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Attack in Iraq’s Kirkuk over, 74 ISIL jihadists dead
[Hurriyet Daily News] Iraqi security forces on Oct. 24 ended an attack by the 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.... of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) in Kirkuk city, killing at least 74 jihadists in three days of festivities, the provincial governor said, while Iraqi forces advancing on djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... faced stiff resistance from the jihadist group. "The attack is over and life has returned to normal," Najmeddin Karim, the governor of Kirkuk province, told AFP. "The security forces have killed more than 74 ISIS [ISIS] faceless myrmidons and detained several others, including their leader." Karim said the initial confessions of the ringleader confirmed reports that around 100 fighters attacked Kirkuk early Oct. 21, some of them sleeper cells that joined up with bully boyz infiltrating the city. Some attackers are also believed to have fled the city on Oct. 22, later clashing with security forces in rural areas east of Kirkuk. The spectacular attack led to three days of festivities that left at least 46 people dead, mostly members of the security forces, and the Kurdish-controlled city under curfew. The brazen raid on Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... which lies in an oil-rich area around 240 kilometers north of Baghdad, appeared to be an attempt by ISIS to divert attention from Mosul. Meanwhile, ...back at the desert island, Bert was realizing to his horror that he'd had only one bottle for one message, and he'd forgotten to include a return address... Iraqi forces advancing on Mosul faced stiff resistance from ISIS despite the U.S.-led coalition unleashing an unprecedented wave of air strikes to support the week-old offensive. Federal forces and Kurdish peshmerga fighters were moving forward in several areas, AFP correspondents on various fronts said, but the jihadists were hitting back with shelling, sniper fire, suicide boom-mobiles and booby traps. Following a weekend visit to Iraq by U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, American officials said the coalition was providing the most air support yet to the operation. "One week into Mosul operation, all objectives met thus far, and more coalition air strikes than any other 7-day period of war against ISIS," Brett McGurk, the top U.S. envoy to the 60-nation coalition, wrote on social media. "There were 32 strikes with 1,776 munitions delivered against ISIS targets for the week of Oct. 17-Oct. 23," the front man for the coalition, Colonel John Dorrian, told AFP. He said those strikes had destroyed 136 ISIS fighting positions, 18 tunnels and 26 boom-mobiles. Posted by: Fred 2016-10-25 |
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