Custom officers inspect an Abrams main battle tank or ‘The Beast, ‘ for USA troops deployed in the Baltics at Riga port March 9, 2015.
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The reference was to the Islamic State-held town of Hit in Anbar province, just north of Ramadi, where the Beast has made its name as part of a largely successful Iraqi military push to reclaim the city.
“This tank has become a little bit of a folk hero here in Iraq”, Colonel Steve Warren, the United States military spokesman in Baghdad, said.
Iraq’s elite counterterrorism forces fire towards extremist positions during fights between Iraqi security forces and Islamic State group during a military operation to regain control of Hit, 85 miles (140 kilometers) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, April 13, 2016.
The Pentagon continues to search so hard for clear victories against the Islamic State that it can show off to a war-weary American public that it has begun heavily promoting the exploits of a single Iraqi tank nicknamed the “Beast”.
Warren later retweeted a video of the tank – provided by the USA – blowing up a auto purportedly carrying explosives.
Daesh is a terrorist group that claims to have established an Islamic caliphate on the territory under its control in Syria and Iraq, and that has led or inspired attacks in Europe.
The United States, Warren noted, did not have any announcements or updated figures related on civilian casualties resulting from actions by the Iraqi security forces in Ramadi.
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“We are seeing these examples over and over of small units whose confidence, whose competence, whose morale is growing and strengthening and expanding”, he said.
