"Islamic State seizes Ramadi government center; Attacks imperil efforts to defend major Iraqi city" by Tim Arango New York Times May 15, 2015
BAGHDAD — The Islamic State’s new offensive on the vital regional capital of Ramadi began under the cover of darkness Thursday with suicide attacks, some carried out by militants dressed in Iraqi army uniforms and driving armored Humvees.
By Friday afternoon, the jihadis had seized the main government headquarters in Ramadi and raised their black flag before setting fire to the compound, local officials said.
Though it was too early to declare that the entire city had fallen, the Islamic State’s capture of the site represents a significant setback in the Iraqi government’s long fight to defend Ramadi, the capital of the sprawling western desert province of Anbar.
As Islamic State fighters advanced Friday, there were reports of mass executions.
Of course.
Related:
ISIS: Made in Washington, Riyadh – and Tel Aviv
ISIS Is A Fake US/Israeli Created "Terrorist" Group
ISIS is a US-Israel creation to demonize Islam
The Islamic State (ISIS) and Israel are Allies
Why Does ISIS Fit In So Perfectly With The PNAC Plan?
ISIS in Iraq stinks of CIA/NATO ‘dirty war’ op
US-NATO Proxy War in Iraq and Syria: US Financing and Training of “Moderate” ISIS Rebels in Syria
What?
What do you mean "covert CIA/FSA training facilities that have ties to ISIS [are] in both Jordan and Turkey?"
******************
The jihadis’ advance also poses a critical test for the government’s stalled effort to make gains against the Islamic State in a broader Anbar offensive.
WHAT!!
Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi announced that effort last month in a moment of triumph, as a hybrid force of Shi’ite militias and government troops recaptured the city of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, from Islamic State fighters. Abadi and other government officials vowed that they would retake Anbar from the militants before continuing a march north to liberate Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq.
Aaaaah! They will be greeted as liberators, and after a dozen f***ing years I've had it with this regurgitated slop!!!!!
But the Anbar campaign has been ineffective.
Aaaaah!
In Tikrit, Shi’ite militias, some aligned with Iran, were an essential force, along with US air power. In Anbar, those militias are on the sidelines, partly because of fears that their involvement would inflame sectarian tensions and make matters worse.
Some Anbar leaders have called for the militias to join anyway. But the most influential leaders in the province, along with US officials, have urged that Shi’ite militiamen not take part.
Yeah, you will destroy our little psyop, double-crossing, agenda-pushing game of ghost terrorists.
Instead, the Americans have pushed the Iraqi government to arm and train local Sunni tribesmen to do the fighting, in an effort similar to the US-backed Awakening program of 2007, which paid tribesmen to switch sides and fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq, the predecessor to the Islamic State.
OMG, we are BACK at that point int he REVOLVING DOOR POLICY!
Get out your wallet, austerity-lashed AmeriKan taxpayers.
Abadi has committed to doing so, but very few Sunnis have been trained or armed, partly because of resistance from influential Shi’ite leaders who fear that doing so would, in effect, build a Sunni militia that would either sell its weapons to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, or end up fighting against the government.
But you know what? Weapons manufacturers in the U.S. get rich!
Sabah Karhut, the chairman of the Anbar Provincial Council, saud Friday in Amman, Jordan, that while some progovernment fighters were still resisting in Ramadi, “the city has fallen, militarily.”
He continued: “What happened in Ramadi today was because of a very well-planned operation launched by ISIS, and the lack of a clear strategy by the government, which led to the security collapse.”
All that U.S. tax dough and training.... meant nothing?
Karhut blamed the government in Baghdad for ignoring the warnings of Anbar tribal leaders, and for being slow to arm local fighters.
They gave you their reason.
“The government wanted to weaken the Sunni tribal role in Anbar by not arming them, after constant calls to send military supplies. The tribes are tired and disappointed by these lazy government reactions,” he said.
Me, too -- and of the me$$anger mouthpiece as well.
Even so, Karhut said that on Friday, he was told by officials in Baghdad that a brigade of elite counterterror forces had been dispatched to Ramadi.
It's too late(?), but.....
By Friday evening, battles were raging between progovernment forces and militants in several pockets of Ramadi. But one senior security official in the city said that 90 percent of the city was in Islamic State hands, and unless the government in Baghdad sent more reinforcements to the city it was likely to fall completely.
ISIS has put a blanket over it, so to speak. That is what is responsible for the losses.
He said the Islamic State offensive was partly being carried out by a fresh batch of fighters who had been sent from Raqqa, the Syrian city that is the terrorist group’s de facto capital.
Well then the U.S. is bombing the place, right?
Speaking on the telephone Friday afternoon from his besieged compound in Ramadi, the official asked a reporter to pray for him.
Abadi on Friday evening met with his military commanders to discuss the situation, according to a short statement published by his website.
General Tahseen Ibrahim, the spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, said in an interview that several units of reinforcements had been sent to Ramadi, and he predicted that the government would prevent the full collapse of the city.
My printed article ended with the “happy news of liberating Ramadi will be declared soon.”
Through the evening, a news crawl on the state television channel belied the surgency of the accounts emerging from Ramadi, reading: “A counterattack by government forces in Ramadi is crushing ISIS.”
The offensive on Ramadi began, it appeared, just after the release Thursday evening of a speech by the group’s reclusive leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in which al-Baghdadi put out a new call exhorting Muslims to wage violent jihad. He specifically mentioned Anbar, from which more than 100,000 civilians fled an Islamic State assault last month, and urged the displaced to return to their homes.
First time we have heard from him in a while. Did you hear the tape?
Instead, the assault by his fighters on Friday sent more people fleeing their homes.
One of them, Mohammed Jasim al-Alwani, 40, said he had just returned to his home in recent days, only to leave again on Friday. “What happened in Ramadi is unbelievable,” he said. “We left in the early hours of the morning with our families, and children, and ran away from ISIS and started moving from one area to another.”
It damn well may be.
Amar Hassan, 37, said he walked with his family for five hours on Friday, “with the sound of bullets over heads.” They were able to reach the relative safety of a schoolhouse, but he could hear mortar shells exploding nearby.
“The story of displacement has become something familiar to us,” he said. “This is the fourth time we have left our home to look for a safe place.”
The African and Asian migrations have sure dominated the news pages in the last week or so.
He said that given the situation in Ramadi and the continual violence in the region, “This might be the last time we are displaced.”
Anbar province, which is predominantly Sunni Arab, has been mostly controlled by the Islamic State since the beginning of 2014, nearly six months before the Islamic State seized Mosul in the north.
The region holds special resonance for the United States. Nearly 1,300 US troops died there trying to pacify the unruly desert region in the years after the 2003 invasion.
Ooooooooh, a campaign of pacification was undertaken. That brings memories of Vietnam and civilian slaughter.
Now, US warplanes are back bombing targets in Anbar, and a few hundred US military trainers are stationed at an air base in the province training tribal fighters to battle the Islamic State.
Oh, good. That should fix everything, and if they ned more, well.... whatchagonnado?
--more--"
Actually, the fault was mine. It was SILLI of me to take seriously the war-promoting propaganda pre$$. Besides, the Iraq puppet is on board.
Back into the deep freeze (the top story of the day as I logged in?) for the day(??). Maybe I will spend it watching some TV while using the remote to lip-synch the blues.
