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| Iraq |
| Armed tribesmen seize two Anbar cities |
| 2014-06-22 |
| Armed tribesmen and not militants from the radical Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have seized two cities in Anbar, Al Arabiya News Channel reported the governor of the Sunni-majority province as saying on Saturday, Alarabiya reported. While ISIS militants - coupled with local Sunni rebels - started their surprise offensive by seizing Iraq's second biggest city of Mosul on June 10, Anbar governor said armed tribesmen were the ones who claimed control over Rawa and Ana in Anbar. Meanwhile, the mayor of Rawa, Hussein AIi al-Aujail, told the Associated Press that Sunni militants captured the town Saturday. The local army and police force pulled out when the militants took control, Aujail said. He said militants ransacked government offices in the town, along the Euphrates River some 275 kilometers northwest of Baghdad. The news comes after the al-Qaeda breakaway ISIS, along with allied militants, seized Qaim and its crossing, about 320 kilometers west of Baghdad, after killing some 30 Iraqi troops in daylong clashes Friday. Police and army officials said people were now crossing back and forth freely. Chief military spokesman Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi acknowledged Qaim's fall, telling journalists that troops aided by local tribesmen sought to clear the city of "terrorists." While Sunni militants have controlled the city of Fallujah in Anbar and parts of the provincial capital of Ramadi since January, militants' seizing these towns appears to be a new offensive in the western province. Militants led by ISIS have seized a vast swathe of territory in northern Iraq since overrunning Mosul. The vast Anbar province stretches from the western edges of Baghdad all the way to Jordan and Syria to the northwest. The fighting in Anbar has greatly disrupted use of the highway linking Baghdad to the Jordanian border, a key artery for goods and passengers. The militants have also attempted to fully control Iraq's biggest oil refinery. As a result of the fighting with Iraqi forces, the Baiji refinery in the Sunni province of Salaheddin has been shut down and the supply route to Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region cut off. On Saturday, sources told Al Arabiya News Channel that a mortar attack has targeted one of the oil tanks in the refinery. Despite coming under heavy attack from ISIS in recent days, Iraqi government forces still control the Baiji refinery. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #6 .. and the Kurds. |
| Posted by: Squinty 2014-06-22 12:56 |
| #5 I'll go with OldSpook's analysis and recommend an even handed approach to western supplied, lethal aid. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-06-22 12:23 |
| #4 Could be the start of a general Sunni tribal revolt - basically taking their own cities to prevent ISIS from doing so - and also to keep out the Shia militias and Shia dominated Iraqi Army and Police units (which usually turn tail and run anyways). If this can actually be encouraged, then the Sunni tribes can be turned against the ISIS, the Shia kept out, and the partition of Iraq becomes a reality, albeit 8 years too late. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2014-06-22 12:00 |
| #3 Herding cats. Without a log tail either. The locals have a big problem with log(istics). It's not in their blood or culture. What little there is often is corrupted by the usual suspects. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2014-06-22 09:12 |
| #2 Why are the baddies still on charge? I remember trying to wrangle a number of smallish children, half not my own and therefore not familiar with our way of doing things, to the swimming pool, Bobby. How much longer must it take to get a million amateurs (ranging up to semi-pro, to be sure) all marching in the same direction with a bare minimum of kit? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2014-06-22 07:24 |
| #1 3,000 bad guys and a million volunteers to fight them? Why are the baddies still on charge? |
| Posted by: Bobby 2014-06-22 06:42 |