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| Terror Networks | |
| Iraq Ground Offensive Looms as Baghdad Bomb Kills 14 | |
| 2015-02-10 | |
| [AnNahar] A top U.S. envoy said Iraqi troops would launch a major ground offensive against the Islamic State group in the coming weeks, as a suicide bomber killed 14 people in Baghdad Monday. IS spearheaded an offensive that swept through large areas north and west of Baghdad last June, and Iraqi forces are battling to regain ground with support from U.S.-led air strikes. John Allen, the U.S. coordinator for the anti-IS coalition of Western and Arab countries, said Sunday Iraqi troops would begin a major offensive "in the weeks ahead". "When the Iraqi forces begin the ground campaign to take back Iraq, the coalition will provide major firepower associated with that," he told Jordan's official Petra news agency. Iraqi forces have already carried out operations near Baghdad and in Diyala and Salaheddin provinces north of the capital. IS-led militants were stopped short of Baghdad in June and have since been pushed back, but can still carry out deadly attacks. On Monday, a suicide bomber attacked Baghdad's Shiite-majority Kadhimiyah district, killing at least 14 people and wounding at least 43, officials said. The bomber struck near pavement vendors in crowded Aden Square in the second suicide bombing to hit the city in three days. On Saturday, an attack inside a restaurant in the Baghdad Jadida area killed at least 23 people. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday's attack, but suicide bombings are almost exclusively carried out by Sunni extremists in Iraq, including IS. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the air campaign, launched in Iraq in August and expanded to Syria the following month, was helping ground forces win back territory and depriving the jihadists of key funds. There have been 2,000 air strikes on IS so far, Kerry told a security conference in Munich. These had helped ground forces retake some 700 square kilometers (270 square miles) of territory from the jihadists, or "one-fifth of the area they had in their control", he said. Kerry did not specify whether the recaptured territory was in Iraq or Syria. But he added the coalition had "deprived the militants of the use of 200 oil and gas facilities... disrupted their command structure... squeezed its finance and dispersed its personnel". Coalition warplanes launched three air strikes against IS in Syria in the 24 hours to 0600 GMT on Monday, the Pentagon said, and another six in Iraq. The Observatory also reported at least 15 people killed and dozens wounded on Monday in Syrian regime air strikes on the rebel-held Douma area east of Damascus.
kaboom!in a commercial district in the Shiite-majority Husseiniyah area near Baghdad on Monday, killing at least one person and wounding at least seven. | |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #1 * See also DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > BREAKING: JORDAN MOVING THOUSANDS OF TROOPS TO IRAQ BORDER - HOT AIR. JORDAN may have some kind of major role to play in this via coordination wid the Iraqi Army + supporting US-Led Coalition, IMO possibly either as an independent "offensive" ground-air prong into Iraq, or else as a defensive "blocking force" to prevent or minimize any ISIS/ISIL escape ... AGAIN, WHAT WILL OWG CO-SUPERPOWER RISING IRAN, TO INCLUDE HEZBOLLAH + ALIGNED, BE DOING IN ALL THIS??? Speaking of HEZBOLLAH ... * TOPIX > [Examiner] OBAMA ARMING HEZBOLLAH TO FIGHT AL-QAIDA IN LEBANON. Artic read, HEZBOLLAH-VS-AL-NUSRA. HEZBOLLAH-VS-ISIS??? The Hezzies Huzzies Hizzies Hussies, etc. are now OWG Amerika's + Israel's BFF [or in alt Best Frenemy Forevar!] in the ME??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2015-02-10 21:43 |