WAR Iraq-IS War (30 March 2016) Obama to decide on increasing troop levels in Iraq soon

[Housecarl]

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http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/05/23/iraqi-forces-battle-is-militants-outside-fallujah.html

Middle East

Iraqi forces battle IS militants outside Fallujah

Published May 23, 2016 · Associated Press

BAGHDAD – Officials say government forces have pushed Islamic State militants from some agricultural areas outside the city of Fallujah at the start of a military offensive aimed at recapturing the city from the Islamic State group.

Police 1st Lt. Ahmed Mahdi Salih said Monday that the ground fighting is taking place around the town of Garma, east of Fallujah, which is considered the main supply line to the militants. IS holds the center of Garma and some areas on its outskirts.

Col. Mahmoud al-Mardhi, who is in charge of paramilitary forces, says his troops recaptured at least three agricultural areas outside Garma.

Backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes and paramilitary troops, Iraqi government forces launched the long-awaited military offensive on Fallujah late Sunday night.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-falluja-idUSKCN0YI1AD

World | Fri May 27, 2016 11:58am EDT
Related: World, United Nations

Final battle for IS-held Falluja will start in days: Shi'ite leader

BAGHDAD/GENEVA | By Saif Hameed and Stephanie Nebehay


The final battle to recapture Falluja, Islamic State's stronghold near Baghdad, will start in "days, not weeks", a Shi'ite militia leader said on Friday, as new reports emerged of people starving to death in the besieged Sunni city.

The first phase of the offensive that started on Monday is nearly finished, with the complete encirclement of the city that lies 50 km (32 miles) west of the Iraqi capital, said Hadi al-Amiri, leader of the Iranian-backed Badr Organization.

Amiri, in military fatigues, spoke to state-TV from the operations area with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi standing by his side, wearing the black uniform of Iraq's counter-terrorism force.

At the end of last year, Abadi said 2016 would be the year of the final victory over Islamic State, which declared a caliphate two years ago in territory it controls in Iraq and Syria.

Falluja is a bastion of the insurgency that fought the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the Shi'ite-led authorities that replaced Sunni leader Saddam Hussein. It was the first city captured by Islamic State in Iraq, in January 2014, and is the second-largest still held by the militants after Mosul, their de-facto capital.

Amiri said this week the Shi'ite paramilitary coalition known as Popular Mobilization would only take part in the encirclement operations, and would let the army storm Falluja. It would only enter the city if the army's attack failed.

The army has defused more than 250 explosive devices planted by the militants in roads and villages to delay the troops' advance, state TV said, citing military officers.


THOUSANDS TRAPPED

Amiri called on civilians to leave from a southwestern exit called the al-Salam (Peace) Junction. But the United Nations said on Friday about 50,000 civilians were being prevented by the hardline Sunni militants from escaping.

Those who did manage to flee the city reported some people were dying of starvation, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said. The Norwegian Refugee Council on Thursday reported similar accounts from displaced people interviewed at a camp near Falluja.

"Food has been in very short supply. We are hearing accounts that people are relying on expired rice and dried dates and that’s about it for their diet," UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told a news briefing in Geneva.

"They have to rely on unsafe water sources, including drainage water from the irrigation canals."

Another UNHCR spokeswoman, Ariane Rummery, later said about 825 families were able to leave the city hurriedly on Friday, with no belongings, and were taken to safety by minibus.

Between 500 and 700 IS militants are in Falluja, according to a U.S. military estimate. The death toll since the start of the military operation on Monday has reached about 50, including 30 civilians and 20 miliants, a source in the city's main hospital said.

Success in recapturing Falluja might help Abadi refocus the attention of Iraq's unruly political parties on the war on Islamic State, and defuse unrest prompted by delays in his planned reshuffle of the cabinet to help root out corruption.

But thousands of anti-corruption demonstrators gathered again on Friday in central Baghdad, prompting security forces to fire tear gas and rubber bullets as they tried to approach the heavily fortified Green Zone.

The demonstrators ignored Abadi's appeal on Thursday for an end to protests against his government while the armed forces are fighting to retake Falluja. "Holding demonstrations is a right, but that would put pressure on our forces," he said

A week ago, security forces fired live rounds at demonstrators who broke into the Green Zone, killing four and wounding more than 90, according to hospital sources.


(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli, Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

 

[Housecarl]

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Signs Point to Long Fight to Retake Fallujah from IS

Jeff Seldin
May 28, 2016 6:04 PM


WASHINGTON— For almost a week, thousands of Iraqi forces have been advancing on the Islamic State-held city of Fallujah, methodically moving to cut off as many as 1,000 IS fighters from help on the outside.

By Friday, backed by coalition airstrikes and artillery fire, Iraqi forces had cleared the town of Karma, about 16 kilometers northeast of the city.

But while admitting Fallujah is “largely isolated,” U.S. officials are trying to downplay expectations of a quick or decisive victory over IS.

“ISIL has entrenched itself in the city,” a U.S. intelligence official told VOA on the condition of anonymity, using an acronym for the terror group.

“Fallujah has been one of ISIL’s important footholds in Iraq,” the official added, calling it “the most forward position ISIL holds” and a threat to Baghdad.

http://gdb.voanews.com/71653315-E74C-4226-8FAC-5CAF5B754494_w640_s.png

No retreat - yet

And while IS fighters did retreat in the face of coalition-backed forces in Hit and in Rutbah, military officials say there have been few signs that IS leadership is willing to let fighters to flee and cede more ground.

“We haven’t seen much of that yet,” Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Col. Steve Warren said during a video briefing from Baghdad Friday.

“It’s still early,” he added. “The friendly forces are still a ways outside the city.”

U.S. officials also point out IS has gone to great lengths to brutally discourage its fighters from retreating.

In one example, Col. Warren cited Iraqi media reports claiming IS executed fighters who fled from Rutbah by putting them in bakery ovens and cooking them to death.

Warren also noted that although slower and more difficult, IS could find ways to reinforce Fallujah.

“It’s rare, almost impossible, to completely seal off a city,” he said. “It’s always possible for individuals to move in or out.”

And despite their weakened state, IS forces have also found ways to take coalition-backed forces by surprise, something Western officials say the terror group could do again.

In the most recent example, earlier this month, IS managed to mass dozens of IS fighters, truck bombs, a bulldozer and artillery undetected and punch through Kurdish Peshmerga lines in northern Iraq.

IS forces were ultimately repelled, losing as many as 80 fighters in the process, but not before briefly taking the towns of Telskuf and Musqelat, killing a U.S. Navy SEAL in the process.

-

Jeff Seldin

Jeff works out of VOA’s Washington headquarters and is national security correspondent. You can follow Jeff on Twitter at @jseldin or on Google Plus.


Related Articles

Families Fleeing Iraq’s Fallujah in ‘State of Shock’
IS Using Civilians as Human Shields in Fallujah
UN Fears for Fallujah Civilians as Iraq Begins Offensive

 

[Housecarl]

The video and pictures of the towed 152 mm gun battery at work raises some questions...are they re-commissioned guns from the Saddam era, if not, who supplied them and who's supplying the ammunition?....

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World | Mon May 30, 2016 10:37am EDT
Related: World, Iraq

Iraqi army storms to edge of Islamic State-held Falluja; fresh bombings hit Baghdad

SOUTHERN OUTSKIRTS OF FALLUJA, Iraq | By Maher Nazeh and Saif Hameed

Video
Gallery

The Iraqi army stormed to the southern edge of Falluja under U.S. air support on Monday and captured a police station inside the city limits, launching a direct assault to retake one of the main strongholds of Islamic State militants.

A Reuters TV crew about a mile (about 1.5 km) from the city's edge said explosions and gunfire were ripping through Naimiya, a largely rural district of Falluja on its southern outskirts.

An elite military unit, the Rapid Response Team, seized the district's police station at midday, state TV reported.

The unit advanced another mile northward, stopping about 500 meters (yards) from the al-Shuhada district, the southeastern part of city's main built-up area, army officers said.

The battle for Falluja is shaping up to be one of the biggest ever fought against Islamic State, in the city where U.S. forces waged the heaviest battles of their 2003-2011 occupation against the Sunni Muslim militant group's precursors.

Falluja is Islamic State's closest bastion to Baghdad, and believed to be the base from which the group has plotted an escalating campaign of suicide bombings against Shi'ite civilians and government targets inside the capital.

As government forces pressed their onslaught, suicide bombers driving a car and a motorcycle blew themselves up in the capital. Along with another bomb planted in a car, they killed more than 20 people and injured more than 50 in three districts of Baghdad, police and medical sources said.

Separately, Kurdish security forces announced advances against Islamic State in northern Iraq, capturing villages from militants outside Mosul, the biggest city under militant control.

The Iraqi army launched its operation to recover Falluja a week ago, first by tightening a six-month-old siege around the city 50 km (30 miles) west of Baghdad.

Falluja, in the heartland of Sunni Muslim tribes who resent the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad, was the first Iraqi city to fall to Islamic State in January 2014. Months later, the group overran wide areas of the north and west of Iraq, declaring a caliphate including parts of neighboring Syria.

On Monday, army units were "steadily advancing" to Falluja's southern outskirts under air cover from a U.S.-led coalition helping to fight against the militants, according to a military statement read out on state TV.

A Shi'ite militia coalition known as Popular Mobilisation, or Hashid Shaabi, was seeking to consolidate the siege by dislodging militants from Saqlawiya, a village just to the north of Falluja.

The militias, who took the lead in assaults against Islamic State in other parts of Iraq last year, have pledged not to take part in the assault on the mainly Sunni Muslim city itself to avoid aggravating sectarian strife.

Between 500 and 700 militants are in Falluja, according to a U.S. military estimate. The U.S.-led coalition conducted three air strikes near Falluja over the past 24 hours, destroying fighting positions, vehicles, tunnel entrances and denying the militants access to terrain, it said in a statement.


ISLAMIST MILITANT STRONGHOLD

Falluja has been a bastion of the Sunni insurgency that fought both the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the Shi'ite-led Baghdad government that took over after the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, in 2003.

Related Video
Video

Iraqi forces keep up pressure in battle for Falluja

American troops suffered some of their worst losses of the war in two battles in 2004 to wrest Falluja back from Al Qaeda in Iraq, the insurgent group now known as Islamic State.

The latest offensive is causing alarm among international aid organizations over the humanitarian situation in the city, where more than 50,000 civilians remain trapped with limited access to water, food and health care.

Falluja is the second-largest Iraqi city still under control of the militants, after Mosul, their de facto capital in the north that had a pre-war population of about 2 million.

It would be the third major city in Iraq recaptured by the government after Saddam's home town Tikrit and Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's vast western Anbar province.

Falluja is also in Anbar, located between Ramadi and Baghdad, and capturing it would give the government control of the major population centers of the Euphrates River valley west of the capital for the first time in more than two years.

On the northern front, the security forces of the autonomous Kurdish region launched an attack on Sunday to oust Islamist militants from villages about 20 km (13 miles) east of Mosul so as to increase the pressure on Islamic State and pave the way for storming that city.

The Kurdish forces, known as peshmerga, have retaken six villages in total since attacking Islamic State positions on Sunday with the support of the U.S.-led coalition, the Kurdistan Region Security Council said on Monday. That represents most of the targets of their latest advance.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi hopes to recapture Mosul later this year to deal a decisive defeat to Islamic State.

Abadi announced the onslaught on Falluja on May 22 after a spate of bombings that killed more than 150 people in one week in Baghdad, the worst death toll so far this year. The worsening security in the capital has added to political pressure on Abadi, struggling to maintain the support of a Shi'ite coalition amid popular protests against an entrenched political class.

Monday's bombings targeted two densely populated Shi'ite districts, Shaab and Sadr City, and a government building in one predominantly Sunni suburb, Tarmiya, north of Baghdad.

A car bomb in Shaab killed 12 people and injured more than 20, while in Tarmiya eight were killed and 21 injured by a suicide bomber who pulled up in a car outside a government building guarded by police. In Sadr City, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle killed three people and injured nine.

The battle of Falluja is helping Abadi refocus the attention of Iraq's unruly political parties on the war against Islamic State, so as to defuse popular unrest prompted by delays in a planned reshuffle of the cabinet to help root out corruption.

In a speech to parliament on Sunday, he called on political groups to "put on hold their differences until the military operations are over."

Washington says Islamic State's territory is steadily being rolled back both in Iraq and in Syria, where it has lost ground to U.S.-backed, mainly Kurdish insurgents in the north and to the Russian-backed forces of President Bashar al-Assad.


(Additional reporting by Saif Hameed and Kareem Raheem in Baghdad; Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Peter Graff)

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-iran-commentary-idUSKCN0YN2XW

Blogs | Thu Jun 2, 2016 9:55am EDT
Related: Commentary

Commentary: With Washington looking the other way, Iran fills a void in Iraq

By Mohamad Bazzi

On May 30, Iraqi special forces stormed the southern edge of Falluja under U.S. air cover, launching a new assault to recapture one of the last major Iraqi cities under the control of Islamic State militants.

Iraq’s elite forces who are leading the fight have been trained by U.S. advisers, but many others on the battlefield were trained or supplied by Iran. It’s the latest example of how Washington has looked the other way as Iran deepened its military involvement in Iraq over the past two years.

In recent weeks, thousands of Iraqi soldiers and Shi’ite militia members supported by Iran assembled on the outskirts of Falluja for the expected attack on the Sunni city. In the lead-up to the assault, General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force, the special operations branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, met with leaders of the Iraqi coalition of Shi’ite militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces.

Sunni politicians in Iraq condemned the involvement of Soleimani and other Iranian advisers in the battlefield preparations, saying it could fuel sectarian tension and unleash a new round of Sunni-Shi’ite bloodletting. They also cast doubt on the Iraqi government’s assurances that the offensive is purely an Iraqi-led effort to defeat Islamic State. “Soleimani’s presence is cause for concern,” said an Iraqi member of parliament from Falluja. “He is absolutely not welcome in the area.”

Leaders of the Shi’ite militias have pledged that they will not take part in the main offensive on the city, and will instead help secure nearby towns and lay siege to Islamic State fighters. But the battle over Falluja highlights Iran’s growing military and political influence over Iraq, a country wracked by a complex civil war that leaves it open to outside manipulation.

If there is one regional player that gained the most from America’s gamble in Iraq, it is Iran. With its invasion in 2003, the United States ousted Tehran’s sworn enemy, Saddam Hussein, from power. Then Washington helped install a Shi’ite government for the first time in Iraq’s modern history. As U.S. troops became mired in fighting an insurgency and containing a civil war, Iran extended its influence over all of Iraq’s major Shi’ite factions.

Today, the Iranian regime is comfortable taking a lead role in shaping the military operations of its Iraqi allies. There is no one to restrain Tehran, and the rise of Islamic State, which views Shi’ites as apostates, threatens the interests of Iran and all Iraqi Shi’ite factions.

The Iranian regime has several interests in its neighbor: Iraq provides strategic depth and a buffer against Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states that are competing with Iran for dominance over the Persian Gulf. More broadly, Tehran wants to ensure that Iraq never again poses an existential threat to Iranian interests, as Hussein did when he invaded Iran in 1980, instigating the eight-year Iran-Iraq war that devastated both countries.

Hussein was supported by the Sunni Arab states and most Western powers. (The Shi’ites are the majority in Iraq, but since its independence from Britain in 1932, the country was ruled by the Sunni minority until the U.S. invasion in 2003.) Iran will do whatever is necessary to keep a friendly, Shi’ite-led government in power in Baghdad.

Iran has excelled at playing the long game, especially in Iraq. Tehran’s willingness to spread money to various proxies and factions gave it great agility in maneuvering through Iraqi politics. One diplomatic cable sent by the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Christopher Hill, to officials at the State Department in November 2009 estimated that Tehran’s financial assistance to its Iraqi surrogates ranged from $100 to $200 million a year.

The Islamic Republic was also willing to invest across sectarian lines: Iran “recognizes that influence in Iraq requires operational (and at times ideological) flexibility,” Hill wrote in his cable. “As a result, it is not uncommon for the IRIG [Islamic Republic of Iran Government] to finance and support competing Shia, Kurdish, and to some extent, Sunni entities, with the aim of developing the Iraqi body politic’s dependency on Tehran’s largesse.”

Like some of Iraq’s other neighbors, Iran used its largesse to help fuel and prolong the Iraqi insurgency and civil war. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps financed, armed and trained numerous Shi’ite militias that targeted U.S. troops and Iraq’s Sunni community. The Iranians provided explosives, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and other small arms. They also brought Iraqi militiamen to Iran to be trained in the use of explosives and as snipers.

After Islamic State militants swept through northern Iraq in June 2014, Tehran once again mobilized to protect the Shi’ite-led government from the Sunni militant threat. Soleimani traveled to Baghdad at the start of the crisis to coordinate the defense of the capital with Iraqi military officials. He also directed Iranian-trained Shi’ite militias -- including the Badr Brigade and the League of the Righteous, two notorious militias responsible for widespread atrocities against Sunnis -- in the fight against Islamic State. With a weakened and corrupt Iraqi military, the militias proved crucial in stopping the jihadists’ advance.

Since mid-2014, Tehran has provided tons of military equipment to the Iraqi security forces and has been secretly directing surveillance drones from an airbase in Baghdad. Iran has also sent hundreds of its Quds Force fighters to train Iraqi forces and coordinate their actions.

And Iran has paid a price for its deepening military involvement. In December 2014, a Revolutionary Guards commander, Brigadier General Hamid Taqavi, was killed by a sniper in the Iraqi city of Samarra while he was training Iraqi troops and Shi’ite militia fighters. Taqavi was the highest-ranking Iranian official to be killed in Iraq since the Iran-Iraq war. Thousands of Revolutionary Guards gathered for his funeral in Tehran, where Ali Shamkhani, head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told mourners: “If people like Taqavi do not shed their blood in Samarra, then we would shed our blood” within Iran.

For their part, Iraqi leaders argued that as long as the United States did not provide military assistance, they had no choice but to ask Iran for more help. “When Baghdad was threatened, the Iranians did not hesitate to help us,” Haider al-Abadi, the Iraqi prime minister, told a television interviewer in late 2014.

Although Abadi has signaled that he wants to be closer to the West, he needs the support of Iran and its Iraqi allies to keep his government in power. Without the Iranian-backed militias taking the lead in fighting over the past two years, the Iraqi government would not have recovered as much territory from the jihadists. Through a combination of funding, training for militias and political support, Iran will continue to extend its influence over the major Shi’ite groups in Iraq.

The United States and Iran now share common interests in defeating Islamic State and maintaining a stable regime in Baghdad that can transcend sectarian conflicts. While the Obama administration and Tehran are not coordinating directly in Iraq, they essentially have an undeclared alliance.

Without committing far more U.S. troops and resources, there is little that Washington can do to counter Iranian power in Iraq. And Tehran will not hesitate to use its many levers of influence over Saddam Hussein’s former domain.


(Mohamad Bazzi is a journalism professor at New York University and former Middle East bureau chief at Newsday. He is writing a book on the proxy wars between Saudi Arabia and Iran. He tweets @BazziNYU)

 

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-falluja-idUSKCN0YP0MI

World | Fri Jun 3, 2016 5:29am EDT
Related: World, Iraq, Campaign Finance

Falluja is a 'tough nut to crack': Iraqi finance minister

BAGHDAD | By Maher Chmaytelli and Ahmed Rasheed


Islamic State is putting up a tough fight in Falluja and its recapture by the Iraqi army could take time, said Iraqi Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari.

Falluja, located 50 kilometers (32 miles) west of Baghdad, has been a bastion of the Sunni insurgency that fought both the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the Shi'ite-led Baghdad government.

Islamic State fighters raised their flag there in January 2014 before sweeping through much of Iraq's north and west, declaring a caliphate several months later, from Mosul.

"Falluja is a tough nut to crack," he told Reuters in an interview on Thursday evening. "Daesh are holding the population as hostages, not allowing them to escape, and they are putting up a tough fight there," he added, referring to the militant group by one of its Arabic acronyms.

"Nobody can give you a definitive time when Falluja will be cleared of Daesh. Mainly because of the resistance, because of the IEDs (improvised explosive devices), because of the tunnels" the militants have dug to move without being detected, he added.

The army started the offensive on May 23, with the backing of Shi'ite militias known as Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and air support from the U.S.-led coalition.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Wednesday the army had slowed the pace of its offensive because of fears for the safety of tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the city with limited access to water, food and healthcare.

"The security forces, the PMF have made significant progress but really to storm the center of Falluja I think will take time," Zebari said. "We should not declare victory prematurely."


SHI'ITE APPEAL

A spokesman for one of the main Shi'ite paramilitary groups taking part in the offensive on Falluja said the operations have come to a near standstill in the past three days and asked Abadi to order the attacks to continue.

"We demand that Prime Minister Abadi continues the operation to free Falluja and not to submit to American and Western pressure to halt the operation," said Jawad al-Talabawi, a spokesman of the Iran-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq.

"We say ... freeing Falluja is needed to protect Baghdad."

Abadi ordered the offensive on Falluja after a series of bombings claimed by Islamic State hit Shi'ite districts of Baghdad, causing the worst death toll this year.

Falluja would be the third major city in Iraq recaptured by the government after former dictator Saddam Hussein's home town Tikrit and Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's vast western Anbar province. Abadi has expressed hope that 2016 will be the year of "final victory" over Islamic State, with the capture of Mosul, their de facto capital in northern Iraq.

Baghdad-based political analysts said the battle for Falluja would be harder than Tikrit and Ramadi because of the symbolism of the city for the militants and because they cannot retreat to other places, as the whole area is under siege by the army and Shi'ite militias.

"In Falluja, Daesh has die-hard fighters defending a city they consider as a symbol for Jihad," said analyst and former army general Jasim al-Bahadili.

Political analyst Ali Hashim said that even if the government managed to retake Falluja, it would continue to face the problem of winning over the Sunni population, some of whom feel marginalized by the Shi’ite-led government.


(Editing by Toby Chopra and Gareth Jones)

 

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http://news.antiwar.com/2016/06/03/us-officials-admit-effort-to-retrain-iraqi-army-a-failure/

US Officials Admit Effort to ‘Retrain’ Iraqi Army a Failure

17 Months Into Effort, Army Remains Weak, Heavily Dependent on Militias

by Jason Ditz, June 03, 2016

After the US-trained and armed Iraqi military collapsed in the face of ISIS offensives in 2014, the US embarked on a broad effort to retrain and reorganize the military. 17 months into this effort, US officials are increasingly admitting the effort is another failure.

Retired Lt. Gen. Mick Bednarek, who commanded the US training mission until last year, said the Iraqi Army has not improved much, saying the big problem is a lack of recruitment and retention in the Iraqi forces, saying the US officers are ready to train who shows up, but are never sure who that’s going to be.

Other US officials complained that the Iraqi military’s commanders are too cozy with the Shi’ite militias they so heavily depend on in the war, and that many of the US arms being transferred to the Iraqi military “either because of corrupt commanders or outright robbery,” end up in the hands of the militias.

Iraqi Defense Ministry officials defended this, saying the militias are an “official body” connected to the armed forces, though indeed the fact that the Iraqis are still so heavily dependent on the militias for serious combat underscores just how weak the proper military remains.

The militias have been heavily criticized by human rights groups, with many cases of “liberated” Sunni towns being left under the control of Shi’ite militias who engage in looting and violent retaliation against suspected “ISIS supporters.”


Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz•US Airdrops Weapons to Syria Rebels Resisting ISIS Offensive - June 3rd, 2016
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•Libya Unity Govt: We Can Defeat ISIS Ourselves - June 3rd, 2016
•Pentagon: Only 15 al-Qaeda Killed in Yemen Airstrikes Since February - June 3rd, 2016

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-security-idUSKCN0YV0K6

World | Thu Jun 9, 2016 7:23am EDT
Related: World, Iraq

Baghdad bombings kill 25 as Falluja siege continues

BAGHDAD | By Ahmed Rasheed

Video


Two suicide bombings that killed about 25 people in Baghdad on Thursday were claimed by Islamic State, whose stronghold of Falluja near the capital is surrounded by Iraqi forces which are now advancing on the city.

The ultra-hardline Sunni insurgents said one attack was carried out with a car laden with explosives and the second with an explosive vest.

Iraqi forces began an offensive against Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, on May 23 after a series of deadly bombings hit Shi'ite districts of the capital. The troops yesterday began advancing against the militants inside the city, after completing its encirclement last week.

A police officer said a suicide car bomb had targeted a commercial street of Baghdad al-Jadeeda (New Baghdad), in the east of the capital, killing 17 people and wounding over 50.

A man wearing an explosive belt blew himself up at checkpoint near the barracks of Taji, just north of Baghdad, killing seven soldiers and wounding more than 20, he said.

Islamic State "has a long experience in establishing small multiple networks that have the ability to operate independently from each other," said Baghdad-based analyst and former army general Jasim al-Bahadli.

Falluja is a historic bastion of the Sunni insurgency, first against the U.S. occupation of Iraq, in 2003, and then against the Shi'ite-led authorities that took over the country.

Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari last week he expected that the recovery of Falluja would take time as the militants had dug tunnels and planted explosive devices in roads and houses to impede the military advance.



(Reporting by Kareem Hameed and Ahmed Rasheed; Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Alison Williams)

 

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/iraqi-troops-enter-southern-fallujah-014316458.html?nhp=1

Iraqi Troops Enter Southern Fallujah for First Time in 2 Years

June 8, 2016
Time


(NAYMIYAH, Iraq) — A column of black Humvees carrying Iraqi special forces rolled into southern Fallujah on Wednesday, the first time in more than two years that government troops have entered the western city held by the Islamic State group.

The counterterrorism troops fought house-to-house battles with the militants in the Shuhada neighborhood, and the operation to retake the city is expected to be one of the most difficult yet.

“Daesh are concentrating all their forces in this direction,” said Gen. Haider Fadel, one of the commanders of the counterterrorism forces, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State militants.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi promised a swift victory when he announced the start of the operation on May 22 to liberate Fallujah, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad. But the complexity of the task quickly became apparent.

Although other security forces from the federal and provincial police, government-sanctioned Shiite militias and the Iraqi military have surrounded the city, only the elite counterterrorism troops are fighting inside Fallujah at this stage of the operation. And they are doing so under the close cover of U.S.-led coalition airpower.

“We expect to face more resistance, especially because we are the only forces entering the city,” Fadel said.

The Islamic State group has suffered setbacks on several fronts in the region where it captured large swaths of territory two years ago. In northern Syria, U.S.-backed rebels made a final push Wednesday in the town of Manbij — a key waypoint on the ISIS supply line to the Turkish border and its self-styled capital of Raqqa. And in Libya, forces loyal to a U.N.-brokered government have advanced deep inside the coastal city of Sirte, the main stronghold of the ISIS group’s local affiliate.

Fallujah is one of the last ISIS strongholds in Iraq. Government forces have slowly won back territory, although ISIS still controls parts of the north and west, as well as the second-largest city of Mosul.

The sky above Fallujah’s Shuhada neighborhood on Wednesday filled with fine dust and thick gray smoke obscuring minarets and communication towers as artillery rounds and volleys of airstrikes cleared the way for Iraqi ground forces.

At a makeshift command center, Iraqi forces coordinated the operation via hand-held radios, with Australian coalition troops stationed at a nearby base. One of the Australians listed the casualties among the militants.

“Two KIA (killed in action), one wounded with a missing arm — his right arm,” the unidentified Australian radioed after calling in an airstrike on Islamic State fighters.

A frontier city on the easternmost edge of Anbar province, Fallujah has long been a bastion of support among its mostly Sunni population for anti-government militants following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

It is symbolically important to both sides: Many of the Iraqi forces fought al-Qaida in Iraq — the predecessor to ISIS — in this same territory, and the city was the scene of some of the bloodiest urban combat with U.S. forces in 2004.

Its high value is one of the reasons ISIS has deployed well-trained snipers and built extensive networks of tunnels to defend it.

“We are having to fight two battles — one above the ground and one below,” said Iraqi Maj. Ali Hamel of the military’s intelligence wing.

While Fallujah’s sparsely populated northern outskirts were recaptured quickly by Iraqi forces, ISIS used the initial days of the operation to pull the majority of its fighters into the city center, taking about 50,000 civilians with them for use as human shields.

Once Iraq’s special forces began trying to punch inside the city limits, the pace of operations slowed.

In past battles with ISIS in places like Ramadi, Fadel said, one of the signs that the militants were losing their grip on territory was when civilians begin fleeing the city center.

“So far, we haven’t seen that” in Fallujah, he said. “Once we do, it will only be a matter of time.”

The Islamic State militants “had chosen their battle space,” a counterterrorism officer said, explaining how the group set up many defensive positions in the southern outskirts to try to bog down the Iraqi forces before they even had a chance to enter.

That southern neighborhood of Naymiyah, which was secured by Iraqi forces on Sunday, bears the scars of a protracted fight, a now-common sight in Iraqi territory that has been won back from ISIS.

Walls stood shredded by artillery fire, with almost every home either partially collapsed or pancaked. Craters from airstrikes left many main roads unusable. Convoys of armored Humvees were forced to use the neighborhood’s unpaved side streets instead, churning up the soft sand beneath their treads.

“We’re expecting another big fight like this one before Fallujah falls,” the officer said, explaining that he anticipated Iraqi forces would encounter another heavily fortified neighborhood. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.

On Wednesday evening, the prime minister visited the recently retaken territory.

Al-Abadi was joined by Lt. Gen. Abdel Wahab al-Saadi, the counterterrorism commander of the Fallujah operation.

It was al-Abadi’s fourth trip to the area since the operation began. Despite territorial victories against ISIS, theIraqi leader continues to grapple with a deepening political crisis and growing social unrest in Baghdad.


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[Housecarl]

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http://english.aawsat.com/2016/06/a...hran-withholding-armament-kurdish-forces-iraq

Middle East

Defense Ministry Sources: Tehran Withholding Further Armament for Kurdish Forces in Iraq

Dalshad Abdullah
1 hour ago˜Ø 23

Irbil-Iran has been called out for stopping artillery supply convoys scheduled for delivery to Iraqi Kurdistan four months ago, sources at the Iraqi ministry of defense confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.

Iraqi Kurdish lawmaker Shakhawan Abdulla accused the Iraqi ministry of defense of purposely hindering arms delivery to the Kurdistan region, which was the result of stockpiling weapons in Baghdad storages.

Abdulla told Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper that over five tons of weaponry promised to Irbil have not yet been delivered despite procedures being finalized.

The Iraqi ministry of defense had caved in under Iranian pressures for withholding arms delivery to Irbil.

The Kurdish lawmaker stated that the Iraqi Defense Minister Khaled al-Obaidi had personally stood behind suspending delivery.

¡§The minister of defense¡¦s action comes despite his own family residing in Irbil, and is protected by the Peshmerga forces¡Vthe minister also belongs to Mosul which daily witnesses Peshmerga forces fighting against ISIS and freeing most towns; that alone should have served as a reason for the minister to do all that is possible in order to facilitate further armament of Peshmerga forces. Nonetheless he now serves as the main obstacle,¡¨ Abdulla added.

Abdulla pointed out that the main reasons behind the suspension of arms delivery is that Baghdad fears the very arming of the paramilitary group. He said that ¡§the Iraqi government sees that arming Peshmerga forces will cause a future concern. There are no other evident reasons. Baghdad is well aware that the first ISIS defeat was served at the hands of the Peshmerga forces.¡¨

MP Abdulla carried on explaining that the partiality Peshmerga forces experience is highlighted most by denying them their just portion of incoming artillery to Iraq.

Based on the cabinet distribution, the Iraqi Kurds would be entitled to twenty tons of arms from each incoming 100, nonetheless if battlefield ranges are taken into consideration, the Peshmerga¡¦s portion would be somewhere around 30-40 tons given that they are currently fighting ISIS across a 1,100 km premise.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-offensive-idUSKCN0YY07K

World | Sun Jun 12, 2016 6:56am EDT
Related: World, Iraq

Iraqi forces gain ground against Islamic State south of Mosul

Iraqi troops advanced against Islamic State south of Mosul on Sunday as the U.S.-led coalition intensifies its campaign against the militants on multiple fronts across their self-proclaimed caliphate.

Officers involved in the operation said Iraqi forces had moved toward the village of Haj Ali in tanks and armored vehicles under cover of coalition air strikes and artillery fire, capturing another village on the way.

"In the beginning they resisted but when they saw the force they withdrew," said an Iraqi officer speaking from the newly recaptured village of Kharaib Jabr, adjacent to Haj Ali.

Haj Ali sits on the eastern bank of the Tigris river, opposite the Islamic State hub of Qayara, where there is an airfield that is set to serve as a staging ground for future operations to recapture Mosul, about 60 km (40 miles) north.

Islamic State overran Mosul two years ago and went on to proclaim a caliphate straddling Iraq and Syria but has come under increasing pressure in recent months, losing ground to an array of forces.


Related Coverage
› Iraq army says secures first safe exit route for civilians in Falluja

Iraqi forces are also advancing on the edge of the Islamic State bastion of Falluja further south, while in Syria U.S.-backed forces are encircling the militant-held town of Manbij.

Iraqi troops were deployed to the northern Makhmour area earlier this year and launched an operation in March touting it as the beginning of a bigger campaign to retake Mosul - the largest city under militant control.

Since then, Iraqi forces have made modest gains, capturing a handful of villages on the eastern bank of the river Tigris.

The commander of the operation blamed the slow pace on a lack of tanks and said he did not have enough men to hold ground after it was retaken from the militants.

Last week, Iraq deployed an armored division along with boats and bridges to cross the river to Qayara, control of which would also isolate Mosul from territory the militants control further south and east.


(Reporting by Isabel Coles; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Elaine Hardcastle)

 

[Housecarl]

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Iraq arrests 500 IS suspects fleeing with civilians: police

AFP
1 hr ago

Iraqi forces have detained more than 500 suspected Islamic State group members trying to sneak out of the city of Fallujah by blending in with fleeing civilians, police said Monday.

"We have arrested 546 suspected terrorists who had fled by taking advantage of the movements of displaced families over the past two weeks," said Hadi Rzayej, the police chief for Anbar province in which Fallujah is located.

"Many of them were using fake IDs," he told AFP from the southern edge of Fallujah, where Iraqi forces are pressing a three-week-old offensive to retake the city from IS.

When civilians reach government forces, teenage boys and adult men are screened separately. Some are released after a few hours while others undergo more thorough interrogation.

Until last week, an estimated 50,000 civilians were still trapped in the centre of the city, which is one of the jihadist group's last bastions in Iraq and lies only 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad.

The Iraqi army on Saturday opened a corridor to the southwest of the city that has allowed thousands of civilians to escape IS rule and reach government-run displacement camps.

Estimates for the number of IS fighters holed up in Fallujah vary from 1,000 to 2,500.

IS has been expected to put up a tougher fight in Fallujah, which looms large in jihadist mythology, than for any of the other cities it lost in Iraq over the past two years.

Iraqi forces have been making slow but steady progress over the past two weeks, with elite troops dodging suicide car bombs and picking their way through thousands of explosive devices to work their way up from the south of the city.

 

[Housecarl]

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Iraq

Apache Helicopter Used For First Time To Hit Islamic State In Iraq

June 14, 2016

U.S. Apache helicopters have struck an Islamic State target for the first time in Iraq, the Pentagon said on June 13.
.
The sophisticated attack choppers destroyed an IS car bomb near Qayyarah, which is about 50 miles south of Mosul, the group's main stronghold in Iraq.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter, speaking in Brussels, said the strike was in support of a campaign by Iraqi forces to encircle and eventually retake Mosul.

"The government of Iraq approved the use of Apaches in support of [Iraqi Security Forces] operations," Defense Department spokesman Christopher Sherwood said.

Carter has since early December made it clear to the Iraqi government that the U.S. military is willing to use its Apaches based in Iraq to support local forces.

But the government had until now declined. U.S. officials say this is because Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi didn't want to anger Shi'ite militias, who oppose the ramping up of U.S. combat operations in Iraq.

Coalition warplanes and drones have since August 2014 been regularly bombing IS targets in Iraq and Syria.

Based on reporting by AP and AFP