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Iraq
Baghdad surrounded: ‘Nightmare scenario’ unfolds as ISIL takes supply routes
2014-06-25
[Wash Times] Baghdad is surrounded by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and at least two key supply routes are under the Sunni radical organizationÂ’s control.

Shafin Dizayee, a spokesman for autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government in Irbil, told McClatchy news service that “the picture is no longer scary. It has become close to a nightmare scenario, where we see [ISIL] expanding and taking control of its borders.”

Another Kurdish official, Jabbar Yawar of the Peshmerga militia, told the news service that the towns of Iskandariya and Mahmoudiyah, just 6 miles south of Baghdad, had fallen.

The city of Samarra, north of Baghdad, is also not faring well. An official who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he wasnÂ’t authorized to speak publicly, told McClatchy that Iraqi security forces were having a difficult time defending the city.

“[Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri] al-Maliki is tense. He is up working until 4 a.m. every day. He angrily ordered staff at his office to stop watching TV news channels hostile to his government,” one Iraqi official told The Associated Press in a report Friday.

The Obama administration is sending 300 U.S. troops to Iraq to serve as military advisers in an attempt to help thwart a civil war.
This has all the makings of a sectarian bloodbath of epic proportions. As the ISIL encirclement is completed, I suspect BIAP will come under heavy fire and be closed to commercial and military flights. A race to the Kuwait and Iranian borders will begin.
Posted by:Besoeker

#34  To finish my comment, I don't believe for a minute that the Manchurian Candidate's (not-so-hidden) owner/handler didn't plan all this crap.
Posted by: Barbara   2014-06-25 21:28  

#33  Sorry for the double post, mods - please delete one.

This is what happens, boy & girls, when you accidently hit "enter" instead of "backspace." >:-(
Posted by: Barbara   2014-06-25 21:24  

#32  Thanks a lot for this disaster of a clusterfuck, Bambi. You fucking IDIOT.
Posted by: Barbara   2014-06-25 21:22  

#31  Thanks a lot for this disaster of a clusterfuck, Bambi. You fucking IDIOT.
Posted by: Barbara   2014-06-25 21:22  

#30  Thanks Pappy. Last check, the Kurds have no heavy artillery, no armor and no air force. If we are counting on the Kurds to counter ISIL then this better be remedied PDQ.
Posted by: Squinty   2014-06-25 18:58  

#29  Re: Iranian artillery - I'd surmise that it's more a warning to the Iraqi Kurds to stay on heir side of the border.
Posted by: Pappy   2014-06-25 18:52  

#28  A week old but good analysis:
Posted by: 3dc   2014-06-25 18:48  

#27  Yes, but the question is, can we provide cover for the extraction, or is it a shooting gallery?

What are we waiting for?
Posted by: KBK   2014-06-25 18:38  

#26  Iranian artillery shells border's Kurdish villages in Iraqi Kurdistan region

"Erbil: Iranian artillery bombed border's villages adjacent to the Iranian territory in Iraqi Kurdistan region. The website of the Union Patriotic of Kurdistan quoted an eminent Kurdish official as saying: The shelling experienced by this area started on Tuesday evening noting that Iranian forces also carried out an assault on Merkin village juxtaposed to the Iranian border Tuesday afternoon. The same source added that the artillery shelling also targeted the villages of Kanyah-Do, Saqar, and Sharki, without casualties."

Anybody know anything more about this?
Posted by: Squinty   2014-06-25 18:05  

#25  Well KBK old boy, it becomes a long, hot, dusty 500+ kilo slog straight south to a petrol stop in Nasiriyah and on to the Mutla Ridge [see happy snap] if you're lucky. All of that with the hope the Kuwaitis can hold the bastards off and there will be hots and cots down at Camp Arifjan until airlift from Al al Salem or Kuwaiti International can be arranged. Of course there's the Iranian border option, not my first choice. I'd wager the Kuwaitis would help U.S. personnel and foreign nationals....Iraqis however, not so much. All the makings of a colossal cock-up of the first order I'd say.
Posted by: Besoeker   2014-06-25 17:13  

#24  What are the logistics involved in extracting the thousands of embassy staff if the airport is in insurgent hands and the runways have been disrupted?
Posted by: KBK   2014-06-25 16:55  

#23  I hope and pray all the U.S. personnel and other foreign nationals make it out of Iraq in one piece.

Ditto.
Posted by: Squinty   2014-06-25 16:52  

#22  I suspect Turkey is working with ISIS.

I have been wondering about that. Perhaps that is why Turkey is being so nice to the Kurds; trying to split them away from Maliki.

None of the regional players want ISIL to ultimately succeed. So I wonder what the Turkey and KSA plan is for the end game? Wipeout ISIL (who and how?) and leave JRTN in charge; that is, back to Saddam?

Posted by: Squinty   2014-06-25 16:47  

#21  No matter wat your politics or slant, this is going to get most unpleasant for a great many innocent people. Sadly, it could have been prevented if only the communist kaffir bastard had listened.

I hope and pray all the U.S. personnel and other foreign nationals make it out of Iraq in one piece.
Posted by: Besoeker   2014-06-25 16:45  

#20  3dc: I suspect Turkey is working with ISIS.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2014-06-25 16:36  

#19  ISF is closing the gates, or trying to, around Baghdad - I wonder how infiltrated the city is by ISIL. Close the airport, disrupt water and electricity, slow ground transport supplies in. No, they don't need to assault Baghdad, just need to start a panic.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2014-06-25 16:29  

#18  One of things the news has not been talking about is how Maliki has antagonized the Kurds. He has spent the last 3 years purging Kurds from the army along with anyone who was trained by the US Army and replaced them with Shia militia leaders.

If you're wondering what happened to the army we trained there, that army disappeared long before Mosul.

This January, while no one was paying attention, Maliki cut off all payments to the Kurdish Regional Government, throwing the Kurdish economy into chaos. If you want to know why the Kurds aren't fighting harder, it's because they don't want to stick their necks out for someone who's stabbed them in the back so many times.
Posted by: frozen al   2014-06-25 15:56  

#17  So.. The Magic Kingdom is getting ready to enter the battle. That implies they have their nukes to counter the Iranian ones?
Posted by: 3dc   2014-06-25 15:46  

#16  From Outlaw09 at Small Wars Council we see:
Ongoing events

1.In Europe reports are coming out concerning Iranian military movements and buildup on Iraqi border near Manadli next to Diyala province.
2. It appears that now ISIS has closed the ring around Baghdad with their troop movements being mobile forcing the ISF to not fully understand the battle space and making it harder to react to --basically it seems the ISF is just setting up checkpoints after checkpoints actually in effect creating new targets as the IAI/ISIS have 8 years of target practice against any form of checkpoint there is.
3. It now appears that the Syrian Air Force is actually bombing inside Iraq and the Iraqi's initially claimed it was US drones in order to cover up the Syrian involvement.

http://news.yahoo.com/syria-sends-wa...134145404.html

4. And this is extremely important if true to any degree---some European news reporters in the [b]KSA are indicating a very quiet KSA military alert for selected armored and AF units and some movement of units towards the Iraqi border.[/b]
5. Turkey is claiming they have stopped a total of 5300 recruits attempting to flow into the ISIS in Syria over the last six months.

Things are getting now out of control and a momentum is building that if it continues will expand into a Holy War as the three regional hegemones are getting involved-Syria, Iran and the KSA.
Posted by: 3dc   2014-06-25 15:44  

#15  Anything else gave an error posting.
Posted by: 3dc   2014-06-25 15:39  

#14  http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2014/06/iraqs-central-front-attacks-upon.html
Posted by: 3dc   2014-06-25 15:38  

#13  Kurds are duking it out with ISIL outside of Qaraqosh, a Christian town due east of Mosul. The Kurds fear a massacre if ISIS takes Qaraqosh.
Posted by: Squinty   2014-06-25 15:05  

#12  Iskandariya and Mahmoudiyah, just 6 miles south of Baghdad, had fallen.

This is bad. By my reckoning, Iskandariya (AKA Alexandria) is halfway between Baghdad and Karbala, just more due south of Baghdad than Karbala. I don't know where the six miles south of Baghdad came from. Baghdad is being encircled and no surge on the horizon to lift it.

No wonder the Sunni minority conquered the Shia; what wusses.

Bye-bye Maliki.
Posted by: Squinty   2014-06-25 14:54  

#11  At that point, I say we as a nation just supply plenty of ammo
This is another reason caliber commonality is so very important. 1 airdrop, 2 targets, instead of 2 airdrops and associated waste.
Posted by: Shipman   2014-06-25 14:31  

#10  This ISIS Group seem to be too organised/state funded to take this much of Iraq so soon.

ISIS was joined by Saddam Hussein's generals and lower some time ago, Thusosh Untervehr8552. At one point some of them would have gone through American training.
Posted by: trailing wife   2014-06-25 14:13  

#9  This ISIS Group seem to be too organised/state funded to take this much of Iraq so soon.
Posted by: Thusosh Untervehr8552   2014-06-25 13:49  

#8  There is already a battalion of Iranian Quds in Iraq, and a motorized division supposedly marshaling over the border. It will get nasty if they enter - because Persians and Arabs do.not.like each other one bit.

The joke in the deck are the Shia militias. If they get loosed, especially Tater's bunch, they can be every bit as bloody as ISIS, except with Sunni heads on the pikes. Once that happens, there will not be any stopping it - and it becomes Lebanon on a much larger scale.

At that point, I say we as a nation just supply plenty of ammo, lob in cruise missiles on leadership targets, and sit back with popcorn, watching from Jordan and Kurdistan.
Posted by: OldSpook   2014-06-25 13:20  

#7  "On to Tehran!"
Posted by: Frank G   2014-06-25 09:25  

#6  about 4 million people in Baghdad and vicinity

this comes at a bad time for Iran because some of their best forces are in Syria or guarding the oil fields in the sunni region in sw Iran.

Still, they should be able to mobilize at least a division pretty quickly.
Posted by: lord garth   2014-06-25 08:59  

#5  When I was attempting to learn to play tennis, we were taught that if the opponent is crowding the net, smash a ball at their feet to drive them back a bit, setting up for the killer slam down the line.
Posted by: trailing wife   2014-06-25 08:17  

#4  Besoeker, nukes are soooo inelegant. Sooo brute force.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2014-06-25 06:14  

#3  Well g(r)om, perhaps we'll live to see the hard work of your lads at Dimona finally rewarded. When the evening news is interrupted with the reporting, please know that I will be on my feet and cheering wildly.
Posted by: Besoeker   2014-06-25 06:12  

#2  "What is the Law"! (Spoken by Bela Lugosi)

- Not to spill blood! (spoken by manimals)
- Not to eat meat!
- Not to walk on all fours!

THAT is the Law! Are we not men?rong>
Posted by: borgboy   2014-06-25 06:05  

#1  This has all the makings of a sectarian bloodbath of epic proportions.

You just have to keep in mind, Besoeker, that the best metaphor for post Sykes-Picot ME is "The Island of Dr Moreau"
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2014-06-25 05:54  

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