The Common Ills: 2017-06-11

Saturday, June 17, 2017

Iraqi security forces run away from ISIS

Extraordinary drone footage. #ISIS VBIED chasing #Iraq|i regime armored vehicles near Mosul. They ran away but one at least was destroyed.. 

5 replies46 retweets36 likes

Day 241 of The Mosul Slog and the above passes for 'progress.'

When does The Mosul Slog end?

Who knows?

"Still months away" reports ARA NEWS:

Brig. Gen. William Turner, the US-led coalition’s Deputy Commanding General for Sustainment, said in an exclusive interview with ARA News that the defeat of ISIS in all of Iraq “is still months away”.
Supported by the US-led coalition, the Iraqi forces have been combatting ISIS in Mosul for more than 8 months, and ISIS is now isolated in the old city in West Mosul, but a ‘tough fight’ will continue, the US General says.

“ISIS as a whole, is a corned force and they are quite desperate. The way they take civilians hostage and the way they conduct operations,” he said, adding that ISIS is isolated in a ‘very tight space’ of 4 to 5 kilometers. “They are fierce fighters, there is a core of ISIS fighters that are fighting to death, and it continues to be a tough fight in Mosul,” General Turner told ARA News on Friday.

AFP notes:

For eight months now, Mosul has been the biggest battlefield Iraq has known in years, but the city's population has never dipped below one million.
[. . .]
Once considered one of Iraq's best hotels where former dictator Saddam Hussein would host his officers, IS took it over when it overran the city in 2014, renamed it "Waritheen" (inheritors) and used it for its own elite.
US and French special forces, and elite Iraqi fighters from the Counter-Terrorism Service have all stayed there over the past months, as evidenced by the different types of food rations and other objects they left behind.

241 days. The operation was supposed to last only a few weeks. Eight months. 241 days.

The corporate press tries desperately to find ways to spin this as a success.

But then, they do the same with the overall Iraq War.

Reality?

Here's some. THE DAYTONA BEACH NEWS-JOURNAL notes, "In operations related to Iraq, a total of 4,526 members of the U.S. military have died. Another 32,293 U.S. service personnel have been wounded in action."

The following community sites updated: