[Centraal] Irak na de oorlog #67 Spannende tijden voor Irak

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Islamic State overwhelms Iraqi forces at Tikrit in major defeat

IRBIL, Iraq -- Islamic State gunmen overran a former U.S. military base early Friday and killed or captured hundreds of Iraqi government troops who’d been trying to retake Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, the worst military reversal Iraqi troops have suffered since the Islamist forces captured nearly half the country last month.

The defeat brought to an end a three-week campaign by the government in Baghdad to recapture Tikrit, which fell to the Islamic State on June 11. Military spokesmen earlier this week had confidently announced a final push to recapture the city.

Instead, Islamic State forces turned back the army’s thrust up the main highway Wednesday. Beginning late Thursday, the Islamist forces stormed Camp Speicher, a former U.S. military base named for a pilot who disappeared during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and overwhelmed the troops there.

Witnesses reached by phone, who asked not be identified for security reasons, said that by Friday morning the final pocket of government troops had collapsed, an ignominious end for a counteroffensive that had begun with a helicopter assault into Tikrit University but ended with troops trapped at Camp Speicher.

There was no comment from the Iraqi government. On Wednesday, the military had acknowledged that its forces had made what it called a “tactical retreat” to Ajwa, a town about 10 miles south of Tikrit, after the push into the city failed.

Interviews with Tikrit residents and statements on Twitter accounts associated with the Islamic State described massive government losses. One Twitter post said Islamic State militants had shot down or destroyed on the ground as many as eight helicopters, a number that if confirmed would be a catastrophic loss for the government. Another Twitter posting said Islamic State militants had set the base’s fuel storage tanks on fire and that a suicide bomber had attacked a “gathering” of government soldiers.

One resident said that as many as 700 government soldiers and 150 fighters he described as Iranians, but who may have been Shiite Muslim militiamen, had participated in the final battle. Sunni Muslims in central Iraq often inaccurately describe Iraqi Shiites as Iranians.

“They were being bombarded and mortared all night, and by Friday morning you could see burning helicopters everywhere and the fighting had stopped,” the resident said.

He said many of the captured soldiers had been executed. “They are parading prisoners through the streets of Tikrit,” the resident said.

A military officer from the Kurdish peshmerga militia, who until the recent political split between the Kurdistan Regional Government and Baghdad had served in the Iraqi military’s special forces, confirmed the defeat.

“The government forces, which were a mix of regular army, special forces units and Shiite militias, have been destroyed,” he said, speaking only on the condition of anonymity so as not to aggravate the already poisonous relationship between the Kurds and the government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki in Baghdad.

“When they were unable to push past Ajwa with reinforcements on Wednesday, their fate was sealed,” the officer said.

The Kurdish officer said he doubted the residents’ account of 150 Iranians present in the fighting, though he said it was possible that Iranians had taken command of Shiite militias fighting with government soldiers. He said he thought that Iran’s commander in Iraq, Gen. Qassem Suleimani, had begun to re-evaluate the strategy for assisting the government in recapturing territory taken by the Islamic State.

“Hajj Qassem,” he said, referring to Suleimani with an honorific, “has given up on the Iraqi army. His plan in Iraq is to replicate the plan which worked for him in Syria: to use the army to hold checkpoints but properly train elite fighters to do the real fighting, like he’s done with Hezbollah and other Syrian militias.”

The officer cast doubt, however, on the quality of those forces. “In Iraq, there is no Hezbollah,” he said, referring to the Lebanese militia renowned for its fighting prowess.

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Op zaterdag 19 juli 2014 21:41 schreef IPA35 het volgende:
Sarin op Raqqa en Mosul lijkt me wel wat. De lokale bevolking steunt ISIS toch...

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Op zondag 20 juli 2014 13:40 schreef Djibril het volgende:

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Raqqa niet erg denk ik, die werd gewoon makkelijk weg gegeven door assad.
Mosul is gewoon een baathisten stad, zonder saddam zaten ze waarschijnlijk niet eens in Mosul.
Baathisten=Kutvolk

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Op zondag 20 juli 2014 16:57 schreef Jigzoz het volgende:
En de nazi-activiteiten gaan door:

twitter:

rmshava twitterde op vrijdag 18-07-2014 om 00:34:49 BREAKING: Verified that #ISIS is marking #Mosul Assyrian homes with an "n" for "Nasrany," Arabic word for #Christian http://t.co/W7FHtru7oM reageer retweet

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Op zondag 20 juli 2014 17:02 schreef Jigzoz het volgende:
Is die woordkeuze van jou?

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Ik kan het ook wel op de man af vragen: ben jij ISIS-sympathisant?

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Op zondag 20 juli 2014 17:05 schreef Charismatisch het volgende:

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Gezuiverd als in http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etnische_zuivering

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Op zondag 20 juli 2014 17:29 schreef Aloulou het volgende:
450 dollar per jaar jizya moesten zij betalen. Weet niet wat het gemiddelde jaarsalaris is in Irak? Kan mij voorstellen dat vooral in de oorlogsgebieden dat niet zo hoog is, alsmede dat je daar niet zo makkelijk aan een vast inkomen of baan komt.

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Op zondag 20 juli 2014 19:57 schreef Baklava95 het volgende:

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Moet zeker propaganda zijn.

Want IS laat het nooit toe dat er zomaar hun vlaggen van gebouwen worden verwijderd.

En IS geeft nooit grond prijs aan andere groepen.

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Christenen na 2000 jaar weg uit Mosul

_{zo 20 jul 2014, 09:38}

BAGDAD - De oude christelijke gemeenschap in Mosul is sinds zaterdag zo goed als vertrokken uit de Noord-Irakese stad. Radicale moslims hadden de christenen een ultimatum gesteld. De christelijke gemeenschap leefde al bijna 2000 jaar in Mosul.

Strijders van de Islamitische Staat in Irak en al-Sham namen Mosul onlangs in. Een paar honderd christenen bleven toch in de stad. Maar deze week stelden de extremisten de christenen een ultimatum dat zaterdagmiddag afliep: bekeer je tot de islam en betaal een religieuze belasting of kom om door het zwaard.

Een katholieke bisschop uit Mosul zei dat de afgelopen dagen 150 christelijke families de stad achter zich hebben gelaten.

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Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The Secretariat General of the holy shrine of Imam Abbas (PBUH) announced preparing to host the Christian families who were displaced from their houses in Nineveh province.

Many Christian families were forced to depart their houses under gun point by the terrorists who threatened to kill them if they do not convert to the Islam as reported in detail by IraqiNews.com: URGENT: Christians in Mosul flee after ISIS’ deadline expires

The terrorists affiliated with the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Levant granted the Christians in Mosul a duration of three days to convert to Islam, face death, pay an extortionate Jizya tribute or leave and have their property confiscated as reported on Friday by IraqiNews.com: ISIL leader Al-Baghdadi gives Christians 24 hours to leave Nineveh, directs ISIL to loot Christian property.

twitter:

HayderSH twitterde op dinsdag 22-07-2014 om 22:12:28 Another explosion at Kadhmiya checkpoint in #Baghdad now. 20 killed and 55 wounded so far according to sources. reageer retweet

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Op dinsdag 22 juli 2014 23:22 schreef Baklava95 het volgende:
Wanneer valt Bagdad.