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Iraqi forces seize 2 Fallujah districts from Islamic State
[Iraq Sun] Iraq's armed forces pressed on with their offensive to retake the city of Fallujah from Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... on Tuesday, June 21dislodging the gunnies from two eastern districts and pushing them back into a handful of northern and western neighborhoods, Rooters reports. A military statement said the elite counter-terrorism forces took the northeastern Shurta police district while units from Baghdad operations command recaptured the Askari military neighborhood. Islamic State still held the northern districts of Jughaifi and Golan as well as the western banks of the Tigris river. Fighting to recapture the Iraqi city longest held by Islamic State, now in its fifth week, has forced more than 85,000 residents to flee to overwhelmed government-run camps. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said last week that the recapture of Fallujah would pave the way for the military to march on djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , Islamic State's de facto capital, Rooters says. The operation's commander Lieutenant General Abdul Wahab al-Saidi told Rooters on Monday that U.S.-backed Iraqi forces expected the final push would take place in the west. The Iraqi army is also pressing on with an offensive to dislodge the gunnies from farmlands located on the western bank of the Euphrates, opposite the built-up area of Fallujah, ... the City of Mosques, which might have somthing to do with why it's not called Center of Prosperityor a really nice place to raise your kids... that the gunnies use as a base for snipers and mortar attacks. "The simultaneous attacks are continuing from four directions to tighten the noose around ISIS (Islamic State)fighters entrenched in houses among civilians and prevent them from catching their breath," said Colonel Ahmed al-Saidi from the federal police. Government troops launched the operation on May 23 to retake Fallujah, a bastion of the Sunni Moslem insurgency against U.S. forces that toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, in 2003, and later against Shi'ite-led governments. The gunnies seized Fallujah in January 2014, six months before they declared a "caliphate" over part of Syria and Iraq. Posted by: Fred 2016-06-22 |
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