|
Airstrikes kill 3 senior Islamic State leaders in Anbar
[Iraq News] Airstrikes by Iraqi army jets killed three senior 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.... leaders in western Anbar, according to a source within the Joint Operations Command. The strikes targeted IS havens at the center of the city of al-Qaem, a major IS stronghold in the west of the province, Waradana website quoted the source saying. City of al-Qaem, Anbar, Iraq (google maps) The trio killed in the strike were identified as Zeidan (Abu Sufian) al-Sharqi, Dhaher Mekhlef and Bassem Awwad. According to the source, the trio belong to the group’s "first generation" Islamic State held Anbar’s western regions, close to the borders with Syria, since 2014. Those areas have sustained occasional bombardments by Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition fighter jets. There has not been an officially-declared military campaign to free those regions, but the province’s military command launched a brief assault early January that managed to recapture some western villages before stopping again. The Iraqi government, currently focusing its full combat power in djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , IS’s largest bastion in Iraq, is expected to shift to other IS pockets in Iraq once the campaign in Mosul comes to an end. Local officials believe Islamic State is holding thousands in those regions to use them as human shields against any future security offensive. The province’s borders with Syria witnessed exchanges of attacks between IS and border guards earlier ths month. Posted by: Fred 2017-03-24 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=484143 |