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Residents Return to Fallujah Despite Tension
[An Nahar] Residents of a hard boy-held city on Storied Baghdad
...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate...
's doorstep began slowly returning on Saturday amid a tense calm.

Most businesses reopened in Fallujah and government security operations in nearby areas were put on hold after heavy overnight rain restricted the use of aircraft and heavy vehicles, a day after police and rustics retook hard boy-held areas in the nearby Anbar thriving provincial capital Ramadi.

Gunmen seized all of Fallujah,
... the City of Mosques, which might have somthing to do with why it's not called Center of Prosperity or a really nice place to raise your kids...
just 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Storied Baghdad, and parts of Ramadi last week, the first time Death Eaters have exercised such open control in major cities since the insurgency that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Both cities lie in Anbar province, a sprawling desert region that borders Syria where U.S. and Iraqi officials have warned for months that jihadists have been able to establish training camps and rear bases.

The United Nations
...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly...
and NGOs have said civilians lack access to essential supplies such as food and fuel because of the crisis, while Washington has piled pressure on Storied Baghdad to focus on political reconciliation, in addition to ongoing military operations.

The main route linking Storied Baghdad to Fallujah was packed with vehicles, an Agence La Belle France Presse journalist said, as residents of the former bully boy bastion began making their way back after fleeing days earlier.

Most of the city's businesses had also reopened on Saturday, according to the journalist.

But tribal leaders said a combination of anti-government rustics and fighters loyal to the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
... the current version of al-Qaeda in Iraq, just as blood-thirsty and well-beloved as the original...
(ISIL) were deployed on the outskirts of Fallujah.

Posted by: Fred 2014-01-12
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=383408