Iraq & Syrian Civil Wars - Page 401

On October 17 2017 15:00 xM(Z wrote:
i'd chill a bit if i were you. the city was probably part of a deal kurdish leaders pre-agreed upon.

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces are in the process of kicking ISIS out of Raqqa, the extremist group's self-declared capital where it has terrorized civilians and plotted attacks against targets linked to the U.S. and its allies. Now ISIS fighters are reportedly bottled up in a stadium complex in the Syrian city.

As of Tuesday afternoon local time, the SDF controlled "more than 90 percent" of Raqqa, according to U.S. Army Col. Ryan Dillon, spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve.

The gains have left ISIS "on the verge of a devastating defeat," Dillon said in an update shortly before noon ET. In the past few days, he said, "about 350 fighters" have surrendered.

Celebrations began to break out among the SDF in Raqqa on Tuesday, as the end of a four-month offensive seemed near. But Dillon tells NPR's Ruth Sherlock that fighting could continue as ISIS fighters hold out in booby-trapped buildings.

Rigged explosives present a peril of their own. The commander of the Raqqa Internal Security Forces — who was to help secure the city after ISIS was defeated there — died Monday, Dillon said, "when he was walking through Raqqa and triggered an IED, and he had two of his colleagues that were with him."

The near-total takeover of Raqqa is being marked three years after the Operation Inherent Resolve task force was officially established by the Department of Defense.

The task force says it has liberated "over 6.6 million Iraqi and Syrian from Daesh control" and taken back nearly 94,000 square kilometers of land — nearly 90 percent of the territory seized by the extremist group in 2014.

As for how many fighters ISIS currently has at its disposal, the task force said its estimates range from 3,000 to 7,000 who are continuing to fight in Iraq and Syria. The group also says it has degraded ISIS' ability to fund its operations, by shutting down 90 percent of its oil revenues.

The Raqqa landmarks that have been wrested from ISIS' control, Dillon notes, include the Al-Naim traffic circle, once used by the militants to carry out executions and acts of depraved violence.

The precise number of ISIS fighters who remain at large in the city isn't known. Over the weekend, word emerged that at least 100 ISIS fighters had surrendered. From Monday into Tuesday, the militants were isolated in two areas: a hospital and at the municipal stadium, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The stadium had been used as a prison.

After fighters at the hospital reportedly surrendered, that left the stadium — and the Observatory says that when negotiations for more surrenders became drawn out, the SDF launched an assault Tuesday backed by U.S. special forces.

The US-backed Iraqi government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is expanding military operations to take back territory being held by US- and German-trained and armed “peshmerga” militia loyal to the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). Washington, Germany and other powers are applying immense diplomatic pressure on the KRG to submit.

Since early Monday morning, Iraqi government army, police and militia units have dislodged Kurdish forces from much of Kirkuk province, including the city of Kirkuk itself, its airport, nearby towns and, most significantly, some of northern Iraq’s largest oilfields.

Kurdish General Command issued a statement declaring Baghdad’s actions a “clear declaration of war against the people of the Kurdistan Region.” Apart from isolated incidents, however, reports indicate that the peshmerga have generally withdrawn without offering resistance.

Throughout yesterday, Iraqi forces in Nineveh province moved from the provincial capital Mosul into areas they did not control. A government-backed ethnic Yazadi-based militia occupied the strategic town of Sinjar on the Iraq-Syria border.

Reports indicate that as government troops advance, peshmerga are retreating from Khanaqin, a district in Diyala province that borders Iran to the south of the three provinces that formally comprise the KRG.

Iraqi government forces said on Wednesday that they had achieved their objectives in a lightning 48-hour operation against Kurdish forces in disputed territory outside the autonomous Kurdish region.

On Monday and Tuesday, Iraqi troops and allied militia retook the northern province of Kirkuk and its lucrative oil fields, as well as formerly Kurdish-held areas of Nineveh and Diyala provinces, in a punishing riposte to a Kurdish vote for independence last month.

"Security has been restored in sectors of Kirkuk. Forces have been redeployed and have retaken control of Khanaqin and Jalawla in Diyala province, as well as Makhmur, Bashiqa, Mosul dam, Sinjar and other areas in the Nineveh plains," the federal government's Joint Operations Command said.

The Iraqi Oil Ministry said on Monday that oil minister Jabar al-Luaibi had asked BP ''to quickly make plans to develop the Kirkuk oifields."

...
Nine-article secret deal between Hashd al-Shaabi and PUK

According to reports on several media outlets, a nine-article, secret deal between the Iran-backed Hashd al-Shaabi and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) has been inked.

The deal was signed between Bafil Talanani, the son of late general secretary Jalal Talabani, who died recently, and al-Shaabi representative Hadi Amiri.

The nine-article deal stipulates the following: Iraqi forces would be positioned in disputed areas and peshmerga forces would withdraw; the control of 17 town and districts, including Kirkuk, would be transferred to the Iraqi central government; a shared administration would govern Kirkuk, where 15 Kurdish neighborhoods would be governed by the Kurds, and 25 other neighborhoods would be governed by other mixed administrations. Finally, strategic posts including the K1 military base, the airport and oil refineries, would be controlled by the Iraqi central government.

In addition, the deal also says that the Sulaymaniyah airport would resume operations and the salaries of the peshmerga and civil servants will be paid by the central government, while a new administration will also be established to govern the new territories.

The PUK and the Barzani-led Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), despite having reconciled after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, have been embroiled in historic rivalry, as the PUK is known for its close ties with the Iranian region. As such, the deal, if realized, is expected to create new tensions between the KDP and the PUK.
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"The withdrawal is continuing smoothly upon instructions from the Kurdish leadership," KRG officer Taher Saadullah al-Duski said.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Jan. 15 threatened to thwart the creation of a U.S-backed 30,000-strong border security force manned mostly by the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria.

Turkey’s armed forces completed preparations for an operation against the YPG in their strongholds Afrin, in northwestern Syria, and Manbij, in northern Syria, Erdoğan said on Jan. 15 at an opening ceremony in Ankara.

“The operation may start any time. Operations into other regions will come after,” the president said, noting that the Turkish army was already hitting YPG positions.

“America has acknowledged it is in the process of creating a terror army on our border. What we have to do is nip this terror army in the bud,” Erdoğan said.

He warned Turkey’s allies against helping what he called terrorists in Syria, saying, “We won’t be responsible for the consequences.”

On February 04 2018 10:56 TheFish7 wrote:
A Russian SU-25 was shot down over Idlib province recently. The pilot ejected but was then killed by rebels on the ground. There are potentially serious implications, with the incident occurring in the so-called de-escalation zone, and Russian foreign ministry hypothesizing that the equipment used to shoot it down may have been US made. There are also reports of a retaliatory cruise missile strike from Russian naval forces in the area.

www.bbc.com

On February 04 2018 18:41 Yurie wrote:


So similar to the Russian one in Ukraine, though that was an airliner plane. So this was harder to shoot down I assume. Don't really see it as major news unless Russia decides to use it as a casus belli. In that case I get the paranoid theory of it being them shooting down their own plane.