Iraq's war against IS terrorism | Updates and Discussions

[Hindustani78]

The Pentagon said the service member died from wounds sustained in an "explosive device blast," stating further information would be released as appropriate.

By: AP | Baghdad | Published:April 30, 2017 8:15 am

Federal police members carry their weapons during a battle with Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq. (Source: Reuters)
http://indianexpress.com/article/world/blast-kills-us-service-member-outside-mosul-pentagon-4633894/

A US service member in Iraq was killed Saturday by an explosive device outside Mosul, according to a statement released by the Pentagon. The Pentagon said the service member died from wounds sustained in an “explosive device blast,” stating further information would be released as appropriate.

Saturday’s incident marks the second American military fatality since the start of the Mosul operation against the Islamic State group more than six months ago. In October, just days after the operation to retake Mosul was formally launched, Navy chief petty officer Jason C. Finan, 34, of Anaheim, California died of wounds sustained in a roadside bomb attack north of Mosul.

Finan was part of a team of advisers assisting Iraq’s Kurdish fighters known as the Peshmerga. The Pentagon has acknowledged more than 100 US special operations forces are operating with Iraqi units in and around Mosul, with hundreds more playing a support role in staging bases farther from the front lines.

The service member killed Saturday is the fifth combat death in Iraq since the US launched military operations against IS in August 2014. IS fighters began growing in power in Iraq in early 2014 in the country’s west and in the summer of 2014 swept across much of the country’s north.

Since the beginning of the US campaign against IS in Iraq, the number of US troops in the country has steadily grown. There are now more US forces in Iraq than any time since the 2011 US withdrawal, marking an intensifying war as Iraqi forces and the US-led coalition work to push IS out of the last pockets of territory the extremists control in Iraq.

 

[Malik Alashter]

PMU fighters trolling an isis captured one by singing takfiree song.

 

[TheCamelGuy]

ISOF Mosul operation cmdr; Lt.Gen Abdul Wahab Al-Saadi looking through the sniper rifle at the enemy in Mosul city center

 

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https://twitter.com/x/status/860954277644312576

 

[Muhammed45]

Iraqi sniper, the operation of liberating Mosul

@TheCamelGuy @Malik Alashter

 

[Hindustani78]

US Army 1st Lt. Weston Lee 25, died in Mosul Iraq on April 29 2017

 

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https://www.almasdarnews.com/articl...in-iraqi-army-liberates-another-suburb-mosul/

 

[Hindustani78]

http://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/bomb-blast-kills-2-policemen-in-western-iraq/813672

Two policemen were killed in a bomb explosion Monday in Iraq’s western Anbar province, according to a local police officer.

A bomb disposal team was dismantling explosive devices in southern Ramadi when the bomb exploded, police captain Ahmed al-Duleimi told Anadolu Agency.

Daesh has planted thousands of explosives in Ramadi, which the terrorist group overran in 2014 before being forced out from the area.

Iraqi forces, backed by U.S.-led coalition warplanes, are currently engaged in a massive offensive to oust the terrorist group from Mosul, Iraq’s once second largest city in terms of population.

 

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[Hindustani78]

Five people were killed in fresh Daesh attacks in western Mosul on Tuesday, according to a local police officer.

Daesh militants attacked sites of the Iraqi federal police in Mosul’s Old City, killing a policeman and injuring four others, captain Ahmed al-Mosawi told Anadolu Agency.

He said eight militants were killed in ensuing clashes with police forces.

Three members of the pro-government Hashd al-Shaabi militia were also killed in a Daesh attack on their position in the city’s western side.

“Six militiamen were injured in the assault,” al-Mosawi said.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi civilian was killed and three others were injured by Daesh militants as they attempted to flee Daesh-held areas in western Mosul.

Iraqi forces, backed by U.S.-led coalition warplanes, are currently engaged in a massive offensive to oust the terrorist group from Mosul, Iraq’s once second largest city in terms of population.

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Daesh terrorist group has executed 40 prisoners in Iraq’s northern Kirkuk province, an Iraqi police officer said Tuesday.

“They were executed on charges of fleeing the battlefield during the fight against security forces,” police captain Hamed al-Obeidi told Anadolu Agency.

The Iraqi officer said Daesh, fearing revolts, was trying to empty prisons in Hawija district in western Kirkuk province.

Daesh still controls a large area in southwestern Kirkuk from which it launches attacks against security forces in Kirkuk and Diyala provinces.

Iraqi forces, backed by U.S.-led coalition warplanes, are currently engaged in a massive offensive to oust the terrorist group from Mosul, Iraq’s once second largest city in terms of population.

Reporting by Hussein al-Amir;Writing by Mahmoud Barakat

 

[Hindustani78]

http://saudigazette.com.sa/world/mena/daesh-attacks-kill-two-iraqi-base-us-advisers-stationed/
KIRKUK, Iraq – At least two people were killed and six injured when multiple Daesh (the so-called IS) suicide bombers attacked a base in northern Iraq where US military advisers are stationed, security sources said on Sunday. In addition, two of the militants died when they detonated their vests at the entrance to the K1 base overnight, and three more were killed by Kurdish peshmerga forces who control the Kirkuk area where it is situated.

“They were wearing uniforms like the Kurdish peshmerga and had shaved their beards to look like us,” one officer told Reuters.

Daesh (the so-called IS) claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement, saying it had killed and wounded dozens of “crusaders and apostates”, referring to the peshmerga and Western military advisers. Iraqi forces backed by a US-led coalition are fighting to dislodge Daesh from Mosul, 140 km northwest of Kirkuk, but large pockets of territory remain under militant control, including Hawija, which is near the targeted base. – Reuters

U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel James Browning (R), the partnered advisor to the Iraqi 9th Armoured Division and commander of Taskforce Fury, listens to Lieutenant General Qassem al-Maliki, commander of the Iraqi army’s Ninth Armoured Division at a military base southwest of Mosul. – Reuters

http://saudigazette.com.sa/world/mena/civilians-complicate-final-phase-mosul-campaign-us-commander/

SOUTHWEST OF MOSUL, Iraq – Daesh (the so-called IS) fighters herded a group of civilians into a house in the city of Mosul and locked them inside as Iraqi forces advanced. Moments later, the militants entered through a window, lay low for a few minutes, then fired their weapons. The plan was simple. They would draw attention to the house by firing from the windows, then move to an adjacent building through a hole in the wall, in hope of goading coalition jets flying above to strike the house. What the militants did not realize was that US advisers partnered with Iraqi troops were watching the whole thing on an aerial drone feed. No air strike was called – and the propaganda coup IS would have reaped from the deaths of innocent people was averted.

“We automatically knew what they were trying to do. They were trying to bait us into destroying this building,” said US Army Lieutenant Colonel James Browning. “This is the game that we play, this is the challenge that we go through every day.”

The challenge is only increasing as US-backed Iraqi forces squeeze the militants into a smaller and smaller area of Mosul, where they are now trapped along with several hundred thousand civilians.

“There is nowhere to go…. the battlefield is much more complicated with the amount of civilians that are moving,” Browning said.

The risks are high: more than 100 civilians were accidentally killed in a single airstrike by the US-led coalition in March. After opening up a new front in northwest Mosul last week in order to stretch the militants’ defenses, Iraqi forces say the battle for Mosul is now in its final phase. US servicemen are visible near the front lines advising the Iraqis as they advance into the last handful of districts controlled by IS, facing a barrage of suicide car bombs and sniper fire.

Browning, a battalion commander from the 82nd Airborne Division, is one of more than 5,000 US service members currently deployed in Iraq to “advise and assist” security forces that collapsed when IS overran Mosul nearly three summers ago. It is a much smaller footprint than the 170,000 troops deployed at the height of the nine-year occupation that followed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, during which more than 4,000 American soldiers were killed. Having extricated US troops from Iraq in 2011, the White House is loath to re-enter a costly conflict that would prove unpopular with the public. For Browning, who was deployed to Iraq in 2008, the nature of the US role is clearly different.

“Whereas before it was me leading fights and I would ask my Iraqi partners to come with me, now… he leads the fight and I follow him,” he said. “The biggest difference is that we are no longer in a combat role.”

Since the Mosul offensive began last October, the US role has evolved so that American forces are now partnered with Iraqi troops at a lower level, reducing the time it takes them to respond to IS. That means company commanders under Browning are also partnered with brigade commanders who report to his Iraqi opposite number, Lieutenant General Qassem Al-Maliki. They hold daily discussions on operations and determine what US forces can do to help, which may involve providing imagery, intelligence, air strikes, or ground fire. The Iraqis also provide human intelligence that the US forces will corroborate in order to identify targets and determine the best approach to attacking them. Browning lives on the same base as Maliki, commander of the Iraqi 9th division, making it easier to fine-tune battle plans.
“Everything I am trying to do is try to shape the battlefield for him”. – Reuters