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| Iraq |
| U.S. Warplanes Back Kurds in Battle to Retake Iraq's Largest Dam |
| 2014-08-17 |
| [AnNahar] Kurdish forces backed by U.S. warplanes battled Saturday to retake Iraq's largest dam from Islamic State jihadist fighters, whose latest atrocity was a massacre in a Yazidi village. Two months of violence have brought Iraq to the brink of breakup, and world powers relieved by the exit of long-time premier Nuri al-Maliki were flying aid to the displaced and arms to the Kurds. Kurdish forces attacked the IS fighters who wrested the djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... dam from them a week earlier, a general told Agence La Belle France Presse. "Kurdish peshmerga, with U.S. air support, have seized control of the eastern side of the dam" complex, Major General Abdelrahman Korini told AFP, saying several jihadists had been killed. Buoyed by the air strikes U.S. President Barack Obama Jedi mind meld... ordered last week, the peshmerga have tried to claw back the ground they lost since the start of August. The dam on the Tigris provides electricity to much of the region and is crucial to irrigation in vast farming areas in Nineveh province. The recapture of Mosul dam would be one of the most significant achievements in a fightback that is also getting international material support. A day after the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... foreign ministers encouraged the bloc's member countries to send arms to the Kurds, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Iraq. Steinmeier, whose country hosts the largest Yazidi diaspora in the West, visited the autonomous region to assess the needs of the displaced and the peshmerga. Fear of an impending genocide against the Yazidi minority, whose faith is anathema to the Sunni Moslem bully boys, was one reason Washington cited for air strikes it began on August 8. Obama declared the Mount Sinjar siege over on Thursday, but vulnerable civilians remain in areas taken by the jihadists. In Kocho, senior Kurdish official Hoshyar Zebari said the jihadists "took their Dire Revenge™ on its inhabitants, who happened to be mostly Yazidis who did not flee their homes". Human rights groups and residents say IS fighters have demanded that villagers in the Sinjar area convert or leave, unleashing violent reprisals on any who refused. A bigwig of one of Iraq's main Kurdish parties said 81 people had bit the dust in the Friday attack, while a Yazidi activist said the corpse count could be even higher. The village lies near the northwestern town of Sinjar, which the jihadists stormed on August 3 sending tens of thousands of civilians, many of them Yazidi Kurds, fleeing into the mountains to the north. They hid there for days with little food or water. Mohsen Tawwal, a Yazidi fighter, said he saw a large number of bodies in Kocho on Friday. "We made it into a part of Kocho village, where residents were under siege, but we were too late," he told AFP by telephone. "There were corpses everywhere. We only managed to get two people out alive. The rest had all been killed." The Pentagon announced that U.S. drones had struck an IS convoy leaving the village on Friday after receiving reports that residents were under attack. The outcome of the latest U.S. strike was not immediately clear. Members of the Christian, Turkmen and other minorities have also been affected by the violence. In New York, the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution aimed at weakening the jihadists, who control large areas of neighboring Syria as well as of Iraq. The resolution "calls on all member states to take national measures to suppress the flow of foreign terrorist fighters", and threatens sanctions against anyone involved in their recruitment. When jihadist forces began their Iraq offensive on June 9, Kurdish peshmerga forces initially fared better than retreating federal soldiers, but the U.S.-made weaponry abandoned by government troops turned IS into an even more formidable foe. They were able to sweep through the Sunni Arab heartland north and west of Baghdad in early June, encountering little effective resistance. Many in and outside Iraq say the Shiite-led government was partly to blame by pushing sectarian policies that have marginalized and radicalized the Sunni minority. Outgoing premier Nuri al-Maliki was seen as an obstacle to any progress, and his announcement on Thursday that he was abandoning his efforts to cling to power was welcomed with a sigh of relief at home and abroad. In another potentially game-changing development, 25 Sunni tribes in the western province of Anbar, including some that had previously been on the fence, announced on Friday that they were launching a coordinated effort to oust IS fighters. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #7 AFAIC Globalist Obama remains primarily concerned wid empowering Globie-desired, future OWG Co-Superpower Iran - HIS ACTIONS IN IRAQ, SYRIA = BABY ASSAD, + LEBANON, OR LACK OF SAME, IS DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY LINKED TO SHIA IRAN BECOMING THE DOMINANT US-STYLE MILPOL NUCLEAR POWER, OR ONE OF THEM, IN ANY FUTURE OWG GLOBAL FED UNION(S). As per the so-called "SUNNI AWAKENING/SPRING", or perhaps more accurately "SUNNI RE-AWAKENING" VEE CO-SUPERPOWER SHIA IRAN, personally I'm more concerned about what Sunni State(s) the Bammer + Globies may empower as offset or hedge as Sunni Co-Superpower(s) agz Co-Superpower Shia Iran. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2014-08-17 22:27 |
| #6 The Kurds could use A-10's. Why put them all in the Arizona desert. |
| Posted by: irishrageboy 2014-08-17 16:56 |
| #5 (1) Let's all just remember, the use of large bombs near an earth-filled dam is contra-indicated. (2) The zoomies in the Air Force would never allow the use of A10's; it would show that they're useful, and probably be the end of the F35 contract (it's supposed to be the ground attack bird, remember?) (3) When the "leader" of your ally is considered to be an impediment to winning, it does not bode well long term. |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2014-08-17 13:12 |
| #4 Why wouldn't they blow it and blame the US for it? I'm still scratching my head we're providing air support instead of A-10's to the kurds. Hell, we're getting rid of them anyway, might as well make a damn profit while helping an ally. |
| Posted by: Charles 2014-08-17 10:42 |
| #3 80% chance of failure. Arab Factor. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2014-08-17 09:32 |
| #2 What chance IS blow it? |
| Posted by: phil_b 2014-08-17 01:33 |
| #1 Better to not have lost it in the first place. We really needed Iraq just in the time it was being surrendered to whatever. I will not look a gif horse in the mouth, but good work in getting this asset back. Next step, Lincoln Logs! |
| Posted by: newc 2014-08-17 01:16 |