Posted on 12/25/2015 7:32:05 AM PST by SeekAndFind
raq's armed forces will move to retake the major northern city of Mosul from Islamic State once they capture the western city of Ramadi, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Friday.
Capturing Mosul would deprive the militant group of its biggest population center in both Iraq and Syria, effectively abolishing the state structure of IS in Iraq, depriving it of a major source of funding and dealing a blow to its influence.
The capture of Ramadi would give the army a major psychological boost in its move toward Mosul.
The cities are about 420 km (260 miles) apart by road. Iraqi forces started an attack on Tuesday to dislodge Islamic State militants from the center of Ramadi, the last district under their control in the city they had captured in May. Islamic State seized Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, in 2014, in an offensive that forced government forces to abandon a third of Iraqi territory.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
All I want to know is that Christians are safe.
The rest of this too little too late crap does not register with me.
First they have to retake Ramadi. I remain skeptical of the capabilities of the Iraqi Army. Most of the weapons ISIS has they got from the Iraqi Army when they fled Mosul.
RE: Most of the weapons ISIS has they got from the Iraqi Army when they fled Mosul.
The question we have to ask is this -— how many of the Iraqi army is SUNNI?
Shiites are the majority in Iraq and Sunni’s hate Shiites and vice versa.
When Maliki became leader of Iraq, the Sunni’s were oppressed and many Sunnis flocked to support the emerging Sunni Islamic State. I bet a significant portion of those military men who “gave up” were Sunnis.
There is a report circulating that the Iraqis have once again retreated from Ramadi with heavy losses plus two M1A1s captured - posters at site claim BS - I’m just reporting here.
Bingo. Haider al-Abadi (fka Baghdad al-Bobbie) might as well state that I will be winning the MegaMillions lottery, soon after I mop up with PowerBall. An Iraqi victory over ISIS in Ramadi and Mosul, would be nice, but why would Reuters report this happy talk uncritically?
Sorting through it all, it seems that yes, they are safe, unless it's a group supported and/or enabled by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, or the US.
Whatever happened to the general officers who enabled ISIS to round up a couple of brigades of young Iraqi soldiers and execute them en masse?
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