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| Iraq |
| Iraq Shi'ite militia take lead in campaign to reverse Islamic State gains |
| 2015-05-27 |
| [REUTERS] Iraq's Shi'ite paramilitaries said on Tuesday they had taken charge of the campaign to drive 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.... from the western province of Anbar, giving the operation an openly sectarian codename that could infuriate its Sunni population. The Iraqi government is scrambling to reverse its biggest military setback in nearly a year, the fall of Ramadi, capital of Anbar province west of Baghdad. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has vowed to recapture it within days. The Shi'ite militiamen, supported by a smaller cadre of government troops, advanced on Tuesday to within a few kilometers of a university on Ramadi's southwestern edge, police sources and Sunni tribal fighters allied to the government said. As they passed through Euphrates river valley farmland south of Ramadi, the forces of Evil told people to return home, stay inside and they would not be harmed. Ramadi's fall a week ago was swiftly followed by the fall of the UNESCO heritage city of Palmyra in Syria, the two biggest gains by Islamic State fighters since the United States began targeting them with air strikes in both Iraq and Syria last year. Islamic State controls swathes of territory in both countries, where it has proclaimed a caliphate to rule over all Moslems according to strict mediaeval precepts. The simultaneous advances over the past week at opposite ends of the group's territory have raised doubts about the U.S. strategy to bomb the bully boyz from the air but leave fighting on the ground to local Iraqi and Syrian forces. In Iraq, the regular military's failure to hold Ramadi has forced the government to send Iran-backed Shi'ite paramilitaries to help retake the city. Washington is worried this could enrage residents in the overwhelmingly Sunni Moslem province and push them into the arms of Islamic State. A front man for the Shi'ite militias, known as Hashid Shaabi, said the codename for the new operation would be "Labaik ya Hussein", a slogan in honor of a grandson of the Prophet Mohammed killed in the 7th Century battle that led to the schism between Shi'ite and Sunni Moslems. |
| Posted by:Fred |