Posted on 11/08/2014 6:30:51 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Fighter jets from the US led coalition have destroyed a moving Islamic State (Isis) convoy near Mosul in northern Iraq. Iraqi officials said a number of top militants had been killed.
A US defence official was however unable to confirm reports that the group’s top commander, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was among the 50 casualties in the ten vehicles targeted or even whether he was present.
Baghdadi made a rare public appearance at a mosque in Mosul in July. Colonel Patrick Ryder, a spokesman at US Central Command, said “I can confirm that coalition aircraft did conduct a series of air strikes yesterday evening [Friday] in Iraq against what was assessed to be a gathering of Isil [Isis] leaders near Mosul. We cannot confirm if Isil leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was among those present.”
Ryder added that convoy consisted of 10 Isis armed trucks which were were destroyed in the air strikes, which “demonstrates the pressure we continue to place on the IS terrorist network”.
A Mosul morgue official said 50 bodies of Isis militants were brought in after the air strike.
Earlier, the al-Hadath TV station, which is part of Saudi-owned al-Arabiya television, reported that US-led strikes had targeted a gathering of Isis leaders in Iraq, possibly including al-Baghdadi.
Two witnesses told Reuters an air strike had targeted a house where senior Isis officers were meeting, near the western Iraqi border town of al-Qaim, and said Isis fighters had cleared a hospital so that their wounded could be treated, using loudspeakers to urge residents to donate blood.
Residents said there were unconfirmed reports that Isis’s local leader in the western Iraqi province of Anbar and his deputy were killed.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Unconfirmed? Or untrue?
That would be “I-S-I-L” in Obamaspeak, or Isis to everyone else.
and, not Islamic according to Obama
Where’s an AC13O when ya need one to mop up?
Damn, just damn.
I prefer ISIL because it drops connection to Iraq and Syria. In my mind ISIL is more correct because the term illustrates the fact that the region in question is already severed from Iraq and Syria.
The large view is that Iraq and Syria are no more. They have been sundered into at least two other states being the Kurdish autonomous state and ISIL.
The current efforts are about establishing and stabilizing the precise boundaries of the old and new states.
There is also the question of if the former Syrian Kurdish area will unite with the former Iraqi Kurdish area.
.
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