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Iraq

US-led coalition pulls out of 3rd Iraqi base this month

2020-03-30

[BREITBART] The U.S.-led coalition withdrew on Sunday from a military base in northern Iraq that nearly launched Washington into an open war with neighboring Iran.

The K1 Air Base is the third site coalition forces have left this month in line with U.S. plans to consolidate its troops in two locations in Iraq.

A rocket attack on the base in late December killed one American contractor and lead to a series of tit-for-tat attacks between the U.S. and Iran-backed Iraqi militia groups. The attacks culminated in the U.S.-directed killing of top Iranian general Qassim Soleimani and senior Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Coalition forces handed over the K1 air base in the northern Iraqi province of Kirkuk to Iraq’s military, according to a coalition statement. At least $1.1 million of equipment was transferred to the Iraqis as 300 coalition personnel departed.

K1 has hosted coalition forces since 2017 to launch operations against the Islamic State

...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group in the nearby mountainous areas. Areas south of Kirkuk,
... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time...
and north of neighboring provinces of Diyala, Salahaddin and Nineveh remain hot beds of IS activity.

The stretch of territory is also disputed between the federal Iraqi government and the autonomous Kurdish region, which has created security gaps benefiting IS bully boys. The coalition’s presence had at times been a mediating presence between the two competing authorities.

A senior coalition official earlier this month claimed IS forces weren’t as able to exploit the "security gap" between Iraqi and Kurdish forces as the turbans did in the past.

Posted by:Fred

#5 George W. Bush deserves to be stuck in Baghdad until Iraq looks like New Jersey.

There's a Bob Dylan song about that, I think - To Be Stuck Inside of Baghdad With Those Jersey Blues Again". Or something like that.

Posted by: SteveS 2020-03-30 17:03

#4 /\ George W. Bush deserves to be stuck in Baghdad until Iraq looks like New Jersey.

Admirable goal, but a pretty low bar.

Posted by: Besoeker 2020-03-30 16:26

#3 You know, a good addition to our own constitution would be that each president, after completing his term, should have to remain full time in charge of fixing the biggest fuck up of his presidency. George W. Bush deserves to be stuck in Baghdad until Iraq looks like New Jersey.

Posted by: M. Murcek 2020-03-30 16:20

#2 Enjoy your democracy (one man, 100 bullets).

Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-03-30 03:20

#1 Our job in Iraq is done. You folks have a nice day.

Posted by: Besoeker 2020-03-30 02:16

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