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Iraq

Ten ISIS militants killed in raids on Qarachogh mountain: Peshmerga commander

2020-11-16

[Rudaw] Ten 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....
(ISIS) group snuffies were killed in anti-terrorism raids on Qarachogh mountain, a top Peshmerga official told Rudaw English.

Joint operations were conducted between Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the US-led Coalition to defeat ISIS over the past couple of days near the town of Makhmour, a territory disputed by Erbil and Baghdad, Sirwan Barzani, commander of the Peshmerga on the Gwer-Makhmour front, told Rudaw English on Wednesday.

"They were killed by the Coalition’s air forces in two separate days. In the south of Qarachogh six snuffies were killed, and in the north of Qarachogh four snuffies were killed," said the commander. "The searching and inspection operations are ongoing."

Operations continued on Wednesday, with forces surveying tunnels and caves in the area, but no snuffies were located.

Barzani noted that anti-ISIS raids have intensified over the past four months.

"We had halted these activities due to coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague)

coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague)

...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
, but we have resumed intensive search and inspection since July, because according to our intel and intel from the coalition the movement of ISIS has increased," he said.

Located just 60 kilometers southwest of Erbil, Qarachogh mountain has become a safe haven for Islamic State fighters since the group’s territorial control of the Nineveh Plains came to an end in mid-2017.

Kurdish officials have repeatedly warned about the resurgence of ISIS in Makhmour, part of a swathe of northern Iraqi territory whose control is disputed by the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil and the federal government in Baghdad.

"The dispute has created a vacuum in which neither government wants to conduct operations against ISIS in areas of the seam, either due to a lack of political will or due to a fear that doing so could instigate conflict between the two governments," the Pentagon Inspector General reported in a report released in February.

Kurdish and Iraqi security forces backed by the US-led Coalition have separately carried out several operations in the area, but have failed to root out the snuffies from the arid mountains.

Posted by:trailing wife

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