Strikes in Iraq
Rocket artillery and attack, fighter, and remotely piloted aircraft conducted 12 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraq’s government:
-- Near Baghdadi, a strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL rocket position.
-- Near Qaim, a strike struck an ISIL financial storage center.
-- Near Beiji, two strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units.
-- Near Hit, two strikes struck a large ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL vehicle-borne bomb, three ISIL fighting positions, and denied ISIL access to terrain.
-- Near Kisik, a strike destroyed an ISIL supply cache.
-- Near Mosul, a strike destroyed an ISIL fighting position.
-- Near Qayyarah, a strike struck an ISIL used bridge.
-- Near Sinjar, three strikes struck two separate ISIL tactical units and destroyed an ISIL fighting position, an ISIL assembly area, and an ISIL rocket position.
Task force officials define a strike as one or more kinetic events that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single, sometimes cumulative, effect. Therefore, officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIL vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against buildings, vehicles and weapon systems in a compound, for example, having the cumulative effect of making those targets harder or impossible for ISIL to use. Accordingly, officials said, they do not report the number or type of aircraft employed in a strike, the number of munitions dropped in each strike, or the number of individual munition impact points against a target.
When Barack was talking about these bombings back in August of 2014, did most people realize how long they would drag on?
Or how ineffective they would be?
In corrupt Iraq, the latest sign that the government won't protect the citizens?
ALSUMARIA reports that in Diyala Province, citizens are calling for the Minister of the Interior to address an issue of abuse. The principle of an elementary school has beaten a child and broken the child's fingers.
That citizens have to demand that this be addressed goes to just how dysfunctional the government is.
Meanwhile, AL MADA reports that the liberation of Mosul is being planned and will require US troops -- at least 180 of them.
Barack planning to let the American people know that?
Michael Knights has a piece at AL JAZEERA on Mosul where he warns of one possibility:
In the case of Mosul, the least studied scenario - and potentially the most dangerous - is what might be termed "catastrophic success": the collapse of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group's control in the city before stabilising forces and plans are in place to fill the vacuum.
Planners should spend time on this scenario because it is slowly moving from the improbable to the plausible.
Mosul may move up on the list of areas to liberate as a result of the Islamic State reportedly vacating other areas. EFE reports, "The Islamic State group retreated on Sunday from the town of al-Rutba in the western Iraqi province of al-Anbar, security officials told EFE. IS jihadists are currently advancing toward the town of al-Qaem, also in al-Anbar and nearby the Syrian borders." AFP adds, "ISIS has pulled most of its fighters out of Hit, a large town in western Iraq on which security forces were advancing, a military spokesman said on Sunday."
I'm traveling in some vehicle
I'm sitting in some cafe
A defector from the petty wars
That shell shock love away
-- "Hejira," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album of the same name
The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4497 (plus 10 in Operation Inherent Resolve which includes at least 1 Iraq War fatality).
Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Low Road" went up earlier today and the following community sites updated:
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