|
Iraq Battles IS in Mosul, Commander Says Resistance Weakening
 [An Nahar] Iraqi special forces battled 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.... group on Friday in west djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , where a commander said jihadist resistance is showing signs of weakening under repeated assaults. The jihadists are also facing simultaneous offensives in Syria by government forces, Turkish-backed rebels and a US-supported alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, piling more pressure on IS. But the battle for Mosul's Old City -- which could see some of the toughest fighting of the operation -- has not yet begun, nor has fighting inside the city of Raqa, IS's main bastion in Syria. Iraq's Counter-Terrorism Service assaulted the al-Amil al-Oula neighbourhood of west Mosul early on Friday, and were battling the jihadists inside it, said Staff Major General Maan al-Saadi, a CTS commander. "The enemy fought fiercely in the first defensive line from al-Ghazlani base to Wadi Hajar and to al-Sumood neighbourhood," Saadi said, referring to areas that Iraqi forces have recaptured since launching their assault on west Mosul on February 19. But "after these neighbourhoods, after we broke the defensive line, they lost many fighters," he said. "The enemy has begun to collapse. They have lost many of their combat capabilities. Today, the enemy sent (boom-mobiles), but not in the numbers that they sent at the beginning of the battle." In another sign that the jihadists are feeling the squeeze, their chief His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... was reported to have abandoned Mosul, leaving local commanders behind to oversee IS's defence of the city. "He was in Mosul at some point before the offensive.... He left before we isolated Mosul and Tal Afar," a town to the west, a US defence official said. Posted by: Fred 2017-03-12 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=483173 |