Posted on 05/17/2015 8:20:48 AM PDT by kristinn
Islamic State militants overran one of the last remaining districts held by government forces in the Iraqi city of Ramadi on Sunday and besieged a key army base on the edge of the western provincial capital, security sources said.
The militants seized most of Ramadi on Friday, planting their black flag on the local government headquarters in the center of the city, but a contingent of Iraqi special forces was holding out in the Malaab neighborhood.
Those forces retreated on Sunday to an area east of the city after suffering heavy casualties, security sources said, bringing Ramadi to the brink of falling to Islamic State.
It would be the first major urban center to be seized by the insurgents in Iraq since security forces and paramilitary groups began pushing them back last year.
Anbar provincial council member Athal Fahdawi described the situation in Ramadi as "total collapse" and said local officials had voted in favor of the deployment of Shi'ite paramilitaries to the Sunni heartland.
Shi'ite paramilitaries have played a leading role in reversing Islamic State gains elsewhere in Iraq, but have so far been kept on the sidelines in Anbar due to concerns about inflaming sectarian violence.
The insurgents were closing in on the Anbar Operations Command to the west and a military officer inside the army base said it was too late to send reinforcements, pleading for help from Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
“We are now surrounded inside the Operations Command by Daesh, and mortars are raining down," said the officer. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
"Daesh fighters are in almost every street. It’s a chaotic situation and things are sliding out of control. Ramadi is falling into the hands of Daesh," the officer said.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Things happening quickly now.
Twitter reports that the 8th Brigade is “overrun”, with fighting reported inside the complex.
Iraqi premier: Don’t abandon Anbar to Islamic State group
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a98067331bb14fcbb3808d593de88662/suicide-car-bombs-kill-10-iraqi-troops-besieged-ramadi
The Premier went on Iraqi TV to order Government troops to hold their positions.
And also this:
Iraq Asks for Immediate Military Support from US to Save Anbar
http://www.basnews.com/en/news/2015/05/17/iraq-asks-for-immediate-military-support-from-us-to-save-anbar/
This is another step in the unwinding of the Sykes-Picot treaty after WWI
The old religious and tribal divisions are re asserting them selves
We need to stay away from this
True that. Good comment.
"It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq." -- Dick Cheney, U.S. Secretary of Defense, April 15, 1994
This is compelling evidence that the U.S. government embarked on an invasion of Iraq in 2003 that it knew damn well was going to end in disaster. Any Republican candidate who refuses to disown his predecessors in office ought to just pack it in and stay home.
The Republican candidate who calls on everyone who supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003 to be executed for treason and hung upside down from the Washington Monument (and this would include both Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton) may win the 2016 election in a monumental landslide.
See Post #45. Dick Cheney told Bush that. It would be comical if it wasn't so f#%&ing pathetic.
Kudos to the Libertarians...Paelo-Cons....and they allies on the Left & MSM.
“Kudos to the Libertarians...Paelo-Cons....and they allies on the Left & MSM.”
agree completely !
the same sort of defeatism as before WW2, with defeatists, nazi sympathizers and the Comintern dead set on preventing any kind of war against Hitler.
In a replay of last year’s military debacle, elite units abandoned their U.S.-provided equipment to Islamic State fighters and fled the area, leaving several hundred soldiers surrounded in the last government-held enclave in the city.
Multiple security sources, none of whom agreed to be identified, speaking from both within the besieged Anbar Operations Center as well as with the units fleeing the city, described the fight for control of the capital of Iraq’s largest province as essentially over after reinforcements sent on Saturday to retake the city were crushed by Islamic State fighters
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/05/17/266937/islamic-state-routs-last-elite.html#storylink=cpy
I couldn’t agree more. This Administration and the Democratic party makes me sick. Worthless POS, each & every one of them
.
Just heard, Ramadi is gone, ISIS is in total control..US troops freed Ramadi and in a span of just a few days because of Obama, ISIS now controls it..thanks Obama
Wrong.
It's because of massive failure - of generalship, especially, but also of civilian leadership, going all the way back to 8:46 am on 9/11/01.
Why do they do this?
There was a time when the USA understood it was “necessary a strong-man in Iraq was for maintaining regional stability”. That’s why we put Saddam in power.
Where is ISIS getting it’s weapons? Are they getting them from us through Turkey?
Obama may have been born in Anbar province, or at least I heard he did attend a local mosque there which may be where he met Valerie Jarrett.
It will. Sending Shiite militias in is going to backfire massively. The area is rife with pissed off Sunnis looking for the first excuse to join ISIS.
They’re getting them from Iraq! They just captured 60 humvees, abandoned by the IDIOTS from Baghdad!
That should probably read "supposedly elite."
US did not put Saddam in power.
We, and the Brits, did put the Shah in power, but that was next door in Iran.
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