Iraqi, allied forces try to win back Tikrit, win over hearts and minds of residents

Tikrit, Iraq (CNN)While Iraqi government and allied forces were on the defensive Friday in Ramadi, they remained on the offensive in Tirkit — trying to win over not only the strategic city, but the hearts and minds of its nearby residents.

Iraqi forces steadily bombarded the last part of Tikrit still controlled by ISIS, with fighting described by one wounded man as intense. Still, even as it fends off this assault, the militant group continues with its barbaric tactics.

“Yesterday, bodies floated down the (Tigris) River from the hospital,” said Saber Kraidi, an eight-year Iraqi military veteran. “They were people from Tikrit executed by ISIS.”

The Iraqi military is joined by some Sunni fighters and a predominantly Shiite militia, working together to retake the city best known to most Westerners as the hometown of former dictator Saddam Hussein.

Sunni fighter: Tikrit will be ISIS’ graveyard 02:38

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They are working on not just winning the battle, but securing the peace. Members of the Badr organization, a powerful Shiite armed group, handed out food and supplies Friday to residents of the Sunni village of Albu Safah, whose 30 families have been holed up the last 10 months amid the fighting.

The village’s leader, Haji Jamid, said the Shiite fighters’ efforts were working.

“They’re good,” Jamid said. “If someone is sick, they’ll take them to the doctor, even at 2 or 3 in the morning.

“If it weren’t for them, ISIS would have slaughtered us.”

After Tikrit, will Mosul be next?

In June, Tikrit fell to ISIS, which has conquered large areas of Iraq and Syria and claimed them as part of its Islamic caliphate. There have several attempts to take it back since then, all of them failures.

The latest push began this month, involving around 30,000 fighters.

By Thursday, the government controlled about 75% of the besieged city, with about 150 holdout ISIS fighters controlling the rest, said Main Al-Kadhimi, commander of the Hashd Al-Shaabi militia.

There was no independent confirmation of such a significant advance by the Iraqi forces. But they have been making progress in recent days.

That includes gaining control of Tikrit Military Hospital, a few blocks south of the presidential palace, on Wednesday.

The goal is that, if Iraqi and allied forces can take Tikrit, then they’ll have more realistic hope of similarly winning back Mosul — a city that’s nearly 10 times bigger.

ISIS assaults Ramadi

Yet, even if ISIS is losing ground in Tikrit, that doesn’t mean it’s not a dangerous, destructive force elsewhere.

Case in point is happening about 100 miles south of Tikrit in Ramadi, which the extremist group began assaulting on Wednesday. Faleh al-Issawi, deputy head of the Anbar provincial council, has said officials believe the Ramadi assault “is an ISIS response to the Tikrit operation.”

Terror’s middle-class jihadists02:31

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More than 40 Iraqi soldiers died when ISIS blew up the Iraqi army headquarters near Ramadi in Iraq’s western Anbar province, an Anbar provincial leader told CNN on Friday.

ISIS fighters there dug a tunnel underneath the army headquarters and detonated hundreds of homemade bombs, Sabah Al-Karhout, the head of the Anbar Provincial Council, said Thursday. The headquarters are located in the Albu Diab area, just 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) north of Ramadi.

Al-Karhout denied reports that the U.S.-led coalition had bombed the headquarters. So, too, did the U.S. government, with its Baghdad embassy stating Friday that no coalition aircraft were even in the area

A statement released early Friday by the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS said the Iraqi security forces had successfully repelled the ISIS attack on Ramadi, despite coming under attack from several directions.

“The successful defense of Ramadi by Iraqi Security Forces is another example of their increasing ability to defeat Daesh in multiple locations and prevent the terrorist group from gaining ground,” said Lt. Gen. James L. Terry, the coalition force’s commander, using another name for ISIS.

“The ISF continues to hold terrain in some locations while making gains in others.”

In an audio message posted Thursday, ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammed al Adnani called reports of victories by coalition members against the extremist group “delusional and fake.”

He spoke of the coalition’s use of fighter jets, heavy artillery and tanks, saying it is a “nightmare and will go eventually.”

CNN’s Ben Wedeman reported near Tikrit in Iraq. CNN’s Kareem Khadder and Jamie Crawford contributed to this report.

Iraq militia leader hails Iran’s support

 In a battlefield interview near Tikrit, where Iraqi forces are fighting to retake Saddam Hussein’s hometown from the militants of the so-called Islamic State, commander Hadi al-Amiri criticized those who “kiss the hands of the Americans and get nothing in return.”

Iraqi forces entered Tikrit for the first time Wednesday from the north and south. On Friday, they waged fierce battles to secure the neighborhood of Qadisiyya and lobbed mortar shells and rockets into the city center, still in the hands of IS militants. Iraqi military officials have said they expect to reach central Tikrit in two to three days.

The Iranian-backed Shiite militias have played a crucial role in regaining territory from the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State group, supporting Iraq’s embattled military and police forces.

An Iraqi government official told The Associated Press that Iran has sold Baghdad nearly $10 billion in arms and hardware, mostly weapons for urban warfare like assault rifles, heavy machine-guns and rocket launchers. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

In November, President Barack Obama authorized the deployment of up to 1,500 more U.S. troops to bolster Iraqi forces, which could more than double the total of American forces in Iraq to 3,100. The Pentagon has made a spending request to Congress of $1.6 billion, focusing on training and arming Kurdish and Iraqi forces. According to a Pentagon document prepared in November, the U.S. is looking to provide an estimated $89.3 million in weapons and equipment to each of the nine Iraqi brigades.

The U.S.-led coalition of eight countries has launched more than 2,000 airstrikes in Iraq alone since August 2014, and the U.S. is also hitting the militant group from the air in Syria. Iraqi and U.S. officials have acknowledged the role airstrikes have played in rolling back the militants, saying the air campaign was an essential component in victories at the Mosul Dam, in Amirli, and more recently, in the crucial oil refining town of Beiji.

But the U.S. is not taking part in the operation in Tikrit, with U.S. officials saying they were not asked by Iraq to participate.

Al-Amiri, the Shiite militia commander who also is head of the Badr Organization political party, said that “help from Iran is unconditional.”

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Coalition Air Strikes target 13 more ISIS positions & Iran sends Obama a secret letter

The attacks in Iraq hit Isis tactical units, buildings, fighting positions, a rocket system and a facility where improvised explosive devices were made, the statement said. The strikes in Syria were near the city of Raqqa and destroyed tanks and a bunker.

Isis has been forced on the back foot, by Kurdish forces North of Mosul and Kurdish and Shiite militias in Diyala Provence in the Northeast of Iraq.

On Friday, however, Isis fighters led a suicide attack on an airbase in Iraq where US and coalition troops are training Iraqi forces. Isis launched the attack after taking the nearby town of al-Baghdadi, their first territorial gain in months, the Pentagon said.

Most of the Isis fighters died in the attack, killed either by Iraqi government forces or by detonating their suicide vests, said Navy Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, who added that no Iraqi or US troops were killed or wounded, and no US troops were involved in the gunfight.

It was also reported on Saturday that the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has responded to overtures from President Barack Obama amid nuclear talks by sending the US president a secret letter.

Co-operation against Isis, in the event of a nuclear deal being secured, was reported to be at issue.

Whats going to happen in next 2 Months in Iraq?

Even without a crystal ball we can make a few assumptions based on what we see going on the Ground.

Kurds have Mosul surrounded on North West and East

Iraq's Prime Minister says they are preparing to retake Mosul from ISSI / Daesh

ISIS has recently moved Southeast of Mosul and almost have control of the town al-Baghdadi

al-Baghdadi is City near the al-Asad airport where U.S. troops are training Iraqi Army Units.

I am hoping we will see the IA Iraqi Army move through al-Baghdadi on their way to the Southern boarders of the city of Mosul. However that is not that likely. One sad note will be the people who Daesh have co-opted on their way across Western Iraq last year, and those within Mosul. Daesh has already made it clear they expect each family iin Mosul to have one of their sons join Daesh in their attempts to hold back the Peshmerga and Iraqi Army. Hopefully and I am expecting this we may not see the Shiite militias involved expect maybe some top commanders aidiing the Iraqi Army IA battle commanders. The reason I hope we do not see them in the battle for Mosul is it would send the wrong message to Sunni Tribes in the Anbar Provence. I would love to see local Anbar militias join in on the battle to take back Mosul. It would send a good strong message the Government is willing to work with, and include them, However it is unlikely we would see that happen. The Anbar militias have been meeting with the U.S. Government to try get heavy weapon for the Suni Militias. The U.S. governments position so far has been to give all Weapons and Ammo to the Iraqi Government. This requirement has ended up with the Shiite militias getting all the best weapons while the Kurds and Sunni tribes have been denied shipments of heavy weapons, (which they both desperately need). ISIS has been targeting and killing many Sunni shieks and any other high profile military, religious and/or other high rank persons of interest.

ISIS Barbarians Face Their Own Internal Reign of Terror

The internal bloodletting among ISIS factions has begun, and could get much worse.

The propagandists of the putative Islamic State would have you believe it is just one big happy family, righteously slaughtering apostates, enslaving women (literally), beheading and burning alive its prisoners, all in the name of God. But quarrels over a range of issues—from divvying up of the spoils of war to competition over women and, yes, the handling of foreign hostages—point to a lot of trouble beneath the surface of this terror army.

This is according to political activists in northern Syria, including members of the a group called Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, which follows developments in ISIS very closely and appear to be well-sourced inside the city of Raqqa, which is the so-called Islamic State’s capital. The group reported on a failed Jordanianattempt to rescue Muadh al Kasasbeh, a downed pilot from the Jordan Air Force, and his subsequent execution, burned alive, weeks before the hideous video of his murder was made public by ISIS.

Commanders in the Aleppo Operations Room, a center coordinating activities of the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army and other factions, tell The Daily Beast there has also been an increase in defections from ISIS ranks, especially among militants who have been selected for suicide-bomb missions.

On Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that an ISIS cleric in Aleppo province who dared to criticize the immolation of Kasasbeh has been removed from his post by the “caliphate” leadership and will be put on trial by the group. The Saudi-born imam had said those responsible for the video-recorded murder are the ones who should be put on trial. ISIS has responded to criticism from Quranic scholars the world over, who say the execution was utterly un-Islamic, by posting a line on Twitter insisting it is permissible to burn an infidel to death. (For the record, Kasasbeh was not an infidel at all, but a devout Muslim who prayed before he took off on the mission that ended with his plane crashing, his capture, and his murder. But the caliph and his cronies claim they have the exclusive right to decide who is and is not a Muslim, and what is and is not the will of God.)

Some independent Syrian media reported that the head of the al Hisba police force in Raqqa, responsible for the enforcement of Sharia law, fled after trying to mount a coup. But Slaughtered Silently activists say the departure of Abu Talha al-Kuwaiti, along with nearly a dozen of his supporters, wasn’t the upshot of a takeover bid. They say it arose out of more petty but equally deadly disputes that had led to the execution earlier in the war of his patron, the governor of the Raqqa, who went by the name Abu Ayyub al-Ansari.

The ISIS leadership has issued no statement about any of these reported executions.

Punitive killings, the flight of some senior ISIS commanders, and the execution of more than 60 foreign fighters who wanted to leave in recent days risk provoking more flare-ups, say residents who recently escaped Raqqa.

When arguments spin out of control, they are elevated to the level of treason, and disobedience is automatically seen as rebellion deserving of summary execution, according to some of these activists.

Many militants feel greater loyalty to their sub-groups—whether based on nationality or ideological background. Others have tried to leave ISIS to join the ranks of Jabhat al Nusra, which remains affiliated with al Qaeda but also has proven itself an effective force against Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad.

“ISIS has erected barriers and checkpoints throughout Raqqa, because the defectors have freed some detainees from Jabhat al Nusra group,” says a Raqqa activist who goes by the name Abu Mohammed. “Most of the defectors have fled to Turkey after paying large amounts of money, while the rest went to the areas controlled by the Jabhat al Nusra group.”

Disobedience is automatically seen as rebellion deserving of summary execution.

The burning alive of Kasasbeh and the slaying of two Japanese hostages last month also prompted sharp divisions over whether the captives should have been swapped for militants imprisoned in Jordan or elsewhere, or whether they should have been slaughtered immediately without any bargaining or prolonged publicity-seeking, according to the Slaughtered Silently activists reporting out of Raqqa.

One of those, who goes by the name Hamood Almossa, says ISIS militants are divided into several competing groups: Some are extreme hardliners originally attracted by the harsh application of Sharia law; others are Syrian militants who now complain that they bore the brunt of the months-long fighting over the border town of Kobani and are reluctant to be used to reinforce ISIS units in neighboring Iraq. Still others are Gulf Arabs jealous of the power held by hardcore Iraqi militants who form the inner coterie of the ISIS leadership around Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Gulf Arabs, many of whom are veterans from the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, feel excluded from overall decision-making.

North African recruits among the Islamic State’s estimated 20,000 foreign fighters are among the most disgruntled, the Raqqa activists say. They complain they receive less than Gulf Arabs, Europeans, and Chechens who are paid as much as $1,000 a month. They grumble about missing out on many of the spoils of war, including women slaves and jihadi brides. Like local Syrian fighters, North African recruits say they have been used as cannon fodder, especially in the battle for Kobani.

Last week, four Tunisian recruits who joined ISIS months ago were executed in the neighborhood of Rumaila in central Raqqa, say opposition activists. They were described as traitors. Two other Tunisians, possibly along with family members, were executed in the Eddekhar neighborhood of Raqqa.

The quarrels and executions trigger more cycles of revenge as commanders and groups compete and jockey for power and survival. The disputes over the fate of Kasasbeh and the Japanese captives “raised the ire of the [Raqqa] security office, which started to eliminate a number of members who have become skeptical about the application of the law of God,” says Almossa.

The ISIS infighting and internal disputes could be likened to the Reign of Terror stage in the French Revolution, when Maximilien Robespierre sent revolutionaries as well foes to the guillotine.

Activists and Syrian Kurdish commanders in northeast Syria say the failure to capture Kobani has been a key factor in lowering morale, especially among foreign fighters who had never experienced a serious reversal in northern Syria. Kurdish commanders in the once-beleaguered city say they have found mass graves of both Kurds and ISIS fighters in recent days, the most recent containing the bodies of 200 Islamic militants. They claim, too, some Syrian fighters with ISIS defected during the siege and escaped to Turkey.

Mideast scholar Martin Kramer warns “there is a temptation to pick up signs of fragmentation and extrapolate them.” He says: “All Islamist movements have such potential conflicts. Hezbollah, for example, was a coalition of Shiites from two very different regions of Lebanon (Bekaa versus South), but it never split because Iran mediated the differences.”

The question is who within ISIS is mediating differences and whether internal conflict-resolution can contain the terror army’s mix of multiple groups and nationalities.

But activists are hoping that the disputes within ISIS will worsen before the group’s leaders are able to find a remedy and prevent deeper cleavages. Commanders with the Western-backed Free Syrian Army say they assess that the arrest campaigns and assassinations have taken their toll on ISIS but argue it is difficult to gauge how widespread the discontent is and how perilous it is for al-Baghdadi.

“There is a lot of mutual suspicion among the commanders,” says Mohammed, an FSA battle planner in Aleppo. “We tried to exchange some information with an ISIS commander recently and within days he was executed.” 

Iraq to launch major ground offensive against IS group

“There will be a major counter offensive on the ground in Iraq,” John Allen, the chief envoy for the international coalition against the Islamic State (IS) group, said in an interview with Jordan’s official Petra news agency.

“In the weeks ahead, when the Iraqi forces begin the ground campaign to take back Iraq, the coalition will provide major firepower associated with that,” he added, stressing that the Iraqis would lead the offensive.

Allen dismissed accusations that there has been a delay in the supply of US weapons and training to Iraqi troops on the frontline of the conflict, telling the news agency: “The United States is doing all it can to deliver its support as quickly as possible.”

The US has been leading an aerial campaign against the jihadists, who have taken control over large parts of Iraq and Syria and have imposed a brutal form of Islam in the territory.

On Monday, an attack in northern Baghdad killed at least 12 people and wounded more than two dozen others after a suicide bomber set off his explosives-laden vest among commuters in Baghdad’s bustling Adan Square, Iraqi officials said.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack in a mainly Shiite area of the city.

Winning back territory

Jordan, part of the coalition, announced Sunday that it had conducted dozens of air strikes on militant targets after the group burned one of its air force pilots to death and released a gruesome video of the execution.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said the assault was beginning to win back territory and deprive the jihadists of key funds.

There have been 2,000 air strikes on the Islamic State group since the coalition’s formation in August, Kerry told the Munich Security Conference on Sunday.

The air war had helped to retake some 700 square kilometres of territory, or “one-fifth of the area they had in their control”, he said.

The top US diplomat did not specify whether the regained territory was in Iraq or Syria.

But Kerry added the coalition had “deprived the militants of the use of 200 oil and gas facilities... disrupted their command structure... squeezed its finance and dispersed its personnel.”

(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP)

Syria residents Surveyed - Know the Facts !

Full Article is HERE

The report was developed by interviewing citizens in Aleppo, Syria on a monthly basis. It is a street block by street block analysis.

The citizens were asked a variety of questions such as:
Who do you think is the legitimate representative of the Syrian people?
Who provides security?
Where do people turn to settle their disputes, or in the event of a crime or theft?
Who controls the checkpoints?
How restrictive are the checkpoints?
How often do you let your children out of the home?
How frequent are crimes?

The report also focuses on:
Location of check points and road blocks
Location of bakeries
Price of bread
Access to electricity

I am currently still reviewing the report, and I will be writing several articles/blog posts with summaries, findings, and links to additional sources of reliable information/data regarding Syria.

So far I can state a few things in regards to Aleppo and Syria:

1. The center of Aleppo was not rebelling against the regime, so the rebels took the fight to those areas. The center of the city is now the most fought over and the residents movement is now very restrictive.
2. Regime forces control about 45% of Aleppo. The Syrian Air Force Intelligence oversees regime-controlled areas away from the front lines. The Republican Guard is deployed to protect some of Aleppo’s most tense front lines.
3. Bread in regime held areas is about 1/3rd to 1/5th the cost compared to rebel held areas.
4. 40% of the people feel that “no one” represents them,
5. Al Qaeda-affiliates remain strong in Aleppo. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ISIS controls 1/3rd of all opposition held neighborhoods. Their checkpoints are the most restrictive and........ READ MORE HERE 

Dr. David Kilcullen and Mr. Nate Rosenblatt of Caerus Associates who will provide a briefing on findings from what may be the most detailed, publicly available assessment of the ongoing conflict in Syria to date.

Findings are based on four months of in-depth, time-series research from within Aleppo, Syria’s largest, most diverse, and most economically relevant city. Today, Aleppo is one of the most divided cities in the country. Tomorrow, its future may resemble that of other, large, non-capital cities in post-conflict Middle Eastern states such as Libya’s Benghazi or Iraq’s Mosul.

Video Link HERE

'The Accidental Guerrilla': Dr David Kilcullen at ANU, June 09

Uploaded on Mar 14, 2010

The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One - recorded at The Australian National University, 1 June 2009.

In the first few years of the post-9/11 era, the established models for fighting small wars proved distressingly ineffective against resilient insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the insurgents fought Western armies to a stalemate, it was clear that a new approach was necessary. Dr David Kilcullen, a former Australian army officer, and one of the worlds most influential experts on guerrilla warfare, became a key architect of the Wests revamped military strategy. As the senior advisor to General David Patraeus in Iraq, Kilcullens revolutionary approach to counterinsurgency was an intellectual foundation for the Surge of 2007.

Kilcullen will uncover the face of modern warfare, illuminating both the global challenge, the War on Terrorism, and small wars across the world in Afghanistan, Iraq, Indonesia, Thailand, East Timor, and Pakistan. He will explain that todays conflicts are a complex hybrid of contrasting trends that America has tended to conflate, blurring the distinction between local and global struggles, and thereby enormously complicating our challenges. The West has continually misidentified insurgents with limited aims and legitimate grievances—accidental guerrillas—as members of a unified worldwide terror network. We must learn how to disentangle these strands, develop strategies that deal with global threats, avoid local conflicts where possible, and win them where necessary.

David Kilcullen is one of the worlds leading experts on guerrilla warfare and, rarely among his kind, has a PhD (UNSW) in political anthropology. He has served in every theatre of the War on Terror since 9/11 as special advisor for counterinsurgency to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, senior counterinsurgency advisor to General David Petraeus in Iraq, and chief counterterrorism strategist for the US State Department. He is a former Australian army officer with combat experience in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Presented by the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (The Middle East and Central Asia).

Iraq's Sadr Overhauls His Tactics

By Sudarsan Raghavan

Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 20, 2007; Page A01

NAJAF, Iraq -- The movement of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has embarked on one of its most dramatic tactical shifts since the beginning of the war.

The 33-year-old populist is reaching out to a broad array of Sunni leaders, from politicians to insurgents, and purging extremist members of his Mahdi Army militia who target Sunnis. Sadr's political followers are distancing themselves from the fragile Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, which is widely criticized as corrupt, inefficient and biased in favor of Iraq's majority Shiites. And moderates are taking up key roles in Sadr's movement, professing to be less anti-American and more nationalist as they seek to improve Sadr's image and position him in the middle of Iraq's ideological spectrum.

"We want to aim the guns against the occupation and al-Qaeda, not between Iraqis," Ahmed Shaibani, 37, a cleric who leads Sadr's newly formed reconciliation committee, said as he sat inside Sadr's heavily guarded compound here.

Sadr controls the second-biggest armed force in Iraq, after the U.S. military, and 30 parliamentary seats -- enough power to influence political decision-making and dash U.S. hopes for stability. The cleric withdrew his six ministers from Iraq's cabinet last month, leaving the movement more free to challenge the government.

(full article click here)