Category: Iraq

Iraqi forces push into Mosul airport, key military base

Iraqi federal police pushed their way into the perimeter of Mosul International Airport on Thursday, taking control of the runway amid fierce exchanges of fire with Islamic State militants hunkered down in several airport buildings, police officials said. The advance came as part of a major assault that started five days earlier to drive the Islamic State group from the western half of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.

The plight of those trying to get to America

In the years since the United State invaded Iraq, Laith Hammoudi risked his life to help deliver the truth to millions of readers of this newspaper and others in the McClatchy chain and beyond. And for five years, Hammoudi has been trying to come to this promised land, Sacramento specifically , with his wife and three children.

The tough fight ahead to retake Western Mosul

This past weekend, Iraqi military forces began the assault to retake the western half of Mosul from ISIS in what is expected to be a tough fight. It took Iraqi military forces 100 days of street-to-street fighting to finally retake the eastern half of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, but U.S. military officials anticipate that the fight to retake the western side of the city could be even more difficult.

US ‘not in Iraq to seize anybody’s oil’: Mattis

The United States is not about to plunder Iraq’s petroleum reserves, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who arrived in Baghdad on Feb. 20, said as he sought to soothe partners rattled by U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump has repeatedly said both while campaigning and since his election that America, whose troops occupied Iraq for eight years, should have grabbed Iraqi oil to help fund its war effort and to deprive the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant of a vital revenue source.

Defense chief Mattis says no plans to seize Iraq’s oil

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Monday the United States does not intend to seize Iraqi oil, shifting away from an idea proposed by President Donald Trump that has rattled Iraq’s leaders. Mattis’ arrived on an unannounced visit in Iraq as the battle to oust Islamic State of Iraq and Syria militants from western Mosul moved into its second day, and as the Pentagon considers ways to accelerate the campaign against the terror group in both countries where it still holds significant territory.

Iraq claims troops make early gains in operation to retake western Mosul

Iraqi forces, supported by the Popular Mobilization paramilitaries, prepare to advance towards the village of Sheikh Younis, south of Mosul, after the offensive to retake the western side of the city from Daesh commenced on February 19, 2017. Iraqi forces said on Sunday that they had regained territory from Daesh in the western part of Mosul, hours after the launch of an offensive to dislodge the extremist militia from its last key stronghold in the country.

Iraqi forces launch offensive to drive IS from western Mosul

Ground units pushed into a belt of villages outside the country’s second-largest city, and plumes of smoke rose into the sky early in the morning as U.S.-led coalition jets struck militant positions southwest of Mosul and militarized Iraqi police fired artillery. “This is zero hour and we are going to end this war, God willing,” said Mahmoud Mansour, a police officer, as he prepared to move out.

.com | 350 000 children trapped in west Mosul: Charity

Save the Children warned on Sunday that about 350 000 children were trapped in western Mosul as Iraqi forces launched a new offensive on jihadists defending the strategic city. The London-based charity’s Iraq country director, Maurizio Crivallero said: “Iraqi forces and their allies, including the US and UK, must do everything in their power to protect children and their families from harm and avoid civilian buildings like schools and hospitals as they push deeper into the city.”

Iraq begins battle to reclaim Mosul’s west from IS

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of the operation on state TV, saying government forces were moving to “liberate the people of Mosul from Daesh oppression and terrorism forever”, using the Arabic acronym for IS. US-led coalition jets struck militant positions southwest of Mosul early Sunday morning and militarised police fired artillery toward the city.

Iraqi forces launch push to retake western Mosul from IS

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of the operation early Sunday morning on state television, saying government forces were moving to “liberate the people of Mosul from Daesh oppression forever”, using the Arabic acronym for IS. Southwest of Mosul, near the city’s IS-held airport, plumes of smoke were seen rising into the sky as coalition aircraft bombed militant positions.

Iraqi forces begin advancing on Mosul

Iraqi planes dropped millions of leaflets on the western side of Mosul warning residents that the battle to dislodge Islamic State is imminent as troops began moving in their direction, the Defence Ministry has stated. The militants are essentially under siege in western Mosul, along with an estimated 650,000 civilians, after US-backed forces surrounding the city forced them from the east in the first phase of an offensive that concluded last month.

Dozens of IS militants killed in bombardment, clashes in Iraq’s Mosul

Dozens of militants of Islamic State group were killed on Saturday in artillery shelling and airstrikes by U.S.-led coalition on IS positions in the western side of the city of Mosul, while paramilitary units of Hashd Shaabi repelled IS attack in west of the city, a security source and a statement said. The international artillery and aircraft bombarded IS positions and headquarters in Shifaa neighborhood and the city’s health department in the western bank of Tigris River, which bisects Mosul, leaving at least 24 IS militants killed and wounding dozens others, Mohammed Ibrahim al-Baiyati, head of provincial security committee told Xinhua.

Report: Islamic State group’s ‘business model’ near collapse

A worker carried aid supplied at a camp for people displaced by fighting between security forces and Islamic State militants east of Mosul, Iraq, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2017. The United Nations says they are temporarily pausing aid operations to neighborhoods in eastern Mosul retaken from the Islamic State group for security reasons as IS insurgent and counter attacks continue to inflict heavy civilian casualties there.

As Islamic State loses territory, it seeks to survive online

Al-Qaida’s main affiliate in Iraq avoided extinction at the hands of U.S. and Iraqi forces a decade ago by backing away from military engagements and moving the remnants of its network underground until its reemergence as the Islamic State. That successor organization, now confronting its own eventual fall, is devising a modified survival strategy that may involve surrendering control of its “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria but seeks to preserve a virtual version of it online.

UN prods Iraq on electoral reform

Supporters of Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr shout slogans during a protest demanding an overhaul of the elections’ supervision commission ahead of provincial elections due in September, in Baghdad,Iraq February 11, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

Trump moves spark Iraqi anger, calls against future alliance

Reverberations from President Donald Trump’s travel ban and other stances are threatening to undermine future U.S.-Iraqi security cooperation, rattling a key alliance that over the past two years has slowly beaten back the Islamic State group. Iraq’s prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, has sought to contain any backlash from public anger sparked by Trump’s executive order banning Iraqis from traveling to the U.S. Also breeding resentment and suspicion are Trump’s repeated statements that the Americans should have taken Iraq’s oil and his hard line against Iran, a close ally of al-Abadi’s government.

Rockets Hit Baghdad’s Green Zone After Deadly Protests

From Pennsylvania to Tennessee to California, hundreds of protests of varying size against Planned Parenthood and counterprotests in support of the nonprofit hea… — North Korea fired off a ballistic missile into the East Sea from Banghyeon North Pyongan Province early Sunday, according to South Korean officials… Farmers in the Klamath Basin, located along the southern Oregon and northern California coasts, are challenging the federal government’s decision to cut off irrigation w… Lexington- 3rd Ranked Scottsbluff held off Lexington on Saturday afternoon 73-65 in the final day of the East/West Shootout.

Anti-government protests in Baghdad

An Iraqi policeman was killed during anti-government protests in Baghdad, according to police and hospital officials. Demonstrators loyal to Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took to the streets to protest government corruption.

Three rockets hit Baghdad Green Zone, hours after bloody protest

Three Katyusha rockets landed in Baghdad’s Green Zone on Saturday night, just hours after fierce clashes between demonstrators and the security forces that resulted in the killing of four protesters and one security members, an Interior Ministry source said. The rocket are believed to be launched from Baghdad eastern neighborhoods of Baladiyat and Palestine Street, which both are strongholds of followers the influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

French jihadist Rachid Kassim targeted in Mosul strike: Pentagon

PanARMENIAN.Net – French jihadist Rachid Kassim , suspected of inspiring several attacks in France , was targeted in a coalition air strike near the Iraqi city of Mosul, but his death is not yet confirmed, the Pentagon said Friday, February 10, according to AFP. “We can confirm that coalition forces targeted Rashid Kassim, a senior ISIS operative, near Mosul in a strike in the past 72 hours,” said Pentagon spokesman Major Adrian J.T. Rankine-Galloway.

Stop picking Tulsi

I’m getting really tired of US House Rep. Tulsi Gabbard being targeted. She’s one of the few members of Congress actually attempting to do her job, When Liza Featherstone started her nonsense on Tulsi, I stopped going to Featherstone’s Twitter feed.