“Nightmare scenario”: ISIS encircling Baghdad
“Thousands of young men from the south have flocked to Baghdad to bolster the flagging army, and many observers have assumed that the flow of southern militiamen would help stem an ISIS advance that’s captured much of northern and central Iraq in the weeks since the city of Mosul fell under ISIS control June 10.” However, that doesn’t seem to be happening. Nonetheless, it seems unlikely that Iran will sit idly by and allow its Shi’ite client government in Iraq to fall without a fight.“Islamist fighters reportedly attempting to encircle Baghdad,” by Mitchell Prothero, McClatchy, June 25, 2014 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):
IRBIL, Iraq — Iraq’s dire situation has gone from bad dream to nightmare in two weeks of fighting that have seen Sunni Muslim gunmen assert control over a growing area, including, Kurdish officials said Tuesday, at least two towns that lie on a crucial supply route linking Baghdad, the capital, with the mostly Shiite Muslim south.The fall of towns in an area that American troops knew as the “triangle of death” because of its propensity for violence provided an ominous signal, the Kurdish officials said, that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and its Sunni allies are working to encircle Baghdad.“The picture is no longer scary,” said Shafin Dizayee, the spokesman for the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government in Irbil. “It has become close to a nightmare scenario, where we see Daash expanding and taking control of its borders.” “Daash” is the Arabic acronym for ISIS.Another Kurdish official, Jabbar Yawar, the spokesman for the Kurdish peshmerga militia, said ISIS fighters apparently had seized control of the towns of Iskandariya and Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, and were reported in some instances to be just six miles from Baghdad.“This area controls access to southern Iraq, and it appears as if they might try to push into Baghdad or even south towards the city of Hilla,” he said.Southern Iraq is mostly Shiite, and it supports the embattled government of Prime Minister Nouri al Malaki. Thousands of young men from the south have flocked to Baghdad to bolster the flagging army, and many observers have assumed that the flow of southern militiamen would help stem an ISIS advance that’s captured much of northern and central Iraq in the weeks since the city of Mosul fell under ISIS control June 10.But the loss of the southern approaches to the capital would change that calculus and add to the sense that Baghdad was gradually being isolated. On Sunday, Iraqi soldiers lost control of the last major crossing point to Syria, while gunmen allied with ISIS took control Monday of Tirbil, Iraq’s only land crossing to Jordan. Anbar province, to Baghdad’s west, has been largely under ISIS’s sway since last year, and the group is now contesting government forces in Diyala and Salahuddin provinces, to the capital’s north and east.As one town after another has fallen, the Iraqi government has insisted that most of the lost territory remains in government hands. But officials of the Kurdistan Regional Government provide a decidedly different view, one lent credibility by Kurdish estrangement from the Maliki government and ISIS. Their assessment of what’s taking place in Iraq also matches that of a U.S. defense official, who said ISIS and its allies were consolidating control of the Euphrates River Valley in apparent preparation for attacks on Baghdad.The official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly, said Iraqi security forces were struggling to establish a defensive line centered on Samarra, a key city that controls the northern approaches to Baghdad. In a separate briefing, a senior U.S. intelligence official said ISIS was also menacing the Iraqi air base at Balad, the country’s largest military installation….
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.