REMINDS ME OF WHAT THIS LADY DOES WITH VAMPIRES...
Posted on 08/28/2014 8:41:02 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
MAKHMUR, Iraq — Bullet-riddled walls, burned-out buildings and a hastily dug grave in this town where U.S. troops were once stationed mark the northernmost advance of Islamic State militants along one of the main highways leading into Iraqi Kurdistan.
Kurdish forces recaptured Makhmur, an oil and farming center just 40 miles south of the Kurdish capital, Irbil, in the wake of U.S. airstrikes launched this month on Islamic State positions, pushing the militants back to the town of Qarach, a 15-minute drive down the road.
Few of the 18,000 people who lived in Makhmur have returned, fearing that Islamic State militants could come back, despite the presence of superior U.S. air power.
Ibrahim Karim, part of a small peshmerga force armed with only rifles, said he and his comrades weren’t equipped to face 100 to 200 Islamic State fighters, who arrived in Makhmur in armored Humvees on Aug. 9.
Residents had fled two days earlier, and the peshmerga withdrew into mountains overlooking the town to await reinforcements, he said Saturday while guarding a checkpoint.
“Whenever we are in our mountains they can’t beat us,” Karim said.
Although Iraqi forces melted away in the face of Islamic State advances elsewhere in Iraq, the peshmerga were considered a formidable force able to stand their ground. But when Islamic State militants, who had overrun large swathes of western and central Iraq in recent months, began attacking Kurdish checkpoints in the north, the pehsmerga found themselves unable to resist against the Islamic State’s more sophisticated weaponry, much of it seized from the Iraqi army.
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“Their bodies were only dust afterwards,” he said.
Boo de hoo.
Its not like it was in ISIL hands for very long.
What I find interesting is that ISIL is now thought to have 12,000 fighters across a pretty big area.
12,000 is big when its down your street, but not so big in the 50,000 ft view.
It should not take a whole lot to wipe these guys out. I continue to be amazed at how apoplectic some of our leaders are about these guys.
But, I guess we just have to wait for the woman aid working to be beheaded on camera to see them go “full retard.”
And then we get to send our troops to fight another war that has nothing to do with us.
ISIL talks about coming after us. Of course every Islamic country is full of bluster about coming after us. Hitting us at home. Knocking us down.
It took about twenty minutes to destroy the Taliban’s ability to do much in 2001-2.
Do you think the ISIL leaders are THAT stupid? I sure don’t. They will not attack us directly. But they will continue to rave and scream.
Let Saudi and Kuwait and Jordan take this one on. It is not our fight.
It seems the Kurds are recapturing cities outside of Kurdistan. Do they have the strength to hold such a large area? Or do they want these territories?
I would think they might want to keep that Mosul dam and possibly Mosul itself due to the water resources. Otherwise I believe they have plenty of oil within their own borders so why bother taking territory with all the problems that come from dealing with sunni/shia.
Yes. If it's not worth their effort, it sure as hell is not worth ours.
Kurds are renowned for their courage & bravery. But i don’t like this attitude of ‘fight team fight’ towards the Kurds. Seemingly several countries want to supply the Kurds with weapons via Baghdad. Most in the region including Iran of course use the Kurds as a buffer against Islamic State (IS). These countries, USA too, should implement a cohesive & deadly plan against IS ASAP. The Kurds peshmerga have limitations.
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