The fall of Ramadi would mark a major setback for ISIS as well as a comeback for the Iraqi Security Forces, which fled the city last May leaving behind equipment and uniforms as ISIS advanced behind vehicle borne improvised explosive devices.
Advertisement
Category kerfuffle adds to drama of Golden Globe nominations
Among the list of lead actresses nominated in a motion picture , musical or comedy were BFF’s Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Schumer. Other films nominated in this category are ” The Revenant “, the aforementioned ” Carol “, “Mad Max: Fury Road” and ” Room “.
Ramadi fell to the Islamic State in May, in a sudden collapse after a long battle that exposed multiple weaknesses in the government’s ability to fight the militants, including stark military shortfalls and disorganization, and an unwillingness by the government to arm or send reinforcements to help Sunni tribesmen who were fighting the militants. “The fighting is in the neighborhoods around the complex, with support from the air force”.
A Force Awakens Review By a Star Wars Rookie
And how was it? Rey, another main character, was quite incredible as well, being a great strong female character. This has received the most criticism from detractors but it was something I loved.
Ramadi, like the rest of Anbar province, is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, the minority community that complains of discrimination by the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.
There’s One Thing I Totally Hate About The Force Awakens
So we ended up leaving those things out. “We wanted them to be spread all throughout the galaxy”. At the end of the movie they would have reconciled and gotten over their differences.
Two days ago, Iraqi planes dropped leaflets on Ramadi, demanding civilians to evacuate the city within three days.
But the Sunni tribesmen “know the terrain a lot better than most”, Ali Al-Mawlawi, a spokesman for the Iraqi Embassy in Washington told POLITICO, adding that “the Iraqi Army will continue to do a lot of the heavy lifting” in the operation now underway. Iraqi officials on Friday said security forces had cleared 70 percent of the city.
He said thousands of civilians were still believed to be inside Ramadi, some of them used as human shields by IS.
ISIL fighters have had plenty of time to dig in since they took full control of the city on May 17 after blitzing government forces with wave after wave of auto and truck bomb attacks.
The recapture of Ramadi would further isolate Isis-held Fallujah, which lies half way on the road to Baghdad, and undermine the viability of the group’s self-proclaimed “caliphate”.
Iraq’s armed forces stormed the centre of Ramadi yesterday, a spokesman for the elite counter-terrorism units involved in the operation said.
“Clearly, this isn’t the behavior of a legitimate government or of a legitimate military force, it’s the behavior of thugs, it’s the behavior of killers and it’s the behavior of terrorists”, Warren said.
Mosul remains firmly in the hands of IS militants.
Iraqi forces are advancing into the centre of Ramadi, after launching a major assault to drive Islamic State (IS) from the city, officials say.
A recent example of this is Tikrit, a Sunni-dominated city that was freed from ISIS earlier this year by a mix of Iraqi Security Forces and Shia militias.
Other progress in Iraq, Warren said, includes coalition airstrikes that supported Iraqi forces who were clearing through the Makhoul Mountains north of Beiji.
Ramadi will be the second major city after Tikrit to be retaken from IS in Iraq.
Iraqi forces pushed into the center of Ramadi on December 22 in an offensive aimed at driving out Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) jihadists.
Advertisement
Despite this, the group has been able to capture new territory of strategic value over the same period, including Ramadi and Palmyra in Syria’s Homs province.
