ISIL/ISIS militants launched an offensive Wednesday in Iraq’s western Anbar province located near Ramadi.
Islamic State militants launched an offensive Wednesday in Iraq’s western Anbar province located near Ramadi. The militants captured three villages posing a major threat to the city by the militants to date.
The fighters seized the villages of Sjariyah, Albu-Ghanim and Soufiya, which had also been under government control until now, and residents said they had to escape their homes.
In Soufiya, militants bombed a police station and took over a power plant. Residents, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said airstrikes were trying to back up the Iraqi troops.
An Iraqi intelligence official said the militants were preparing to launch another attack from the western side of the city, saying that the situation is critical.
ISIL also attempted to take control of the main highway that goes through Ramadi to cut off supplies, the official said.
The governor of Anbar Suhaib al-Rawi said that Baghdad sent military forces to Anbar to strengthen the police forces in Ramadi, in an attempt to drive away ISIL attacks on the city.
The US-led coalition providing support to Iraqi forces said it conducted 16 airstrikes in the Beiji area from Monday to early Wednesday, while other airstrikes targeted areas of Anbar province.
http://sptnkne.ws/dPh
16/5/15
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Related Anbar province:
Islamic State militants launched an offensive Wednesday in Iraq’s western Anbar province located near Ramadi. The militants captured three villages posing a major threat to the city by the militants to date.
The fighters seized the villages of Sjariyah, Albu-Ghanim and Soufiya, which had also been under government control until now, and residents said they had to escape their homes.
In Soufiya, militants bombed a police station and took over a power plant. Residents, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said airstrikes were trying to back up the Iraqi troops.
An Iraqi intelligence official said the militants were preparing to launch another attack from the western side of the city, saying that the situation is critical.
ISIL also attempted to take control of the main highway that goes through Ramadi to cut off supplies, the official said.
The governor of Anbar Suhaib al-Rawi said that Baghdad sent military forces to Anbar to strengthen the police forces in Ramadi, in an attempt to drive away ISIL attacks on the city.
The US-led coalition providing support to Iraqi forces said it conducted 16 airstrikes in the Beiji area from Monday to early Wednesday, while other airstrikes targeted areas of Anbar province.
http://sptnkne.ws/dPh
16/5/15
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Related Anbar province:
Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) downs two Iraqi military warplanes in Anbar (Anadolu Agency)
ISIL seizes strategic bridge in Iraq's Anbar
ISIS seizes U.S.-made arms in Iraq’s Anbar
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Related Tikrit:
Excavations start at suspected mass graves near Tikrit
Shi'ite fighters leave Tikrit under govt deal after looting, Iraqi officials say
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As Islamic State pushes on Iraq's Ramadi, 2000 families flee...
ReplyDeleteClashes between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants pressing their offensive for Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province, has forced more than 2,000 families to flee from their homes in the area, an Iraqi official said Thursday.
The Sunni militants' push on Ramadi, launched Wednesday when the Islamic State group captured three villages on the city's eastern outskirts, has become the most significant threat so far to the provincial capital of Anbar.
It is seen as an attempt by IS to stage a counteroffensive after suffering a major blow earlier this month when Iraqi troops routed the group from Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown.
Sattar Nowruz, from the Ministry of Migration and Displaced, said that the over 2,000 families that fled Ramadi were in a ``difficult situation'' and have settled in southern and western Baghdad suburbs...........AP......timesofindia.indiatimes.com
16/4/15
Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Thursday welcomed Iran's assistance in the fight against Islamic State jihadists, but warned Tehran to respect Baghdad's sovereignty...
ReplyDelete"Everything must be done through the government of Iraq," Abadi told an audience of US policy experts at a Washington think tank on the third day of a visit to the United States.
AFP
16/4/15
Iraq’s Baiji refinery not at ‘risk’ from ISIS: U.S....
ReplyDeleteIraq’s largest refinery in Baiji is not “at risk” despite an offensive by the Islamic State group that has breached parts of the facility, the U.S. military’s top general said Thursday.
ISIS militants have “penetrated the outer perimeter” of the vast oil refinery and the U.S.-coalition was concentrating bombing raids and surveillance flights over the area, General Martin Dempsey told reporters.
“The refinery itself is at no risk right now, but ... we’re focusing a lot of our ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) and air support there,” the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
The U.S. and coalition aircraft had carried out eight air strikes near Baiji on Wednesday and Thursday, according to a statement from the military command overseeing the air campaign.
Iraqi officials acknowledged on Wednesday that ISIS had seized some roads and buildings at the refinery, and that the militants were hiding among fuel tanks, complicating counter-attacks by Iraqi forces.
Asked about an ISIS assault in the western city of Ramadi, Dempsey said the Baiji refinery carried more strategic importance.
“I would much rather that Ramadi not fall, but it won’t be the end of the campaign should it fall,” he said.
“We got to get it back. And that’s tragic for the people, as we’ve seen along the way.”
Fighting in Ramadi has created a humanitarian problem and prompted a flood of refugees to Baghdad, he said..........alarabiya.net
17/4/15
US senators slam general on Ramadi comments...
DeleteTwo leading Republican senators on Friday ripped comments by the top U.S. uniformed soldier that the fall of Ramadi to Daesh in the Iraqi province of Anbar is not symbolic and central to Iraq's future.
Most of Ramadi fell to Daesh militants on Thursday after he city was besieged from four hubs.
“Chairman (Martin) Dempsey’s statement that Ramadi ‘is not symbolic in any way,’ has ‘not been declared part of the caliphate,’ and is not ‘central to the future of Iraq’ is a gross mischaracterization," Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham said Friday in a statement.
More than 150,000 Iraqi civilians have fled to Baghdad from Daesh’s advance on Ramadi and dozens of civilians have been killed by blasts and car bombs in the western Iraqi city.
The senators said Dempsey, who is the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, does not seem to appreciate that the fall of Ramadi would be seen by Iraqi Sunnis as a failure of the Baghdad government to protect them.
The lawmakers also criticized the Pentagon for defining its strategy for defending Beiji, but abandoning the capital of Anbar province to Daesh.
"Baiji is a little different, of course," Dempsey told reporters. "Baiji is part of the Iraqi oil infrastructure. Once the Iraqis have full control of Baiji, they will control all of their oil infrastructure, both north and south.”
The oil rich city is located 130 miles north of Baghdad, on the main roads to Mosul.
aa.com.tr
18/4/15
Iraqi forces fight IS militants at gates of Anbar provincial capital...
ReplyDelete(Reuters) - Iraqi security forces fought Islamic State militants at the gates of the western city of Ramadi on Friday, and local authorities warned it was in danger of falling unless reinforcements arrived soon.
Police sources and provincial council members said the militants were no more than half a kilometer from the center of the capital of Anbar province, and many residents were rushing to leave, waving white flags.
"The situation in Anbar is critical," council member Sabah Karhout told Reuters. Two deputy governors of Anbar echoed his alarm and said the U.S.-led coalition was not conducting enough airstrikes to help save the city.
A spokesman for the Defense Ministry played down the threat to Ramadi and said the army would soon launch a counter-offensive to reverse Islamic State advances in the area.
The Sunni Islamist militants have been making inroads near Ramadi since last week, when the government announced a new offensive to recapture Anbar, large parts of which Islamic State has held for the past year.
The insurgents suffered a major defeat this month when Iraqi troops and Shi'ite paramilitaries routed them from the city of Tikrit, but are now striking back in Anbar and at the country's largest refinery in Baiji.
(Writing by Isabel Coles; editing by Andrew Roche)
reuters.com
17/4/15
More than 90,000 flee Iraq’s Anbar province...
ReplyDeleteMore than 90,000 people have fled their homes in Iraq's western province of Anbar where ISIS militants have been gaining ground over the past week, the United Nations said on Sunday.
ISIS militants have encroached on the provincial capital Ramadi, displacing thousands of families.
"Our top priority is delivering life-saving assistance to people who are fleeing -- food, water and shelter are highest on the list of priorities," Lise Grande, humanitarian coordinator for the United Nations in Iraq, said in a statement............english.alarabiya.net
19/4/15