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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| IS Leaders Leaving Syria's Raqa, Pentagon Says |
| 2017-02-18 |
| [An Nahar] Leaders of 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 are leaving their Syrian stronghold of Raqa, fleeing in the face of the Arab-Kurd offensive backed by the international coalition, the U.S. Defense Department said Friday. "We are starting to see now that a lot of senior ISIS leaders, a lot of their "They have definitely taken note of the fact that the end is near in Raqa," he told news hounds, describing a retreat that seems "very organized, orderly." After a string of major losses in both Iraq and Syria, the jihadists' two main strongholds of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... and Raqa are both under attack from forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition. After a massive, four-month campaign, Iraqi forces are tightening the noose on Mosul, while in Syria, the Arab-Kurd alliance, the Syrian Democratic Forces, has been advancing to cut off IS access in Raqa. According to the Pentagon front man, that objective is nearly complete, with the Islamic State group now controlling only one road, in the southeast of the city. Located along the north bank of the Euphrates River, the road links Raqa to Deir Ezzor, said Davis, who did not give precise details about the extent of the jihadists' retreat. Roads in the north and west are blocked by the Syrian Democratic Forces, and in the south, by the destruction of bridges on the Euphrates, he said. While the isolation operations on Raqa have made progress, the coalition has not announced its plan for recapturing the city. Still unknown is what role the armed wing of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, the YPG, will play in the U.S.-backed Arab-Kurd alliance. The YPG, considered a terrorist group by ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , fights the Islamic State group in northern Syria as well as Ankara's forces. Turkish President Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... has proposed that the coalition replace the YPG with Turkish forces. |
| Posted by:Fred |