Recent Appearances...

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

Izzat Ibrahim Al Duri	Izzat Ibrahim Al Duri	Iraqi Baath Party	Iraq-Jordan			20040210
Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri	Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri	Iraqi Insurgency	Iraq	Iraqi	At Large	20031223
	Izzat Ibrahim al Douri	Iraqi Baath Party	Axis of Evil			20030321
	Izzat Ibrahim	Iraqi Baath Party	Iraq			20030414
	Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri	Iraqi Baath Party	Syria-Lebanon	Iraqi	At Large	20030723
		Vice President under Saddam Hussein regime, head of the Baathist Iraqi insurgency

Iraq

Suspect in infamous ISIS massacre arrested in Sulaimani

2023-07-28

[Rudaw] Iraq’s security media cell on Thursday announced the arrest of a suspected Islamic State

...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really 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 western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
(ISIS) murderous Moslem in Sulaimani involved in the group’s infamous Camp Speicher massacre nearly 10 years ago.

On June 12, 2014, around 1,700 Shiite cadets undergoing training at Camp Speicher in Salahaddin’s Tikrit
...birthplace of Saddam Hussein...
were executed by ISIS murderous Moslems, who had initially promised them safe passage.

Abdul Khaliq Khazal Sultan had joined ISIS in 2013 and was one of the executioners in the 2014 massacre. The suspect had also participated in several other operations targeting members of the security forces in Salahaddin and Nineveh, according to the statement.

He was arrested as a result of a joint operation between the Iraqi intelligence service and the Sulaimani counterterrorism forces and has been handed over to the relevant authorities, the cell reported.

Four other suspects were also arrested in Nineveh after reportedly confessing to being members of murderous Moslem groups linked to ISIS.

The Camp Speicher Massacre is one of ISIS’ most brutal crimes in Iraq. The United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by ISIS/ISIS (UNITAD) said on June 2021 that there was "clear and convincing evidence" that the massacre "constituted a number of war crimes under international law."

Dozens accused of taking part in the massacre have already been executed. 31 men were executed for their alleged involvement in the massacre on January 2017.

Shafaq News adds:

“The detainee joined ISIS in 2013 and took part in several operations targeting security forces in Saladin governorate, participated in the Speicher massacre and was one of the perpetrators in 2014, then served as the so-called military of the Tigris province, to then move to the ranks of ISIS in the so-called Wilayat Nineveh and take part in battles against the security forces."

Last Friday, Iraqi authorities also announced the arrest of one of the perpetrators of the Speicher crime in northeastern Syria. The arrest culminated in a nine-year pursuit to bring the accused to justice.

The Iraqi Joint Operations Command explained that the arrested, identified as "Izzat Ibrahim Muhammad Rabie," was wanted in connection with the terrorist crime at Speicher, which had sent shockwaves across Iraq and the international community.

According to the Command, the pursuit was fraught with challenges, as the perpetrator had resorted to adopting a false identity to evade capture and had attempted to flee to a neighboring country.

Link

Iraq

Nine Years After Speicher Massacre, Iraqi Authorities Capture Key Perpetrator

2023-07-22

[Shafaq News] On Friday, Iraqi authorities announced the arrest of one of the perpetrators of the Speicher crime in northeastern Syria. The arrest culminated in a nine-year pursuit to bring the accused to justice.

The Iraqi Joint Operations Command explained that the arrested, identified as "Izzat Ibrahim Muhammad Rabie," was wanted in connection with the terrorist crime at Speicher, which had sent shockwaves across Iraq and the international community.

The arrest was made possible through a well-executed operation carried out closely with the Iraqi National Intelligence Service.

According to the Command, the pursuit was fraught with challenges, as the perpetrator had resorted to adopting a false identity to evade capture and had attempted to flee to a neighboring country.

As the legal proceedings against the accused unfold, the arrest will likely provide solace to those affected by the Speicher crime.

The Speicher crime was a massacre of hundreds of young military cadets in 2014 by ISIS. The victims were taken prisoner and then executed in cold blood. The crime significantly blew the Iraqi military and sent shockwaves nationwide.

Link

Notes on 9-11

2021-09-11

Thoughts at random, worth every cent you paid for them.

It's hard to get worked up about all the military equipment left in Afghanistan. All that materiel was left to equip the Mighty Afghan Army, and there should have been more in the pipeline. Remember they were supposed to be able to pick up the fight on their own, with U.S. air and intel support. The Ghani government was in "peace negotiations" with he Talibs in Qatar. The Talibs were supposed to have 5,000 prisoners released, after which there was supposed to be a ceasefire, and the two sides were supposed to work out a structure for a transitional government. The U.S. was supposed to be the guarantor of the deal.

Biden broke the deal by not enforcing our end of it. U.S. troops were supposed to be out by May 31st, not 9/11, which was a technical violation—go to the two sides, get both to agree to the date change, initial, and done. Instead the firm of Winken, Blinken & Nod seems to have merely informed the Talibs of the change. The agreement was the reason we went eighteen months without any casualties.

The deal, as far as I know didn't cover U.S. contractors, the polite guise under which the CIA operates. Going by my own experience in Vietnam, there were joint intel collection operations, which should have been keeping the Afghan side aware of most things we knew about the Talibs, which would have included the addresses and phone numbers and wives' preferences in birthday chocolates of the Quetta Shura. Withdrawing the maintenance contractors, the guys who kept the aircraft flying and the radars raiding left the ANA high and dry, which was pretty much what happened in Vietnam too, when the Democrats cut the money for the South Vietnamese government and army, which up until that time had been holding its own. Bastards. At least they predictable.

The Dems expect all this to have fallen down the memory hole since it happened in an off-election year. Quick! Name something good or bad that happened in 2019! I could be wrong, but I don't think that'll happen. The blow to national pride and standing has been too severe. I think most people realize that there's no way Trump would have let it happen. If the Dems don't take a political beating it will be because people like AOC and Maxine Waters and Ilhan Omar and Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer get reelected because either their constituents like them and their opinions, or the alternative is considered too horrible, or the machine's really greased well. If we had a parliamentary system, Nancy Pelosi would be prime minister. She feels the loss. Believe it.

As I write these words, it's twenty years to the day from September 10th. That's a day after Massoud was assassinated on September 9th, and the day before September 11th, when nineteen Arabs -- fifteen of them Saudi -- boarded four planes without having their carry-on luggage x-rayed. After twenty years, we're back to a September 10th world. Sure, Afghanistan's in the news, but that's because we're leaving, not kicking the collective Pashtun butt. Expect Gary Condit and his thumbless wife to reappear any time now. Expect Michael Jackson to rise from the grave for a new and makeup-free re-release of Thriller. Expect shark attacks up and down both coasts and the surfing population of Australia to decline by half.

For most of the past twenty years, the public hasn't known what was going on in the most important aspect of its life. There were howls from the antiwar left when we went into Iraq. The public supported it because we had gone through the fourth-largest army in the world like a hot knife through butter in the Gulf War -- a war of maneuver, not a war of occupation. Bush I was heavily criticized for not pushing on to Baghdad, recall. Had Schwartzkopf (PBUH) been in charge this time around, things probably would have gone better, but not much better. We expected to win and win easily, and we did. When it did turn into a war of occupation, it went differently. No MacArthur in Tokyo equivalent was installed. We didn't catch Saddam right off the bat, we didn't catch Zarqawi out of the gate. How many of the "52 cards" did we actually nab? (Actually, most of them.) Izzat Ibrahim, who was probably the most important of them, died last October, probably of old age.

What do we have to show for the expenditure of men and money over two hard decades? The al-Qaeda hydra had its head lopped off and grew another, and then another, but with the Saudi money drying up they're still becoming anemic. ISIS is now the bigger problem. The treasury, despite the opinions of the Dems, is looking pretty depleted. Wars cost a lot of money. Troops need paid and supplied, munitions aren't free, and the Air Force sez each new Reaper drone, costs somewhere between $14 million (2008) and $32 million (2021). It costs $4,762 per hour to operate it -- a bargain, compared to a B2 bomber ($169,313). Bin Laden's objective was to break our economy, and to that extent he succeeded. The dollar's in far worse shape than it was in 2001

On the other hand, bin Laden is dead. If you're reading this, you probably aren't. The Saudis seem to have quietly given up driving Islamism and are now pretending they were on our side all along. The Paks have given up trying to pretend they're on our side. Saddam's gone. Zarqawi's gone. A succession of Chechen supremos is gone, most of them forgotten. Arafat's gone, Saleh's gone. Qadaffy's gone. Mubarak's gone, followed by Morsi. Even ben Ali's gone, and he was relatively harmless. Gone also are most of the Saudi Abu Whatsisnames and emirs and holy men who were driving Islamism. Qazi's dead, Sami's dead. Nizamuddin Shamzai is long dead. Qatar and Yusuf Qaradawi are about it. Even Morocco's Islamist government is out. We haven't spread democracy throughout the world, but we've given Islamism a pretty thorough beating.

Afghanistan is the exception. We win wars of maneuver. We know how to do that. Infantry fights battles, logistics wins them. That's why there's enough equipment remaining to equip an army. That was what it was there for. The other rule we passed on was not allowing a safe haven. The Vietnamese commies had Laos and Cambodia to withdraw to. The Taliban had Pakistain.

Link

Iraq

Saddam's right-hand man dead: Dictator's daughter

2020-10-27

Yesterday the Ba’ath Party announced it, today Raghad confirms — though she also did so the last time his death was announced.

[AlAhram] Sadddam Hussein's right-hand man Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, a long-time runaway, has died, the executed Iraqi dictator's daughter and his Baath party said Monday

Sadddam Hussein's right-hand man Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, a long-time runaway, has died, the executed Iraqi dictator's daughter and his Baath party said Monday.

After Saddam's capture following the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, the wiry, red-haired general remained the "King of Clubs" in Washington's deck of cards of wanted regime figures with a $10-million bounty on his head.

"I offer condolences... to all Iraqis and all his (Duri's) admirers in the Arab world and around the world," tweeted Raghad Saddam Hussein, along with a picture of Duri and her father, who was convicted and hanged in 2006.

The Baath party, which ruled Iraq until Saddam's overthrow, issued a statement announcing the death of 78-year-old Duri, but it also gave no details on where or the cause.

Known as the "Iceman" for his humble origins selling blocks of ice, he has previously been reported dead or captured only to resurface in audio or video messages.

In 2016, an unauthenticated recording showed Duri praising al-Qaeda and the Islamic State

Link

Iraq

The death of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri

2020-10-26

[Twitter]

Statement from Iraq's Ba'ath Party announcing the death of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, most infamous in recent times as an enabler (among other 'tribal revolutionaries') of the Islamic State in 2013-2014: https://t.co/yg4O5N2XpA
— Aymenn J Al-Tamimi (@ajaltamimi) October 25, 2020

Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri

Link

Iraq

Saddam's former deputy resurfaces a year after he was 'killed'

2016-04-08

[Telegraph] Saddam Hussein's former deputy has resurfaced making a call for an anti-Iranian crusade a year after he was supposedly killed in Iraq.

Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the most prominent member of Saddam's Baathist regime to escape death or captivity following the invasion of 2003, featured in a video sent to the Saudi Arabia-owned Al-Arabiya television channel.

He read out a statement to the camera while wearing military uniform and his characteristic red, bushy moustache, making identification instant.

He made no reference to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), despite widespread and credible reports that his own militia, known as the Naqshabandi Army, helped the group as it swept through western Iraq in 2014.
You heard me, sell ISIS and buy KSA !
Instead he returned to a theme of previous broadcasts - attacking the rise of Iran and demanding an alliance against Iraq's neighbour and frequent rival.
He obviously received Saddam's email. Oh wait !
He said America would be "held responsible" if Iraq were not rescued from Iran's "hegemony". Remarkably, he specifically called for Arab states to join a Saudi Arabia-led coalition against it.

His video may signal a new positioning. With his support for Saudi Arabia, which is also technically part of the US-led anti-Isil coalition, he may be indicating that he no longer supports the jihadists.

Instead, he expresses support for the battle against Iranian-backed Shia rebels in Yemen - a battle also currently being led by Saudi Arabia.
Don't expect any support from the Obama regime on this one.

Link

Iraq

New audio purportedly from Saddam's ex-deputy Izzat al-Douri, who was declared dead

2015-05-16

[Rudaw] Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a right-hand man of Saddam Hussein who was reported killed last month, has purportedly released a new audio message.

Al-Douri, who was pictured as the King of Clubs in the infamous US deck of cards of most-wanted Iraqis, apparently talks about the latest developments in Iraq to prove that he is alive.

Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi snuffies claimed last month that al-Douri was killed by the group's fighters in a military operation in the town of Alam near the newly-liberated city of Tikrit.

Following claims of al-Douri's death, Iraq's Ministry of Health said it did not have the means to determine whether the remains were really those of al-Douri.

Al-Douri is believed to have been heavily involved in the long-running Sunni insurgency against the Shiite-led government of Iraq.

"Those tribal militias called Hashd al-Shaabi, who are following a fatwa from Iran's Sistani are committing the most awful crimes against civilians," said the voice on the audio release, speaking about the latest events in Iraq.

An Nahar adds:

Friday's audio recording was released by the Baath party's Al-Tagheer channel.

Duri clearly refers in the recording to events that have happened since rumors of his alleged death surfaced on April 17, notably the deployment of Shiite paramilitary groups in the Nukhayb region earlier this month.

"Nukhayb represents a strategic position for Iran inside Iraq, and one of the aims of occupying Nukhayb is to open a front against Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
, and connect with the fronts in Syria and Leb after the northern passages were closed," he said.

"I affirm in this gathering that what's happening today in our country is a direct and a comprehensive Persian occupation, under the obnoxious cover of sectarianism," he said.

His words and some aspects of the recording suggest that the recording was made at a meeting, possibly of former Baath officials.

Nicknamed "The Iceman" for his humble origins selling blocks of ice, he was the King of Clubs in the U.S. Army's deck of cards of most-wanted Iraqis.

Link

Iraq

KingPinDaddyHoHo: An Intel Vet explains ISIS, Yemen, and the ‘Dick Cheney of Iraq’

2015-04-27

[Phaze Zero] Today marks the beginning of what I hope will be many opportunities to introduce true practitioners in the world of spying and killing to Phase Zero readers. Our first guest is Malcolm Nance, a 34-year veteran intelligence officer who has worked the Iraq mission since 1987, fighting in all of our Middle East wars since 1983. He has lived in and out of Iraq since 2003.

The death of former Saddam General Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri last week provides an opportunity to ask Nance about who the insurgent commander was, how he evaded capture or death for so many years, and what the hell is really going on in Iraq. In addition to his time on the ground, Nance has written defense intelligence textbooks on the subject--books that are occasionally dense but "are exhaustively detailed for a reason," he says. "I am not here to entertain, but to share hard intelligence, won by the blood of dead soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and intelligence officers and explain the deep history of these groups which leads you to ISIS."

He is not shy about the why of knowing: So that "we kill the right people with what we learned." Nance runs his own analytical organization, TAPSTRI, the Terror Asymmetrics Project and is author of, most recently, The Terrorists of Iraq: Inside the Strategy and Tactics of the Iraq Insurgency, 2003-2014.
Interesting, may require salt. Don't neglect the comments, they're a hoot.

Link

Iraq

Paramilitaries Hand Suspected Saddam VP Body to Iraq Govt.

2015-04-21

[AnNahar] The Ketaeb Hezbollah paramilitary group handed over the body of a man suspected of being Saddam Hussein's long-runaway deputy Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri to Iraq's government on Monday for further testing.

Killing Duri -- who was vice president at the time of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and has for years been the most senior member of Saddam's regime still on the lam -- would be a major victory for Baghdad.

Ketaeb Hezbollah says the man killed by pro-government forces on Friday was Duri, but he had previously been reported dead only to resurface in audio and video messages.

"Today, we handed over the body of the criminal Izzat al-Duri to the Iraqi government" after confirming his identity with "tests and also testimony from those who previously met him", Ketaeb Hezbollah front man Jaafar al-Husseini told journalists.

Husseini told AFP the day before that two men captured by Ketaeb Hezbollah who had seen Duri in the past six months said the dead man was him, but that account could not be independently confirmed.

Ketaeb Hezbollah -- one of the most powerful militias fighting alongside government forces against 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....
(IS) jihadist group -- delivered the body in a heavily armed convoy of dozens of vehicles to a blocked-off section of street in central Baghdad.

It was transferred in a transparent container to a white Mercedes van, which then departed.

A health ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
, confirmed it had received the body and would conduct DNA testing.

Ghanim Abdulkarim Ghanim, a human rights
One man's rights are another man's existential threat.
ministry official, had earlier said the government would use available files on Duri to determine whether it was him.

If necessary, it would seek to compare a blood sample to that of a relative, or identify the body by its physical features.

Husseini, speaking on a Ketaeb Hezbollah-affiliated television station on Sunday, said the man believed to be Duri was killed near the town of al-Alam north of Baghdad, and his body later transferred to the militia.

That account squared with one from Omar Abdullah al-Jbara, a leader in the volunteer forces from Al-Alam, who said local fighters and police clashed with a group of men on Friday, killing 12, including one who resembled Duri.

The Army of the Men of the Naqshbandiyah Order -- known by its Arabic initials JRTN and believed to be close to Duri -- took part in a sweeping IS-led holy warrior offensive that overran large areas north and west of Baghdad last June.

But little has been heard from JRTN and other groups since, with IS dominating the conquered territory.

Senior members of Saddam's Baath party, to which Duri belonged, have also reportedly played a major role in IS itself.

Link

Iraq

Iraqi Forces Battle IS for Strategic Town

2015-03-07

[AnNahar] Iraqi forces battled 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....
group in the strategic town of Dawr on Friday as they pressed a major offensive aimed at retaking Tikrit from the jihadists, officials said.

The town lies along one of the main roads that Iraqi security forces and allied fighters are taking to reach the city of Tikrit, and needs to be captured for the anti-IS offensive to move forward.

Salaheddin province Governor Raad al-Juburi said the main street in Dawr had been retaken, while an army major general said periodic festivities were taking place in the town after security forces entered on Friday afternoon.

Ex-president Saddam Hussein was jugged
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
by U.S. forces in 2003 near Dawr, which is also the hometown of Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, the most senior member of his regime still on the lam.

Some 30,000 Iraqi security forces members and allied fighters launched the operation to retake Tikrit on Monday, the largest of its kind since IS overran swathes of territory last June.

Retaking Tikrit from IS Lion of Islams, who have had more than eight months to dig in since seizing the city last June, poses a major challenge for the country's forces.

Link

Iraq

Rumor that Saddam's judge killed by ISIL and Duri

2014-06-26

A bad thing as the Quds guys were also on the ground during the ethnic cleansing in the past and worked together with the Shia JAM/Special Groups guys---we picked up eight of them but Malaki was adamant that we turn them over which we did because "we felt we could not damage the relationship"---basically we were played by Malaki.

This was being reported out of Baghdad but carried in the Saudi Online news---two things stuck me---the claim that al Duri is the mastermind between the current offensive and the killing of the Iraqi Kurdish judge who sentenced Saddam to death. That will not set well with the Kurds although it appears he was killed in Baghdad not in the north.

Noticed that al Duri has his own Facebook page.

Baghdad: Iraqi militant group ISIL has killed the judge who ordered Saddam Hussain's verdict of death-by-hanging in 2006, several Arab news media reported on Tuesday. Reports claim that Kurdish judge Raouf Abdul Rahman was executed by the militants in retaliation to Saddam's hanging.

The judge was earlier reported to have been kidnapped by the militants last week on June 16.

Although the Iraqi government has not confirmed the news, several media reports cited at least two important Facebook posts, confirming the report.

One of the FB posts cited, is that of Jordanian MP Khalil Attiehq who wrote that Judge Rahman, who had headed the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal during Saddam's trial in 2006, was arrested and sentenced to death in revenge for the tyrant's death.

The Jordanian MP added in his Facebook post that the judge attempted to escape by donning dancers' uniform but was caught and killed by the ISIS fighters.

Another Facebook post confirming the judge's execution by militants is that of Izzat Ibrahim Al-Douri, who was Saddam's former deputy and later emerged as a key figure among the militants. Al-Douri is reportedly one of the masterminds behind the latest ISIS offensive in Iraq.

Judge Raouf Abdul Rahman was born in the Kurdish town of Halabja, and was appointed the head of the five-member bench overseeing Saddam's trial in 2006 after the previous judge Rizgar Amin was criticized for being soft on the dictator.

Link

Iraq

Iraq Militants Head to Baghdad

2014-06-12

From the NYT. As much as we dislike 'em, they do have reporters on the scene and they are telling us what is happening on the ground. I snipped all the 'analysis' from the story and present the facts as 'fair use.'

BAGHDAD -- Sunni militants consolidated and extended their control over northern Iraq on Wednesday, seizing Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein, threatening the strategic oil refining town of Baiji and pushing south toward Baghdad, their ultimate target, Iraqi sources said.

As the dimensions of the assault began to become clear, it was evident that a number of militant groups had joined forces, including Baathist military commanders from the Hussein era, whose goal is to rout the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. One of the Baathists, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, was a top military commander and a vice president in the Hussein government and one of the few prominent Baathists to evade capture by the Americans throughout the occupation.

It's that 'strong horse' thing again...

"These groups were unified by the same goal, which is getting rid of this sectarian government, ending this corrupt army and negotiating to form the Sunni Region," said Abu Karam, a senior Baathist leader and a former high-ranking army officer, who said planning for the offensive had begun two years ago. "The decisive battle will be in northern Baghdad. These groups will not stop in Tikrit and will keep moving toward Baghdad."

They need to topple the government, each for their own reasons. Each thinks that their group will end up top dog, or at least one of the big dogs. Each thinks that this is best for the people they claim to represent. And they're all united in thinking that democracy is bad -- at least for them...

The sudden successes of the militant forces sent hundreds of thousands of people running, some literally, from the new outbursts of violence, panicked leaders in Turkey and Syria and revived memories of bloody American struggles to wrest the same places â Mosul and Tikrit â from jihadist fighters a decade ago.

By late Wednesday, the Sunni militants, many aligned with the radical Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, were battling loyalist forces at the northern entrance to the city of Samarra, about 70 miles north of Baghdad. The city is known for a sacred Shiite shrine that was bombed in 2006, during the height of the American-led occupation, touching off a sectarian civil war between the Sunni minority and Shiite majority.

Militant commanders were reportedly threatening to destroy the shrine if its defenders refused to lay down their arms, while hundreds of Shiite fighters were said to be heading north from Baghdad to confront the attackers.

That's about where the line will be drawn. The Shi'a aren't going to allow Sunni terrorists into the land that traditionally has been theirs. The government may not fight but the Shi'a militias will.

As Iraqi government forces crumbled in disarray before the assault, there was speculation that they may have been ordered by their superiors to give up without a fight. One local commander in Salahuddin Province, where Tikrit is located, said in an interview Wednesday: "We received phone calls from high-ranking commanders asking us to give up. I questioned them on this, and they said, 'This is an order.' "

Residents of Tikrit reported remarkable displays of soldiers handing over their weapons and uniforms peacefully to militants who ordinarily would have been expected to kill government soldiers on the spot.

Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, himself suggested the possibility of a disloyal military in his exhortations on Tuesday for citizens to take up arms against the Sunni insurgents.

As the central government declared a 10 p.m. curfew in the capital and surrounding towns, an influential Iraqi Shiite cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, called for the formation of a special force to defend religious sites in Iraq. The authorities in neighboring Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, canceled all visas and flights for pilgrims to Baghdad and intensified security on the Iran-Iraq border, Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Shiite militia leaders said that at least four brigades, each with 2,500 to 3,000 fighters, had been hastily assembled and equipped in recent weeks by the Shiite political parties to protect Baghdad and the political process in Iraq. They identified the outfits as the Kataibe Brigade, the Assaib Brigade, the Imam al-Sadr Brigade and the armed wing of the Badr Organization.

There you go. I'm only surprised that these militias had to be "hastily" reassembled -- I would have thought they would have been assembled and just laying low, keeping their powder dry...

Residents of Baiji, a city of 200,000 about 110 miles south of Mosul, awoke Wednesday to find that government checkpoints had been abandoned and that insurgents, arriving in a column of 60 vehicles, were taking control of parts of the city without firing a shot, the security officials said. Peter Bouckaert, the emergency services director for Human Rights Watch, said in a post on Twitter that the militants had seized the Baiji power station, which supplies electricity to Baghdad, Kirkuk and Salahuddin Province.

In Tikrit, residents said the militants attacked in the afternoon from three directions: east, west and north. They said there were brief exchanges of gunfire, and then police officers and soldiers shed their uniforms, put on civilian clothing and fled through residential areas to avoid the militants.

"They did not kill the soldiers or policemen who handed over their weapons, uniform and their military ID," a security official in Tikrit, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Wednesday. "They just took these things and asked them to leave."

On Wednesday, the insurgents claimed to have taken control of the entire province of Nineveh, Agence France-Presse reported, and there were reports of militants executing government soldiers in the Kirkuk region. Atheel al-Nujaifi, the governor of the province, criticized the Iraqi army commanders in Mosul, saying they had misled the government about the situation in the city.

Link

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