Recent attacks in Iraq

[kebabking]

What do we know about ISIS then?...

Al Quada (central) cut ties with them because they were too extreme. which, as you can imagine, is some achievement.

 

[yield]

Iraq crisis: Militants 'seize Tikrit' after taking Mosul
BBC News. 11 June 2014

Islamist insurgents in Iraq have seized the city of Tikrit, their second major gain after capturing Mosul on Tuesday, security officials say.

Tikrit, the hometown of former leader Saddam Hussein, lies just 150km (95 miles) north of the capital Baghdad.

Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki has vowed to fight back against the jihadists and punish those in the security forces who have deserted.

There were also reports on Wednesday of fighting further south, in Samarra, 110km north of Baghdad.

Separately, at least 21 people were killed and 45 hurt by a suicide bomber at a Shia meeting in Baghdad, police said.

The insurgents moved quickly south, entering the town of Baiji late on Tuesday.

There were heavy clashes reported in Tikrit, with dozens of insurgents attacking security forces near the headquarters of the Salaheddin provincial government in the city centre.

One eyewitness told the BBC that gunmen had entered the city from four different directions and a police station had been set on fire.

AFP news agency quoted police and witnesses as saying there was fighting at the northern entrance to Samarra.

A Turkish official told AFP that "48 Turks including the consul, staff members, guards and three children, were abducted" from its mission.

Turkey's foreign minister warned there would be "harsh retaliation" if any of its citizens were harmed.

I can see why Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia are worried about them.

Kurdish Peshmerga to the rescue?

 

[butchersapron]

Same as ever. Take places. Move on. Places get rid of them when fighters move on and their soft islamic supporters in the towns get killed.

 

[yield]

Same as ever. Take places. Move on. Places get rid of them when fighters move on and their soft islamic supporters in the towns get killed.

Isis have held Fallujah since January. Cockburn in counterpunch thinks they're going for state building.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/06...blish-an-islamic-state-across-iraq-and-syria/

You're probably right though.

 

[manny-p]

ISIS has many ex baathists in it's ranks. Bet the yanks are regretting the whole de-baathing thing they done when they purged the previous establishment.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

ISIS has many ex baathists in it's ranks. Bet the yanks are regretting the whole de-baathing thing they done when they purged the previous establishment.

There is a general revolt taking place in Iraq that isn't limited to one group (the ISIS) and the Ba'athist-derived and other groups are part of that movement. It is less narrow than the exclusive ISIS banner. That's just how they (wretched Maliki government) want to label it.

 

[butchersapron]

There is a general revolt taking place in Iraq that isn't limited to one group (the ISIS) and the Ba'athist-derived and other groups are part of that movement. It is less narrow than the exclusive ISIS banner. That's just how they (wretched Maliki government) want to label it.

Please tell us the composition of this generalised revolt it's aims and give some examples of the non Islamic components and their activity.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

Please tell us the composition of this generalised revolt it's aims and give some examples of the non Islamic components and their activity.

Besides the ISIS, who have taken the initiative in fighting/ retaliating against the security forces in sunni majority regions, the Tribal Revolutionary Council represents most or all the other elements and is ba'athist dominated. It is also consciously less sectarian than the former, which is the problem with the ISIS who've shown willingness to fighting along sectarian lines. The other group, JRTN (former members of the old Iraqi state army) have fought alongside the ISIS in Mosul and Fallujah, afaik. The have both 'competed' in largely the same activities directed against the Iraqi army and police, except JRTN and the former ba'athist Jaish al-Aidyat [now dissolved in the TRC front] consciously reject terrorist actions against Shias. The movement taking place is based on anger in the sunni proviences, has two aims: to put a halt to brutal persecution / murder by the Maliki government and ultimately to bring down the Iranian-backed Maliki government, in the interests of Iraqis in general (as they have said) but the sunni dominated areas in particular.

 

[Barking_Mad]

From the Guardian.

Iraqi officials told the Guardian that two divisions of Iraqi soldiers - roughly 30,000 men - simply turned and ran in the face of the assault by an insurgent force of just 800 fighters.[\quote]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/11/mosul-isis-gunmen-middle-east-states

 

[weltweit]

I heard the officers ran off first, then the ordinary soldiers followed them.

 

[yield]

From the Guardian.

Shock and awe.

 

[elbows]

It does sound like many of the places in the news at the moment have been associated with JRTN in the past. Especially Tikrit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_the_Men_of_the_Naqshbandi_Order

The one that got away eh. I see it was just over a year ago that the likes of the Telegraph were describing his return and the various rumours about him over the years.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...t-prove-to-be-Saddam-Husseins-trump-card.html

 

[TopCat]

Same as ever. Take places. Move on. Places get rid of them when fighters move on and their soft islamic supporters in the towns get killed.

I think you are wrong on this. They have a massive swathe.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

But that nice Mr Blair told us his murderous actions would be good for Iraq? I believed him ::sadface:: /far too many MPs

 

[goldenecitrone]

The one that got away eh. I see it was just over a year ago that the likes of the Telegraph were describing his return and the various rumours about him over the years.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...t-prove-to-be-Saddam-Husseins-trump-card.html

Nice fella. Lots of strange bedfellows in the midst of this conflict.

Prior to the first Gulf War in 1991, he warned Iraq's Kurds not to cause trouble, saying "If you have forgotten Halabja, I would like to remind you that we are ready to repeat the operation." In early March 2003, amid last minute talks to stop the Iraq war going ahead, he famously branded a Kuwaiti diplomat a "monkey" and told him: "I curse your moustache" - a grave insult in the Arab world.

 

[ska invita]

so tragic all words seem futile....not that that will stop Blair making another delusional pronouncement on this tomorrow

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

The Iraqi masses have demonstrated their might! It is, once again, truly humbling to witness.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

What does that mean?

Spiritual movement, nationalistic, sufist

Strategy and re-orientation, around the signifier and symbol of the banner of Islam

 

[J Ed]

The Iraqi masses have demonstrated their might! It is, once again, truly humbling to witness.

Is this a joke?

Isn't ISIS full of foreigners? Are you really cheering on a group which chops fingers off as a penalty for smoking?

 

[Mr Moose]

Is this a joke?

Isn't ISIS full of foreigners? Are you really cheering on a group which chops fingers off as a penalty for smoking?

It's yet another incentive for using e-cigs.

 

[ska invita]

so tragic all words seem futile....not that that will stop Blair making another delusional pronouncement on this tomorrow

Nothing from him yet...most recent thing i can find is from end of April on twitter

 

[Barking_Mad]

The Iraqi masses have demonstrated their might! It is, once again, truly humbling to witness.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are leaving the newly occupied ISIS towns and cities. How do they fit in to your vision of this?

 

[goldenecitrone]

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are leaving the newly occupied ISIS towns and cities. How do they fit in to your vision of this?

Some of the people interviewed by the BBC said they were leaving out of fear of Maliki's government attacking the city and indiscriminately bombing civilians, like they have done in Fallujah.

 

[butchersapron]

Is this a joke?

Isn't ISIS full of foreigners? Are you really cheering on a group which chops fingers off as a penalty for smoking?

He's a pretend weirdo, check his record. Just ignore him.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Some of the people interviewed by the BBC said they were leaving out of fear of Maliki's government attacking the city and indiscriminately bombing civilians, like they have done in Fallujah.

Fair comment.

 

[Barking_Mad]

 

[Barking_Mad]

ISIS are now considerably better off. $400m from Mosul's banks and an unspecified amount of gold and weapons. Can't see the Iraqi currency value holding up.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US military equipment - I wonder exactly how profligate, or not they sere when handing it to the Iraqi military....

 

[Barking_Mad]

No Iraqi army in Kirkuk - Peshmerga troops protecting oil wells and city.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Really interesting piece here. Lots of detail about the situation and certainly gives the impression that despite the Iraqi army deciding not to fight, there seems to be a very well organised and planned operation afoot by ISIS.

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has achieved the goals of its major year-long offensive with the fall of Mosul and the collapse of the Iraqi Security Forces north of Baghdad.

ISW assessed in October 2013 that ISIS sought control of terrain, particularly in Ninewa; that Mosul is the prize within the province; and that ISIS’s goal was to fragment the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) starting from Mosul. ISW also predicted that Ba‘athist group Jaysh Rijal al-Tariqah al-Naqshabandia (JRTN) would cooperate in wresting Mosul from government control.

Enemy groups are moving south toward Baghdad on June 10, 2014. ISIS and JRTN have been heading southward toward Baghdad, following the roads south from Mosul to Taji and from Kirkuk to Baghdad. These groups have set conditions for a Baghdad offensive since January.

The Iraqi Security Forces have one rally point north of Baghdad. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has asked retreating, dissolving ISF to rally at Taji, where he has a receiving force – but even if they do rally there, the ISF will fall behind the Samarra line that the Iraqi government has hitherto defended. Furthermore, ISIS controls and has contested the areas of Garma in Anbar, Abu Ghraib in Baghdad, and Tarmiya. Tarmiya and Abu Ghraib are parts of what are known as the Baghdad belts and ISIS has, since January 2014, sought to weaken the ISF presence in these areas. Therefore ISIS needs only to get to that phase-line in the belts to be at the city’s Entry Control Points (ECPs). These operations present a terrible blow to the confidence of the Iraqi Security Forces, lay the ground for an Islamic state inside of Iraq, and will likely provoke sectarian warfare as Iraqi Shi’a militias and ISF remnants defend Baghdad

Background

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) in Northern Iraq has conducted extraordinary, well-designed, rapid military operations that have gotten them from Mosul to Baiji in four days. ISIS launched an attack upon Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, from June 6-9, ultimately seizing the city as the security forces dissolved without staging major resistance. ISIS reportedly freed some 3,000prisoners in Mosul and overran key military installations once housing U.S. Forces, including Mosul International Airport and Camp Ghazlani. This is the most significant inflection we have seen in Iraq since 2008, and it is a harbinger for Iraq’s future.

The Iraqi Ministry of Defense delivered instructions on June 10, 2014 for retreating Iraqi Security Forces to consolidate in Taji. Taji is a significant military installation, but it is also just north of Baghdad, which means that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has effectively ceded northern Iraq in the face of ISIS’s northern campaign, which now extends south from Mosul. This is a serious concern as remaining ISF in Baiji and Tikrit, major cities in Salah ad-Din province, face off with ISIS.

After the southern Ninewa town of Qayarra and Salah ad-Din province’s Sharqat fell to ISIS, one uncorroborated social media report indicated that a police headquarters in Baiji also fell to ISIS on June 10, 2014. Additional reports indicate that checkpoints and outlying areas surrounding Tikrit have begun to fall to ISIS. The ISIS northern campaign is therefore proceeding systematically along a north-south avenue of advance toward Baghdad. A map of the offensive on June 10 can be found here.

Interesting pdf here on ISIS.