| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq |
| Iraq forces at critical juncture as Anbar teeters |
| 2014-10-14 |
| Baghdad (AFP) - A string of jihadist attacks has shrunk the Iraqi government's footprint in Anbar to a bare minimum and officials are warning time is running out to save the western province from falling completely. Kurdish and federal troops backed by US-led airstrikes have pinned back their enemy and notched up gains in northern Iraq in recent weeks, but in Anbar the jihadists have retained the initiative. A senior US defence official told AFP that the Iraqi's army position in Anbar was "tenuous". "They are being resupplied and they're holding their own, but it's tough and challenging," the official said. "I think it's fragile there now." The latest retreat came as recently as Sunday, when around 300 government forces abandoned a camp outside the city of Heet to join other forces holed up at Asad air base, deeper in the desert. IS had already taken control of the city centre following deadly attacks which the UN said caused the displacement of an estimated 180,000 people. "Heet is now 100 percent under IS-control," a senior Anbar police official said Monday. IS-led insurgents control Fallujah, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, Qaem nearly 300 kilometres farther west on the border with Syria, and most of in between. Thanks in part to intensive US air strikes, government forces backed by Sunni tribal fighters opposed to IS have retained control of Haditha dam, the country's second largest, and a handful of other areas. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 Tenuous,...tough and challenging,...fragile I've heard those words before. I didn't like them then. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2014-10-14 02:41 |