Iraq's war against IS terrorism | Updates and Discussions

[TheCamelGuy]

Syria

https://twitter.com/x/status/928582268263763968

 

[Hindustani78]

http://www.arabnews.com/node/1191631/middle-east

Al-Qaim: The US-led coalition’s newest outpost in the fight against Daesh is in a dusty corner of western Iraq near the border with Syria. Here, several hundred American Marines operate close to the battlefront, a key factor in the recent series of swift victories against the extremists.

The Americans directed Iraqi troops in their victory last week recapturing the nearby border town of Al-Qaim, the militants’ last urban holding. Now the Marines will lead the equally difficult task of clearing the extremists from their last redoubt: A large stretch of empty desert north of the Euphrates River adjoining the border with Syria.
They also face the possibility of friction with Iranian-backed Iraqi militias that are increasing their own presence in the border region.

Under a plastic tent, the Marines run an austere joint command center about 20 km from the border. A dozen monitors relay surveillance footage and troop positions in the town of Al-Qaim nearby. Using racks of radio and satellite equipment, the coalition forces and Iraqi officers at the base pass information between forces on the ground and Al-Asad Air Base, the coalition’s main base in Anbar province some 130 km to the east.

Such outposts have become more common the past year, bringing the Americans out of main bases and closer to the action. US commanders say the tactic has paid off in the swift rollback of Daesh.

The capture of Al-Qaim completed the sweep driving Daesh from major towns along the Euphrates Valley in Iraq. Along the river on the Syrian side, Syrian regime forces took the city of Deir Ezzor last week.

All that remains from the so-called “caliphate” that once stretched from northwest Syria to the edges of Baghdad are a small stretch of villages on the Euphrates in Syria and the enclave of desert straddling the border into both Syria and Iraq.

US Marines Col. Seth W. B. Folsom, commander of Task Force Lion, oversaw the Al-Qaim fight and said he expects clearing and holding the retaken territory in Anbar to be more difficult than the assault itself.

“It’s much more challenging, no doubt in my mind it’s more challenging,” he said. Motivating troops to attack to regain their country is easy, he said. “What’s less easy to motivate men to do, is to stand duty at checkpoints.”
Much of Anbar and Iraq’s border with Syria has been beyond central control for decades. The deserts there have served as havens for smugglers for generations.

Iraqi forces are stretched thin. Many are deployed in support of local police in liberated towns and cities and along major roadways. Others have been diverted to the borders of the Kurdish region amid the military standoff between Baghdad and Kurdish forces.

Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) have also built up their presence along Iraq’s border with Syria.

They make no attempt to hide that they are working to physically extend the influence of US rival Iran. Jaafar Al-Husseini, a spokesman for the Hezbollah Brigades, a group under the PMF, boasted during the Al-Qaim fighting that the forces are securing a route from “Iran to Beirut.”

“We have foiled the American project in Iraq and on the Syrian borders, and we have succeeded in securing the road that links Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon,” he told The Associated Press.

Coalition forces do not directly coordinate with the PMU, but rely on the Iraqi military to relay their movements to avoid striking the fighters.

US Marines Maj. Greg Duesterhaus said the PMU presence complicates things but is not a great concern. “They are part of the forces that are out there on the battlefield,” he said.

The growing numbers of coalition troops are stretching the capacity of Anbar’s bases. Notices warning of water shortages hang in bathrooms and showers at Al-Asad. At Al-Qaim, Marines ration water.

“Anbar is the far reaches of Iraq,” said Col. Folsom. “The challenge that we’ve got here that they have not had as much up in the north is really just the tyranny of distance.”

Daily convoys leave from Al-Asad to the Al-Qaim outpost carrying water, food, ammunition and building supplies. They travel along desert roads for a tedious seven-hour journey. Storms whip up powder-fine sand, reducing visibility and halting traffic for hours. Lack of Iraqi military escorts sometimes leaves convoys stuck for hours.

Without electricity, cell phone service or the Internet, Marines at the Al-Qaim outpost pass the evening hours smoking cigarettes and talking.

Sitting between an armored vehicle and the rubble of a partially collapsed building, a group of Marines and soldiers joked about camp conditions and the monotony of their field rations. They also reflected on their mission in Iraq with a mix of sobriety and cynical humor.

They may feel a sense of accomplishment in the gains against Daesh — “but it’s not a sense of finality,” one Marine staff sergeant said. He served in Anbar in 2007, unlike most of his comrades, who are on their first deployment to Iraq. He never thought he’d be back, but now believes there will be a US presence in Iraq for generations to come.
“When my son joins the Marines, he’ll probably be deployed to Iraq,” he said with a laugh. He spoke on condition that he only be identified by his rank in line with regulations.

Col. Folsom said he hoped within the next year Iraqi forces would be able to hold the western edge of Anbar on their own and coalition forces can fall back to Al-Asad air base.

“We have to find some sort of sustainable presence,” he said. “What that will look like, I don’t know. There may still be some commuting to work in one way or another.”

http://www.arabnews.com/node/1191671/middle-east

BEIRUT: Daesh terrorists conducted a blistering counterattack on Albu Kamal in eastern Syria Friday in a desperate bid to cling to the last urban bastion of their imploding “caliphate.”

The terrorists punched back into the town they had lost a day earlier and swiftly retook several northern neighborhoods, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

“IS (Daesh) started counterattacking on Thursday night and retook more than 40 percent of the town of Albu Kamal,” Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Britain-based Observatory, told AFP.

Albu Kamal was the last significant town to have been under full Daesh control and lies at the heart of what used to be the sprawling “caliphate” the group declared in 2014 over swathes of Iraq and Syria.

“The terrorists went back in and retook several neighborhoods in the north, northeast and northwest,” Abdel Rahman said. “IS is trying to defend its last bastion.”

The terror group has in the space of a few weeks seen its caliphate shrink to a small rump and lost major cities such as Mosul, Raqqa and Deir Ezzor.

The observatory said most of the fighting was done by the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and elite forces from its backer Tehran, as well as militia groups from Iraq.

Losing the town, where IS leaders used to meet and were once considered untouchable, would cap a process which has seen the group relinquish any ambition as a land-holding force and return to the desert to fight a clandestine guerrilla war.

Many of the group’s top leaders have been killed as Syrian and Iraqi forces with backing from Russia, Iran and a US-led coalition rolled back the territorial losses that saw the terrorists declare a “caliphate” roughly the size of Britain in 2014.

But the whereabouts of the first among them, self-proclaimed “caliph” Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, remains unclear. He has been reported killed or wounded many times but Daesh has never offered any confirmation.

In Deir Ezzor province, which used to be the heartland of their proto-state, the group’s remaining fighters only control about 30 percent of territory, most of it desert.

On the other bank of the Euphrates, coming from the north, the Kurdish-led US-backed forces that retook the Daesh “capital” of Raqqa last month were also advancing on Daesh positions.

According to the observatory, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) retook four villages from Daesh there on Friday.
Observers have predicted the regime may seek to retake towns and cities wrested from Daesh by the SDF, such as Raqqa which the terrorists had used as their main Syrian hub.

 

[Hindustani78]

http://www.hindustantimes.com/world...und-in-iraq/story-oNdo5W4kQux5ODfjY0gMNP.html

The graves uncovered as government troops have advanced across Iraq overtaking Islamic State territories.
Updated: Nov 12, 2017 00:02 IST
Agence France-Presse, Hawija, Iraq

Iraqi forces search the site of a suspected mass grave containing the remains of victims of the Islamic State group, near the former al bakara military base, south west of Hawija on November 11.(AFP Photo)

Mass graves containing at least 400 suspected Islamic State group victims have been found near the former jihadist bastion of Hawija in northern Iraq, the regional governor said Saturday.

The string of grisly discoveries was made at a military base around three kilometres (two miles) from the city that the jihadists “turned into an execution ground”, Kirkuk governor Rakan Said said.

“Not less than 400 people were executed,” he said, adding that some were clad in the uniform of prisoners condemned to death while others wore civilian clothing.

IS was forced out of Hawija -- 240 kilometres north of Baghdad -- by Iraqi forces in October in a sweeping offensive that has seen the group lose the vast bulk of territory it seized in 2014.

As government troops have advanced across Iraq they have uncovered dozens of mass graves holding hundreds of bodies in areas that fell under the jihadists’ brutal rule.

The burial pits near Hawija were discovered “thanks to witness accounts from local residents” given to the Iraqi military, General Mortada al-Luwaibi said.

Saad Abbas, a farmer from the area, told AFP that during the three years of IS control the group’s fighters could be seen “driving around in cars with their prisoners”.

“They would shoot them and then throw them to the ground or burn their bodies,” Abbas said.

 

[Hindustani78]

The prime minister stressed that Turkey’s Red Crescent has already mobilized its aid convoy to northern Iraq.

A military cargo plane carrying aid and a search-and-rescue team left Ankara and landed at Sulaymaniyah International Airport in northern Iraq early on Nov. 13 to help earthquake victims in the region.

The Airbus A400M Atlas aircraft took off from Etimesgut air base at 9.24 a.m. local time (0624GMT) carrying a 20-strong search team and another medical team of 10 from the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), two vehicles, 60 tents, 320 blankets and medical supplies.

Another 10-strong search-and-rescue team was dispatched by road, AFAD President Mehmet Güllüoğlu added in a statement.

Turkey’s aid efforts are being coordinated with the central government in Baghdad and the Iraqi Red Crescent.

According to AFAD’s Twitter account 5,000 tents, 7,000 blankets, 92 personnel and 11 vehicles were dispatched to northern Iraq immediately after the earthquake.

Deputy Prime Minister Recep Akdağ told broadcaster 24 TV that a paramedic team and rescue teams would be dispatched to the disaster area “by a military cargo plane in a few hours.”

Another team is en route from the Silopi district of Turkey’s Şırnak province to take tents to the area, Akdağ added.

 

[Hindustani78]

http://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/48-terrorists-killed-13-villages-taken-in-iraqs-anbar/966500

At least 48 Daesh terrorists were killed in military operations conducted over the past three days in Iraq’s western Anbar province, the Iraqi Defense Ministry announced Wednesday.

"Liberation operations carried out in western Anbar over the past three days have left 48 terrorists dead and six car bombs dismantled,” the statement read.

It went on to note that the same operations had seen the recapture of 13 villages in Anbar province located north of the Euphrates River.

The ministry added that military operations would remain underway until the “total liberation” of Anbar’s Rawa district on the border with Syria.

The operations are part of a wider army campaign launched on Oct. 26 with the aim of recapturing Anbar’s Rawa and Al-Qaim districts, which had been considered Daesh’s last strongholds in western Iraq.

Last month, Al-Qaim became the last Iraq-Syria border crossing still held by Daesh after Iraqi forces retook the Al-Walid and Rabia crossings, which are respectively located in Anbar and Nineveh province.

The notorious terrorist group has recently suffered a string of crushing defeats in both Iraq and Syria after overrunning vast swathes of territory in both countries in 2014.

 

[TheCamelGuy]

Abadi has stated that the ministry of defense is looking for a new type of fighter jet for purchase.
--

T-90 deliveries starting.

 

[Hindustani78]

http://aa.com.tr/en/turkey/2-turkish-soldiers-martyred-in-northern-iraq/967364

By Sinan Uslu

ANKARA

Two soldiers have been martyred and another soldier was wounded during a clash with PKK terrorists in northern Iraq, according to Turkish military Thursday.

Turkish General Staff said the clash took place in Avasin-Basyan region.

The PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the EU and U.S. -- has killed more than 1,200 Turkish security personnel and civilians since taking up arms again.

 

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

https://twitter.com/x/status/931455704946413568

 

[Alshawi1234]

Iraqi forces have liberated Rawah in Anbar province. The last city held by DAISH. There are remaining pockets in the uninhabited desert between iraq and Syria North of the Euphrates river. There are also some DAISH hideouts around Hawijah which need to be dealt with. They are the only known active cells left in Iraq and still pose a medium level security risk.

After liberating these areas, Iraqi forces will continue asserting control over all territory the kurds occupied after 2003 as well as open a corridor to Turkey.

 

[Irfan Baloch]

this is a picture of Iraqi soldiers. something seen in Pakistan army as well
it hurts the sectarian bigots but united we can defeat the taqfari terrorists

 

[Saif al-Arab]

Traitorous and brainwashed terrorist monkeys in action and ready to ruin yet another country with their backwardness.

https://twitter.com/x/status/933558771531558912

First the marriage law now this.

https://twitter.com/x/status/934854505056948225

https://twitter.com/x/status/898085292380475392

From fighting the enemies to being their cannon fodder. No cure for failure and braindead people (parents in this case).

The cancerous infestation will be too late to solve if it keeps being ignored.

 

[TheCamelGuy]

That's really sad, the Iranian regime is disgusting to its own people to start with. Especially when you are a female that is alone without family.

 

[raptor22]

That's really sad, the Iranian regime is disgusting to its own people to start with. Especially when you are a female that is alone without family.

????

 

[Saif al-Arab]

That's really sad, the Iranian regime is disgusting to its own people to start with. Especially when you are a female that is alone without family.

Luckily the marriage law proposal was withdrawn after much pressure. This is great news and gives some hope.

The other situation that I am talking about is very worrying though. Al-Abadi will have a hard time at combatting this cancer. It's so sad to see children being deprived of their childhood to join political/terrorist cults rather than studying and enjoying their childhood so they can prepare themselves to serve their country and people by becoming great chemical engineers, computer scientists, lawyers, businessmen etc.

Those monkeys (the people brainwashing them and forcing them) do not understand that the Iraqi army is more than enough and that the demographics will ensure that Iraq will not lack any people in the immediate future, rather the opposite.

The worst thing is that you have some Iraqis supporting this. You need to bash them in the skull with hardcore facts and rhetoric for them to change. Talking from my own experience dealing with such people in person and online in the diaspora and back home.

Unfortunately the infiltration on the ground is worse than I thought after hearing first-hand accounts from Diyala and Ninavah. This bonds bad for the future and I hope that Al-Abadi will do everything in his power to remove influential people who serve Al-Maliki's, Al-Amiris, Al-Muhandis etc. "great" vision.

Been saying this for 10 years or more (ever since I became interested in politics) but every single Arab country needs nationalists in power. As long as such people do not seek military domination against others and can be controlled, such people must be supported rather than the usual monkeys who have a tendency to destroy everything.

 

[Muhammed45]

That's really sad, the Iranian regime is disgusting to its own people to start with. Especially when you are a female that is alone without family.

Without PMU, your army stands as a joke. Take it friendly dude, PMU is the only force that can stop those ISIS/Qaeda vermin.

Iranians are non of your business, btw our Iraqi brothers will help us to liberate Quds.

Iranian spilled blood stabilized Iraq and it's holy sites, but it has a cost. The cost is Quds,