope you are understanding that no one is buying the bullcrap that is supposed to be conveyed with these pictures. It's too ironic that the same terrorists who have done this to Iraq post-Saddam (ISIS and Co) idolize Saddam. When Saddam was sent to hell, his minions began widespread terror Iraq (in form of ISIS and AQ) because they couldn't afford to simply see themselves not ruling Iraq anymore. Iraq is facing the same terror it faced under Saddam, same people, same ideology, different names.

The maniac was captured in a rat hole and hanged, whitewashing his atrocities won't work.