He said there had been more than 600 airstrikes around Ramadi during the past six months.
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Security forces gun down 2 LeT militants in J&K
The spokesman identified one of the slain militant as Manzoor Ahmad Bhat son of Abdul Rashid Bhat of Aloochibagh, Kakapore. Official sources said top Hizbul commander, Burhan, is also believed to be trapped inside the cordon laid around the area.
“It’s a lot easier to conquer than it is to hold on to this territory”.
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You passed on me, this person told me I couldn’t play, that person said I wasn’t good enough. “It’s just really that simple”. All of this does not ruffle ESPN, which has a 12-year, .3 billion contract to carry the playoff and other bowls.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is surrounded by Iraqi security forces during a visit with the Iraqi army south of Ramadi, on December 29, 2015.
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Oil prices have plunged from a five-year high of 5 a barrel in March 2012 to just .18 now. Saudi Arabia, along with Iraq, has continued to jack up oil production despite low prices.
“We are coming to liberate Mosul and it will be the fatal and final blow to Daesh”, he added.
Iraqi troops brandishing rifles danced in the Anbar provincial capital as top commanders paraded through the streets, but there were conflicting statements from Iraqi military officials over whether the city has been fully liberated. The group still controls large stretches of Iraq and neighboring Syria, including most of the rest of Anbar and the large, densely populated city of Mosul in the north of Iraq. “Peshmerga is a major force; you can not do Mosul without Peshmerga”, he said, referring to the armed forces of Iraqi Kurdistan, an autonomous northern region close to Mosul.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke to Abadi on Wednesday and offered U.N. support to help restore basic services in Ramadi to allow civilians to return, a U.N. spokesman said in a statement. ISIS fighters concentrated their defense around the main government complex in the Hoz neighborhood and Iraqi forces struggled to break in.
The Iraqi army was humiliated in that advance, abandoning city after city and leaving fleets of American armoured vehicles and other weapons in the militants’ hands.
Standing in the entrance of her tent on a chilly winter night in the Iraqi desert, Nada Saleh describes the terrifying moment her family nearly became part of ISIS’ last stand in Ramadi.
“We were waiting for the Iraqi army to secure a safe path for us”. It is not clear how many were killed and how many were able to pull back to positions outside the city.
“There is extensive destruction in the city as a result of terrorist activity and military operations”, said Ibrahim al-Osej, a member of the Ramadi district council.
Spokesman for the Iraqi counter- terrorism forces Sabah Nomani denied in a call with Al-Jazeera that Daesh have full control over any of the city’s neighbourhoods, but explained that the group continues to control some zones in almost 90 percent of the city.
The recapture of the city appears linked to a new set of deals and pay-offs that U.S. officials have struck with the Anbar tribal leaderships, who either have been alienated by ISIS or have concluded it is a lost cause.
There is also the question of what do with Sunni areas like Ramadi once the militants are driven out.
The city of Ramadi carries crucial symbolic value. Ramadi and nearby Fallujah, which is controlled by IS, saw some of the heaviest fighting of the eight-year USA intervention in Iraq.
US-Israeli strategist Barak Mendelsohn bluntly headlined a comment in the November edition of Foreign Affairs magazine, “Divide and Conquer in Syria and Iraq: Why the West Should Plan for a Partition”.
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The number of ISIS fighters that were still holding out in the city on Friday was estimated at fewer than 400, with reports of some retreating from the front by using civilians as human shields.
