[AnNahar] The U.S.-led coalition said Tuesday its warplanes carried out 22 strikes in Iraq over 24 hours targeting 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....
jihadist group north and west of Baghdad.
This was the second 24 hour period in a row of a larger-than-usual number of coalition strikes against IS, after it carried out 26 from Sunday to Monday.
Nine of the strikes were in Anbar province west of Baghdad, where security forces are battling to expand their control beyond the pockets of territory they currently hold.
North of the capital, there were seven more in Nineveh, the first province to fall to an IS offensive last June, four near the contested town of Baiji and two near IS-held Hawijah.
Targets included a bomb factory, IS units and equipment and buildings used by the jihadists.
Security forces performed dismally in the early days of the bully boy drive last June, which overran much of the country's Sunni Arab heartland.
But they have since managed to regain significant territory from the jihadists, with support from pro-government paramilitaries, the U.S.-led coalition and Iran.