The War Nerd: Like it or not, what’s happening in Iraq right now is part of a rational process
There’s been a lot of hysterical reaction to I.S.I.S.’s big land-grab in Central Iraq over the last two weeks. But there’s some wonderful bad news—“bad” from I.S.I.S’s perspective — in the fact that all their gains have been on the very flat, dry plains of Central Iraq. The Northern pincer of their big advance, which was supposed to swing north through Tal Afar, has stalled badly.
And for that small mercy, I give wholehearted thanks to whatever god may be. Although god or gods had very little to do with it. The heroes of this story are the Pesh Merga, the very cool Kurdish militia; and topography. Bless the hills of Kurdistan! I always loved them, especially in Spring when the flowers explode over their slopes. But now those hills and the men and women of the Pesh Merga—the Middle East’s only truly gender-neutral fighting force—are the only thing saving all the terrified, dwindling minority communities of Northern Iraq from the savagery—yeah, savagery; why lie?—of a new zombie generation of Wahhabized Arab/Sunni jihadis.
The Iraqi army says it has launched a major offensive to retake Tikrit from Sunni rebels, amid conflicting claims over who controls the city's university.
The main ground operation, which began on Saturday, followed heavy fighting in the city between Sunni rebels and Iraqi special forces, who were trying to establish a foothold at the university campus.
As Iraqi forces battled to retake the northern city of Tikrit from Sunni armed fighters, the insurgents announced the establishment of a "caliphate," referring to the system of rule that ended nearly 100 years ago with the fall of the Ottoman empire.
Al-Qaeda splinter group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) distributed an audio recording online Sunday announcing that it will now go by the term "The Islamic State," and declared its chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as "the caliph" and "leader for Muslims everywhere."
VERY Unconfirmed - "Jamaat Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has joined the Islamic State".
NEW DELHI: French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Monday that jihadists spearheading a militant offensive in Iraq have sold oil from captured areas to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Fabius said the sale was evidence of the “confusing” nature of the escalating conflict in the Middle East in which Assad and the jihadists are in theory on opposing sides.
The rebels, previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), declared a “caliphate,” or Islamist state, straddling Iraq and Syria at the weekend.
“We have proofs that when ISIL has taken over oil it has sold oil to the (Assad) regime,” Fabius told a news conference in New Delhi, without elaborating.
Other revenues and weapons have been seized during the advance by the Islamist fighters, particularly in the town of Mosul.
BEIRUT — The al-Qaida breakaway Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant captured a key Syrian town near the Iraq border from other rebels on Tuesday and advanced toward a stronghold of its main jihadi rivals, an activist group said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Boukamal fell to the militants early Tuesday following days of battles between the group and other factions led by the Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s Syrian affiliate.
Activists in the area could not immediately be reached and calls to Boukamal and nearby areas were not going through.
The Observatory, which has a network of activists around Syria, said the group brought in reinforcements from Iraq during the fighting.
The latest victory by the jihadi group, which controls parts of Syria and Iraq, came two days after it declared the establishment of a transnational Islamic caliphate.
Iranian fighter jets deployed' to help Iraq fight Isis
Iran has supplied Iraq with fighter jets to help it counter an offensive by Sunni rebels led by the Islamist group Isis, strong evidence suggests.
Russia supplied an initial delivery of the aircraft just a few days ago.
But analysts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London say that a further delivery, on 1 July, originates from Iran.
This means that the US - which has also sent aircraft to Iraq - is operating alongside Iran in this conflict.
The US has deployed drones and helicopters to Iraq and is actively gathering intelligence on the advance by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis). Washington is also supplying Iraq's existing air force with Hellfire missiles.
In this case adversity has made for strange bed-fellows.
The oil-rich eastern province of Deir e-Zor has witnessed ongoing clashes between the regime and opposition fighters led by Jabhat a-Nusra and for the past two months.
Recent developments include FSA fighters driving ISIS out of the Syrian-Iraqi border town of Bokamel this past weekend.
The fighting, however, has upset food security in the region. “Most bakeries stopped producing after the province was liberated [from regime control], as the regime was supplying bakeries with flour,” Jihan al-Ahmad, spokeswoman for the pro-opposition news website Syria Mubashir, tells Syria Direct's Mohammad al-Haj Ali.
During a meeting in Moscow on Tuesday, the Iranian deputy foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahiyan, mentioned that Kurds need to stop daydreaming about independence.
Massoud Barzani , president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish Region, told the BBC he intends to hold a referendum on Kurdish independence.
But the Iranian diplomat strongly disapproved of Barzani’s plan. He said it was now 'vital to take measures to prevent the break-up of the country,' reported to AFP.
'Instead of daydreaming, the leaders of Iraqi Kurdistan should take a look at reality,' he stated.
Other Iranian officials and Iranian media also condemned Kurdish wishes for independence and suggest the division of Iraq as an American-Israeli conspiracy.
With some of the last of the moderate groups being hung out to dry, the civil war may as well be renamed into a full blown conflict between the regime and ISIS:
Syrian rebels threaten to quit fight against ISIS
Rebels from northern and eastern Syria on Wednesday threatened to lay down their arms in a week if the country’s exiled opposition does not help them fight the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
“We, the leaders of the brigades and battalions... give the National Coalition, the (opposition) interim government, the (rebel) Supreme Military Council and all the leading bodies of the Syrian revolution a week to send reinforcements and complete aid,” the statement said.
“Should our call not be heard, we will lay down our weapons and pull out our fighters,” it added.
.....
“Our popular revolution (against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad)... is today under threat because of the (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), especially after it announced a caliphate,” said the statement.
The factions that signed the statement are local rebel groups based in Raqa, Deir Ezzor and parts of Aleppo province where fighting against ISIS has been most intense, and which are now under ISIS control.
On the 'lighter' side of news, some additional info on those U.S. choppers being sent to aid the Iraqi military:
Pentagon sends attack helicopters to Iraq
The United States has sent Apache attack helicopters to Iraq as part of the buildup in U.S. military personnel, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
Officials would not say how many of the armed helicopters have been sent to the country, stating only that they will be based in Baghdad and could assist with evacuations of American personnel.
The Pentagon also sent over additional surveillance drones.
On July 03 2014 00:23 soujiro_ wrote: us and iran flying together in iraq o.o
It's not the weirdest thing that's happened so far.
Both sides have a lot to lose if Iraq goes under so like it or not, they have to co-operate (begrudgingly) to an extent if they want this mess to get cleaned up.
Saudi Arabia has sent 30,000 soldiers to its border with Iraq after Iraqi soldiers withdrew from the area, Al Arabiya television says.
The country aims to guard its 800km border with Iraq, where Islamic State fighters and other Sunni Muslim rebel groups seized towns and cities in a lightning advance last month.
King Abdullah has ordered all necessary measures to protect the kingdom against potential "terrorist threats", state news agency SPA reported on Thursday.
The Dubai-based Al Arabiya said on its website that Saudi troops fanned into the border region after Iraqi government forces abandoned positions, leaving the Saudi frontier unprotected, the Reuters news agency reported.
On July 03 2014 23:03 fmod wrote: Is there any end in sight with the fighting in the middle east?
They've been fighting for 1400 years. They'll probably continue fighting for another 1400.
They've been fighting for a lot longer than that, but that's hardly a criterion. Europe had constant wars for about 2000 years, but that has mostly calmed down.
If you had asked at the end of the Great War how long Europeans would keep fighting and answered that based on the past another 2000 years or so, you'd have been wrong. Took another 35 and after that it was mostly peaceful (so far)
BAGHDAD: Up to 45 people were killed in clashes between Iraqi security forces and followers of a radical sheikh in the holy Shiite city of Karbala Wednesday, security sources said, signaling divisions among Shiite factions as a Sunni insurgency rages.
The clashes erupted when police and army personnel tried to arrest Shiite Sheikh Mahmoud al-Sarkhi around midnight Tuesday in the southern city of Karbala, an Interior Ministry intelligence officer and a police witness told Reuters.
Sarkhi and his armed followers have clashed in the past with U.S. forces, Iraqi security forces and supporters of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered Shiite authority in Iraq.
Security forces said they went to arrest Sarkhi after his supporters blocked roads and manned checkpoints around his district in the Shiite shrine city, home to the tomb of Imam Hussein, which millions of Shiite pilgrims flock to annually.
Fighters from the Islamic State group have seized all of Syria's main oil and gas fields, which are located in Deir Az Zor province next to Iraq, a monitoring group has said.
"IS took control of the Tanak oil field, located in the Sheiytat desert area in the east of Deir Ezzor province," late Thursday after rival rebels withdrew, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Friday.
Al Jazeera cannot independently verify the Syrian Observatory's statement due to reporting restrictions inside Syria.
Early on Thursday the group seized Syria's largest oil field - al-Omar oil field - on the Iraqi border, forcing the withdrawal of rival fighters.
An Iranian pilot has been killed while fighting in Iraq, in what is thought to be the first military casualty that Tehran officially acknowledged during battles against Sunni fighters led by the Islamic State group.
Iran's official IRNA news agency said on Saturday that Colonel Shoja'at Alamdari Mourjani was killed while "defending" the Shia Muslim holy sites in the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad.
EPT
