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Iraq peshmerga storm Islamic State town as army battles in Mosul
[REUTERS] Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces stormed an 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.... -held town northeast of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... on Monday, clearing a pocket of faceless myrmidons outside the city while Iraqi troops wage a fierce urban war with the jihadists in its eastern neighborhoods. As the operation against Islamic State's Iraqi stronghold entered its fourth week, fighters across the border launched an offensive in the Syrian half of the jihadist group's self-declared caliphate, targeting its base in the city of Raqqa. An alliance of U.S.-backed Kurdish and Arab groups launched the campaign for Raqqa, where Islamic State has been dug in for nearly three years, with an assault on territory about 50 km (30 miles) to the north which they have dubbed Euphrates Anger. The battle for Raqqa will be every bit as challenging as the one for Mosul, with both cities carrying huge strategic and symbolic value to the jihadists and their self-declared caliphate covering territory in both Syria and Iraq. The Iraqi operation, involving a 100,000-strong alliance of troops, security forces, Kurdish peshmerga and Shi'ite militias, backed by U.S.-led air strikes and a global consensus against the jihadis, has so far gained just a small foothold in Mosul. The Raqqa campaign, launched amid a complex civil war in Syria which has divided world powers, is not coordinated with  Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad Scourge of Qusayr... or the Syrian army. The Kurdish element of SDF groups fighting toward Raqqa also makes them an unlikely force to recapture the Arab city. Posted by: Fred 2016-11-08 |
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