Warning: Undefined array key "rbname" in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 14
Hello !
Recent Appearances... Rantburg

Iraq
Askari dismissed, says source
2014-11-14
[Iraq News] Reliable source revealed that âThe Commanding General of the Iraqi Armed Forces, Haider al-Abadi, issued a decree to dismiss the Media Advisor of the Iraqi Defense Ministry, General Mohammed al-Askari from his post.â

The source told IraqiNews.com âAskari has been transferred to another department within the Defense Ministry.â

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has decided on Wednesday to dismiss 26 high rank military officers and refer 10 others for retirement.
Link


Iraq
Iraq Army Chief Claims Major Victory in Sunni Town
2014-10-04
[AnNahar]. Iraq's army chief Friday claimed a major victory in Dhuluiyah, a town north of Baghdad where a Sunni tribe has been resisting the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
 jihadist group for almost four months.

The Dhuluiyah fighters contacted by Agence La Belle France-Presse, however, said the town had not yet been fully liberated.

"Dhuluiyah has been completely cleared of IS," Lieutenant General Mohammed al-Askari told AFP.

"The Iraqi army, as well as volunteers from the tribes and popular brigades (Shiite militias), entered Dhuluiyah and have now reached the office of the mayor," he said.

Dhuluiyah lies about 90 kilometers (55 miles) from Baghdad and the Jubur tribe in the south of the town has held out against relentless attacks by the jihadists.

A victory against IS there has been described as crucial to efforts by the government to show it was willing to support Sunni tribes rejecting IS.

"The army arrived from the north and moved into areas close to the Khazraj district" which has been under IS control for the best part of the past four months, said one fighter in Dhuluiyah, Abu Haitham al-Juburi.

He said the operation was coordinated with another tribe, the Albu Faraj, and explained that pro-government forces had left an escape route open for the jihadists in order to avoid more bloodshed.

"The officer in charge decided not to attack Khazraj tonight in order to minimize casualties. We will go there tomorrow," he said.
Link


Iraq
Iraq Defense Minister Heads to Moscow with Wish List
2014-07-24
[An Nahar] Iraq's defense minister flew to Moscow on Wednesday to ask his counterpart for military equipment, as his forces struggle to hold off a jihadist-led Sunni Lion of Islam offensive, a front man said.

"Defense Minister Saadun al-Dulaimi left Baghdad for Moscow," Staff Lieutenant General Mohammed al-Askari told Agence La Belle France Presse.

He said the minister was carrying a letter from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to Russian President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
 "explaining the security and political situation in Iraq and the need to strengthen military cooperation".

"Dulaimi will meet the Russian defense minister and other officials to urge them to provide Iraq with weapons, equipment and modern military aircraft," Askari said.

Despite the billions of dollars spent on training and equipment by the United States during its eight-year occupation, Iraq's million-strong army completely folded when Death Eaters attacked last month.

Within days, the Islamic State jihadist group and allied Sunni factions conquered Iraq's second city of djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
 and large swathes of the north and west.

The front lines have since stabilized and Baghdad has already received intelligence assistance from Washington and Sukhoi warplanes from Russia and Iran.

Shiite militias with ties to Tehran have also joined the armed forces on the battlefield, in some cases even taking the lead.
Link


Iraq
Not possible for Iraqi forces to attack Fallujah now: Ministry
2014-01-08
[Al Ahram] It is not currently possible for Iraqi security forces to storm the city of Fallujah, which was lost to militants last week, the defence ministry spokesman said Tuesday. "It is not possible to assault it (Fallujah) now" due to concerns about civilian casualties, Staff Lieutenant General Mohammed al-Askari told AFP.
That statement probably made more sense in Arabic.
Link


Iraq
Iraq missile strikes kill '25 militants': Ministry
2014-01-08
[Al Ahram] Iraqi missile strikes on the city of Ramadi killed 25 militants Tuesday, the defence ministry spokesman said. Iraqi forces targeted militants with "missile strikes, resulting in the killing of 25," Staff Lieutenant General Mohammed al-Askari told AFP.
Link


Iraq
Suicide Bombers Kill Four in Iraq Police Station
2010-12-30
[Asharq al-Aswat] Two jacket wallahs on Wednesday killed four coppers in a cop shoppe in the northern city of djinn-infested Mosul, including an officer who oversaw a deadly raid on cut-thoats, Iraqi security officials said.

A third bomber was rubbed out before setting off his explosives belt in the attack targeting Lieutenant Colonel Shamil Ahmed Oglah, who commanded the operation last week against an Al-Qaeda affiliate, a police officer said.

The early morning bombings killed Oglah and three other coppers, an interior ministry source said, and destroyed most of the cop shoppe in the Qabr al-Binat area of western Mosul, according to the police officer.

The officer said Oglah had commanded an operation in western Mosul in which a leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, Al-Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate, was killed.

Suicide bombers had made four previous attempts to kill the lieutenant colonel, he said.

The attack comes two days after twin bombings in the western city of Ramadi killed nine people, including four coppers, and maimed 49, among them five women and four children.

At least 19 police died in apparently coordinated car boomings across Iraq on August 25, security officials said, including 15 officers who were killed at a passport office in Kut, southeast of Storied Baghdad.

A total of at least 53 people were killed and some 250 maimed in the attacks, which were blamed on Al-Qaeda and remnants of Saddam Hussein's Baath party.

Mosul, 350 kilometres (220 miles) north of Storied Baghdad, and the surrounding Nineveh province are one of the most violent areas of Iraq.

The province is split between Sunni Arab and Kurdish communities bitterly divided over the ambitions of Kurdish leaders to incorporate large parts of it into their autonomous region in the north.

It also has Assyrian, Shabak, Turkmen and Yazidi minorities.

On December 20, Iraqi army special forces killed three Libyans allegedly planning suicide kabooms ahead of Christmas in a raid in Mosul, a defence ministry front man said.

"Special forces from the Second Brigade in Mosul killed three Libyan jacket wallahs in an operation," acting on a tip-off, Major General Mohammed al-Askari said.

The soldiers raided a house in southern Mosul and came under attack with hand grenades, sparking a clash in which the three "terrorists" were killed, he said.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who was approved by parliament for a second term in office along with a national unity cabinet on December 21, has cited security as one of his top three priorities.

But 10 ministries, including those responsible for security, which are controlled by Maliki in the interim, still only have acting heads.

While violence has dropped dramatically across Iraq since its peak in 2006 and 2007, attacks remain common, especially in the capital and Mosul.

The number of people killed last month was the lowest in a year for the second month running, with 171 people -- 105 civilians, 23 soldiers and 43 coppers -- losing their lives in attacks.

In his first address after being re-appointed, Maliki committed his new government to tackling the "enormous" challenges to improve security across Iraq.
Link


Iraq
Iraq Announces Over 90 Arrests in al-Qaida Sweep
2010-12-26
Iraq's defense ministry says security forces have arrested 93 suspects in an al-Qaida crackdown in the western Anbar province.

A defense ministry spokesman, Major General Mohammed al-Askari, said Thursday the arrests included 60 wanted men. He said the detentions resulted from a series of raids launched late Tuesday that included help from police, the army, pro-government tribal forces and members of an anti-al-Qaida militia.

Earlier this week, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki named security as one of his top priorities after parliament approved cabinet ministers for his new government.

Meanwhile, Iraqi officials say gunmen using silencers have killed a brigadier general and wounded a police lieutenant colonel. Both incidents occurred late Wednesday in Baghdad.
Link


Iraq
Twelve killed in Iraq as Shiite pilgrimage ends
2010-07-29
[Al Arabiya Latest] A series of attacks in Baghdad and a holy Iraqi city killed 12 people, while five others died in a helicopter crash, as major religious ceremonies came to a close, officials said on Wednesday.

In the deadliest attack, mortars killed seven people and wounded 46 in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, south of Baghdad, as pilgrims gathered late on Tuesday to mark the birthday of Imam Mohammed al-Mahdi, the 12th and last Shiite holy man.

Several hundred thousand pilgrims are expected in Karbala this week for the same anniversary.

Tuesday's attack came a day after twin car bombings in Karbala killed 21 people and wounded at least 47 others.

"Several mortars landed at 11:00 pm (2000 GMT on Tuesday), killing seven pilgrims and injuring 46, in a neighborhood located four kilometers (2.3 miles) northwest of the center of the city," a Karbala police officer said.

"The pilgrims were coming from around the city to participate in the ceremony," the officer said, adding several houses were damaged.

Shiites -- the majority of Iraq's population -- believe the holy man will return to Earth on the Day of Judgment.

Also near Karbala, an Iraqi air force helicopter crashed early on Wednesday while it was providing surveillance for the ceremonies, killing its five-man crew.

"The five-man crew of the helicopter was killed when it crashed as a result of a sandstorm in Ibrahimiyah, east of Karbala," General Anwar Hanna Amin said.

Defense ministry front man Major General Mohammed al-Askari confirmed the crash, saying the helicopter was a Russian-designed Mi-17. The crash is being investigated, he added.

In Baghdad, meanwhile, a bomb inside a restaurant on Wednesday morning in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City in the north of the city killed five people, including one woman.

Thirteen others were maimed in the blast, which occurred at about 9:30 am (0630 GMT), officials from the defense and interior ministries said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Link


Iraq
Iraq arrests three suspected Qaeda leaders
2010-07-26
Autoedited by Rantburg
[Al Arabiya Latest] Authorities have jugged three suspected senior leaders of al-Qaeda's front group in Iraq, including its self-styled minister of defense, a spokesman said on Sunday.

Also among the group detained were two brothers suspected of masterminding major attacks in the central Iraqi province of Diyala, defense ministry spokesman Major General Mohammed al-Askari told AFP.

"Iraqi soldiers jugged Saleem Khalid al-Zawbayi, the minister of defense for the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI)," Askari said.

"He was jugged on Thursday evening south of Baghdad," he added.

Askari also said that two brothers -- Jaabar and Qadoori Radhi Khamis al-Zaidi -- believed to have been responsible for operations in Diyala, were jugged in the northern city of Tikrit, where they were based.

The two were ISI "emirs", according to Askari.

Zawbayi is suspected of organizing a July 18 suicide bombing in the town of Radwaniyah, west of Baghdad, targeting anti-Qaeda militiamen being paid their wages. Forty-five people were killed and 46 wounded.

Al-Qaeda also took responsibility for a the second attack in the same day where a boomer killed four and wounded six at a meeting of local Sunni militia leaders in western Iraq, near the Syrian border.

In a statement posted on a website often used by Islamists, al-Qaeda said it had conducted the attacks as part of action against "leaders of apostasy", a term used for Sunni fighters who once allied with al-Qaeda but turned on the hard boy group in 2006/07, helping U.S. forces turn the tide in the war.

"A lion of the Islamic State managed to intrude among the cattle after they were blinded by pickings of money thrown by the ... government and they fell into the torture of God," the statement said.

Sunni Islamist bad boyz linked to al-Qaeda have sought to exploit the political vacuum created by a failure of Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions to agree on a coalition government following an inconclusive March 7 parliamentary election, and have carried out a series of attacks since the vote.

Sahwa leaders have been among the primary targets. Some of the attacks have been attributed to acts of Dire Revenge™ by former fellow bad boyz, while others have been blamed on long-running blood feuds between families.
Link


Iraq
Iraq on alert over Christian Christmas threats
2009-12-19
[Al Arabiya Latest] The Iraqi army has been put on alert because of threats against the country's Christian minority over the coming Christmas holidays, the defense ministry spokesman said on Friday.

"We have put our forces on alert in Baghdad, the provinces of Kirkuk and Nineveh, including its capital Mosul, where our Christian brothers will be celebrating their holidays, because we have intelligence indicating they could be attacked during this period," General Mohammed al-Askari told AFP.

Askari said the latest attacks on churches "carry the hallmarks of al-Qaeda, and we are going to take serious measures to assure the security of churches and avoid terrorist attacks."

Hundreds of Christians have been murdered since the U.S.-led invasion that overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003, and tens of thousands have fled the country. The community has dwindled from 800,000 to around 550,000 now.

On Thursday, Christian Zeid Majid Yussef, 30, was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in the main northern city of Mosul.

Two days earlier, bombers struck two churches in Mosul, killing a baby and wounding at least 40 people, among them schoolchildren, police and medics said.

One bomb struck the Syrian Catholic Church of the Annunciation. The second, a car bomb, struck the Syrian Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary and an adjacent Christian school in the city centre, police said.

And on November 26, bombs hit a church and a convent in Mosul, causing severe damage but no casualties.

Link


Iraq
Iraq arrests senior officers over blasts
2009-10-30
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iraq arrested dozens of security officials over bombings that killed 155 people and vowed to arrest more security officers suspected of colluding with the bombers or dereliction of duty, an official said on Thursday.

Two-high profile attacks over the last two months have raised pressure on Iraq's developing military and police, which are taking over security from U.S. troops as Washington draws down ahead of an eventual pull-out in 2011.

" The commission of inquiry into the double attack on Sunday ordered the arrest of 11 officers of various ranks and 50 members of the security forces responsible for the protection of Salhiya "
Army spokesman General Qasim Atta
Those arrested were deployed in the Salhiya section of the capital where the devastating suicide blasts on Sunday targeted government buildings and wrought havoc in the streets, said Atta, spokesman for Baghdad military command.

"The commission of inquiry into the double attack on Sunday ordered the arrest of 11 officers of various ranks and 50 members of the security forces responsible for the protection of Salhiya," he said.

The health ministry said on Thursday the toll from the attacks claimed by al-Qaeda but blamed by the government on members of the outlawed Baath party stood at 153 people killed and more than 500 wounded.

Among those arrested, said Atta, are four senior army officers and seven senior policemen, including the chief of police of Salhiya under whose jurisdiction the justice ministry, one of the targets of the attacks, falls. Also rounded up, he added, are the commanders of 15 security checkpoints in Salhiya.

Baghdad's governor, Salah Abdul Razzaq, on Monday blamed negligence or even collusion by the security forces for the bombings in the heart of the capital, Iraq's deadliest day in more than two years.

"It's a human failure... It can only be negligence or collusion," Razzaq told AFP, noting that footage showed a white Renault truck carrying two tones of explosives driving up to the justice ministry building.

The logo of the Department of Water in Fallujah, a former insurgent bastion west of Baghdad, was painted on the side of the truck, he said. "How did it get from Fallujah to here?"

Trucks are barred from entering Baghdad, especially Salhiya neighborhood, during daylight hours.

Razzaq said that the vehicle that was blown up in front of the other target, a provincial government building, was a Kia minibus.

Defense ministry spokesman Major General Mohammed al-Askari told AFP earlier this week that security forces raided two houses in Baghdad, where they found bomb-making materials, and made arrests, but did not specify how many.

"It looks like the same materials used on Bloody Wednesday," he said, referring to August 19 bombings at government ministries in Baghdad that killed around 100 people.

Askari said the evidence found confirmed the bombers were linked to al-Qaeda and supporters of the Baath Party of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.
Link


Iraq
Iraq buying dozens of military choppers from US, EU
2009-04-07
The French couldn't help liberate Iraq but are happy to do business. Figures.
BAGHDAD - Iraq has signed deals with the United States and Europe to buy dozens of military helicopters that will be delivered over the next two years, the defence ministry spokesman said on Monday.

Major General Mohammed al-Askari said the government had placed orders with US and European groups for what he described as 'dozens' of helicopters, but declined to give a precise number. A senior military source, however, told AFP that 'Iraq has agreed with the United States and European countries to buy more than 40 helicopters.' 'We will receive all these helicopters in the next two years,' the source said, noting that the US would supply 30 of the aircraft, mainly to be used in the fight against terrorism.
That's good. I don't mind Euro companies getting a share of the orders but I'd hate to think the Iraqis would forget who stood by them.
Last month, French defence minister Herve Morin and his Iraqi counterpart Abdel Kader Obeidi announced the purchase by Baghdad of 24 multi-purpose Eurocopter EC 635 helicopters. The deal for the transport helicopters, which can carry up to seven soldiers and also engage in reconnaissance and search and rescue missions, is worth 360 million dollars. They form part of the order mentioned by the Iraqi security source.

In addition, France is preparing to sell to Iraq six Gazelle helicopters to train Iraqi pilots, said a French source close to the deal.
Link



Warning: Undefined property: stdClass::$T in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 132
-12 More