Defense Minister: Daesh ended and no longer able to occupy one block

Defense Minister: Daesh ended and no longer able to occupy one block



2017/03/21 | 20:50
(Encyclopedia of the Day News | Iraq News ) - Defense Minister Irfan Hayali said that Iraq won the war against terrorism, and stressed that Daesh ended.

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rocky wrote:Defense Minister: Daesh ended and no longer able to occupy one block



2017/03/21 | 20:50
(Encyclopedia of the Day News | Iraq News ) - Defense Minister Irfan Hayali said that Iraq won the war against terrorism, and stressed that Daesh ended.

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This makes my day...not an official announcement, but thank you rocky!!!   

Thanks Rocky for finding this - WOW, this is exciting.

Woo hoo!!!!!!! Lets get the show on the road

great job Rocky!!

Liberals to extend Iraq mission without any changes until battle for Mosul ends

The Canadian Press The Canadian PressMarch 21, 2017

Liberals to extend Iraq mission without any changes until battle for Mosul ends
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OTTAWA — The Liberal government is expected to extend Canada's mission in Iraq in the coming days, as it waits for the battle of Mosul to end.

The current mission was launched last year and saw the government withdraw Canadian fighter jets from the U.S.-led bombing campaign against ISIL but triple the number of special forces in northern Iraq.

It also added a helicopter detachment to transport and resupply the special forces troops, a 50-person intelligence unit and kept two surveillance planes and a refuelling aircraft in the region.

The mission was set to expire next week, but sources tell The Canadian Press that it will be extended several months without any changes.

They say Canada remains committed to helping Iraq get back on its feet, but the country's exact needs won't be known until ISIL is defeated in Mosul.

That battle is expected to take several more weeks, if not months, as Iraqi forces engage in bloody house-to-house fighting to push the extremist group from the country's second-largest city.

Military commanders have warned that victory in Mosul won't mark the end of ISIL in Iraq, as most expect it to abandon conventional military tactics in favour of terror tactics, like suicide bombings.

That will require different training and support from the international community, which to this point has been largely focused on helping Iraqi and Kurdish forces fight ISIL as a regular military force.

There are also concerns about Iraq's political future, with several potential conflicts bubbling just beneath the surface as the threat posed by ISIL appears to be receding.

Those include competing territorial claims between the Kurds in northern Iraq and the central government in Baghdad, and long-standing divisions between the country's Sunni and Shia populations.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan alluded to this situation on Tuesday when asked about the future of Canada's mission in Iraq.

"What we're doing now is making sure that we're talking to our coalition partners, looking at the situation on the ground," he said.

"It is very fluid, and we just want to make sure that we have the right resources. … So we will continue to look at any type of adjustments so that we are a responsible coalition partner."

Another question mark is what U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration plan to do in Iraq over the long term.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland will be in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, where U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will host his first anti-ISIL meeting.

Eliminating ISIL has been one of the few centrepieces of Trump's foreign policy, but the president and his team have been largely silent on details or what comes after.

Any signals that Tillerson gives are likely to feed into the discussions and planning currently underway in National Defence as well as Global Affairs on Canada's future role in Iraq.

it is not done in Mosul yet, it will take a long time to root out the ones that went underground or blended in.  Duck said we did not need all of Mosul, but he did say we needed security of the major trade routes, which includes route 1, in Western Mosul.

180,000 refugees flee Isis-held west Mosul as fighting intensifies around iconic old city

International Business Times
Callum Paton
International Business TimesMarch 21, 2017
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More than 180,000 Iraqi civilians have fled Isis-held west Mosul as US-backed government forces build their assault on the old city, its surroundings and the iconic grand mosque where the leader of the Islamic State announced the creation of the so-called caliphate in 2016.

The Iraqi government has said of the refugees leaving the city, which has been under a months-long assault to dislodge the militant group, 111,000 have sought shelter in 17 nearby camps. The rest have stayed with nearby relatives.

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On refugee told AFP he travelled a 60 km round trip to get his sister and her family and then return to his village. "I hadn't heard her voice for six months. I had no idea what had become of them," he told the news agency.

Iraqi forces began their offensive to recapture Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq and the largest urban centre held in Isis-held territory.

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The Iraqi forces, led by a vanguard of elite anti-terror police completed their offensive to retake the eastern areas of the city in January, meeting heavy resistance from the Islamic State which defended their positions, counter attacking with suicide car bombs, IEDs and deploying snipers through a vast network of underground tunnels.

Iraqi forces began the operation to retake west Mosul from the jihadists on February 19. The fighting has meant that those living on either side of the Tigris, which roughly divides the city in half, have been completely cut off after US and Iraqi air strikes destroyed five bridges joining the two halves of the city.

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The capture of Mosul's grand mosque offers a highly symbolic victory to Iraqi forces. Baghdadi became the most high-profile radical Islamist leader in the world when he delivered a sermon in the city of Mosul's main mosque and declared himself the caliph of a new Islamic Caliphate. The message to the faithful in Iraq's second largest city marked the apogee of Baghdadi's fame.

Mosul latest photosView photos
Mosul latest photos
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However, since the territory held by the militant group has diminished Baghdadi has been forced to keep a lower profile. In December 2016, the Pentagon stated it believed the Isis leader was alive and still giving orders through his commanders. In mid-December, the US announced an increase in reward for capturing or killing Baghdadi to $25m (£20.3m).

The figurehead of the Sunni militant group is now in hiding in the Iraqi desert, essentially abandoning the city. While he is picked up at times by monitors he has proven to be an elusive target. He rarely uses means of communication that can be listened in on and he is constantly on the move, changing his location multiple times over a 24-hour cycle.

It is believed Baghdadi has now taken to hiding with sympathetic civilians in villages known to Isis, away from urban centres which have been targeted by US and Iraqi air strikes.

Battle for Mosul: The story so far

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Battle for Mosul: The story so far
* 21 March 2017
From the section 
Middle East
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newsspec_16078 mosul-satellite-image.inc

Some of the colours of the satellite image have been changed to make it easier to understand
Tens of thousands of civilians are fleeing the northern Iraqi city of Mosul as government security forces continue their military offensive to reclaim the city from the so-called Islamic State (IS).
After taking the airport, Iraqi forces have made key gains in the west of the city, recapturing several bridges, as well as government buildings.
They are closing in on the densely-populated old city of Mosul, and the Great Mosque of al-Nuri, where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed the creation of a "caliphate" in July 2014.
newsspec_16075 mosul_map.inc

Iraqi security forces, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, Sunni Arab tribesmen and Shia militiamen, assisted by US-led coalition warplanes and military advisers, are involved in the operation, launched on 17 October 2016.
IS jihadists overran Mosul as they spread across much of northern and western Iraq two years earlier in 2014.
Government forces announced the full "liberation" of eastern Mosul in January 2017. But the west of the city presents a more difficult challenge, with its narrow, winding streets. IS has launched multiple suicide attacks against Iraqi forces in western neighbourhoods.
Territorial control: Since 20 February 2017

More than 180,000 civilians have fled the city since the latest assault on west Mosul began on 19 February, according to the Iraqi government. Most have taken refuge in nearby camps and reception centres. Others have gone to stay with relatives and friends.
There is also deep concern for the hundreds of thousands of people who remain in western Mosul. Food supplies are running very low, and some families say they cannot find any food at all. Clean drinking water is also in very short supply.
The UN said in late January that almost half of all the casualties in Mosul were civilians. At least 1,494 have been killed and 1,219 injured across Nineveh province since the start of October.
Lt Gen Stephen Townsend, the coalition's task force commander, described the recapture of eastern Mosul as a "monumental achievement" for the Iraqi people, but warned there was "still a long way to go" before IS was eliminated from Iraq.
It took from mid-October until 8 January 2017 for Iraqi forces to advance as far as the River Tigris and another two weeks to gain full control of the eastern side of Mosul.
* Iraq forces seize Mosul airport from IS
* Iraq gaining momentum against IS
* Battle for western Mosul will be toughest yet
Elsewhere in the region, the Shia-dominated, paramilitary Popular Mobilisation force has been advancing westwards towards the town of Tal Afar, another IS bastion, and the border with Syria.
Territorial loss
newsspec_15982 mosul.inc

Contradictory reports mean it is difficult to know exactly how much territory has been regained.
The maps shown here are based on expert analysis from two different sources, the Institute for the Study of War (for the recent advances) and IHS Conflict Monitor for territory.
According to analysis by IHS Conflict Monitor, IS fighters have been losing territory since the offensive began. However, gains slowed when Iraqi government forces met stiff resistance in the city of Mosul.
Satellite images have revealed extensive damage to Mosul's infrastructure, buildings and archaeological sites - in particular to the city's airport and bridges.
Mosul airport
Imagery, released by US geopolitical intelligence company Stratfor in October 2016, showed how IS fighters sabotaged much of the city's airport, with wide trenches carved into it and rubble placed along their lengths.

The images also show how coalition airstrikes, aimed at destroying key IS positions and assets, caused damage to Mosul's sugar factory - a facility kept in action by the militants.

Imagery also revealed how the jihadists constructed multiple barricades across key routes into the city, including north of the airport.
The barriers have been made out of concrete blocks and other rubble, Stratfor's analysis says, possibly from the walls of destroyed buildings.

Mosul's bridges
All bridges linking the east and west of the city, across the Tigris river, were also destroyed.
In the centre of the city, four of the five main bridges were put out of action in October and November by coalition air strikes, with the aim of limiting the jihadists' ability to resupply or reinforce their positions in the east.
The Old Bridge - the only remaining route open to vehicles in the centre of the city - was disabled in a US-led coalition air strike at the end of December.
Iraqi forces have since recaptured two of the bridges, the Fourth bridge and al-Hurriya, also known as the al-Jamhuriya. They will either have to repair them or install floating bridges to reconnect east and west Mosul.
Stratfor images show how the bridges were damaged.
Al-Hurriya Bridge

Image copyright
AP
A US air strike damaged the al-Hurriya Bridge at the eastern end last October, but IS then set up a barrier on the western side, shown below.

Fourth Bridge
In November 2016, a US air strike damaged the bridge, but more recently it was rendered impassable by further damage, shown below.

Humanitarian crisis
The UN has warned that the offensive to retake western Mosul could displace up to 400,000 civilians and involve a siege in the densely-populated old city.
More than 355,000 people have fled their homes in and around Mosul as a result of the conflict - more than 180,000 of them have fled since the campaign began to retake the west of the city on 19 February.

Dependencies

People fleeing the Mosul crisis
* Displaced individuals


Source: International Organization for Migration. Note: Drops in numbers reflect families returning home and verification of data


More than 195,000 displaced Iraqis are now living in the 21 camps built by the UN and other agencies around Mosul. More camps are planned to cope with the sudden spike in refugees caused by the offensive against western Mosul.
The organisation says many of those who have fled Mosul and ended up in the camps have witnessed the deaths of relatives, friends and neighbours. Children are showing severe signs of trauma - such as excessive crying, mutism, bed-wetting and fear of leaving their parents.