Increased battlefield pressure by Iraqi and Syrian ground forces aided by airstrikes from the U.S. -led Operation Inherent Resolve coalition has forced the Islamic State group to return to its roots as a terrorist organization to grab the world’s attention, said U.S. Army Col. Chris Garver, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the coalition. Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, commander of the Combined Joint Task Force, immediately banned the wearing of YPG insignia by USA troops.
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With Iraqi forces focused on Fallujah, Syria’s military is pressing on toward Raqqa, the extremist group’s declared capital.
Iraqi government forces backed by training, advice and air support from a USA -led global coalition retook Ramadi in December and Hit four months later.
The jihadis appear to be taking pot shots into the landscape as they fight off forces among war-torn houses.
Iraqi special forces reportedly began pushing into southern portions of Fallujah on Monday alongside Arab Sunni and Iranian-backed Shiite militiamen. Prime Minister Abadi has told the USA that the Shia Popular Mobilization Units backed by Iran will be kept out of the mostly-Sunni city to avoid the potential for a bloodbath.
According to an Associated Press report, the only evidence of an ongoing operation in Fallujah on June 7 was an occasional round of Iraqi artillery fired into the city. Find us on Facebook too!
“We have to be cautious”. But since then, no further supplies have made it in, they said. “We can not rush back into this”, Wafa Bugaighis, charge d’affaires at the Embassy of Libya, said during a panel discussion in Washington.
Once highly centralized under former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s security forces have splintered under the weight of the political and security crises that were unleashed by the IS blitz across Iraq two years ago.
“The security forces are advancing towards central Fallujah from the southern side but doing so cautiously, to preserve civilian lives”, Lieutenant-General Abdelwahab al-Saadi told AFP.
US military officials also warn that the Islamic State may respond to its reverses on the battlefield by stepping up suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks. A suicide bomb was detonated by the militants in a north Baghdad market.
In early April, more than a month before the offensive to retake Fallujah began, Human Rights Watch said its people were “besieged by the government, trapped by ISIS, and are starving”.
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The Islamic State could also activate more clandestine cells. Sabah Karhut, Chairman of Anbar Provincial Council, told Asharq Al-Awsat that Popular Mobilization Forces’ militias have committed disgusting crimes of torture against the residents of the area.
