| Iraq |
| Iraqi Forces Clear Dhuluiyah of IS Jihadists |
| 2014-12-31 |
| [AnNahar] Iraqi forces on Tuesday completed the recapture of the town of Dhuluiyah, parts of which had been held by 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 Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... jihadist group for months, commanders said. Pro-government forces had pushed into the town, located 90 kilometers (55 miles) outside Baghdad, from the north two days earlier, fighting their way south. "Forces from the army and the police and (militiamen) and tribal fighters succeeded today in regaining control of Dhuluiyah," an army major general told Agence La Belle France-Presse. The officer said that 50 military vehicles advanced from the north and linked up with allied forces in the town's southern Jubur area, which had resisted repeated assault by IS. This "means the complete liberation of Dhuluiyah and the end of the (IS) presence," he added. A leader in the Shiite Badr militia, which took part in the operation, confirmed the "complete liberation of Dhuluiyah." "We succeeded in breaking the blockade which was imposed by (IS) on the Jubur tribe," the commander said. People had gun sex and honked car horns in celebration, according to a policeman in the town, which is strategically located on roads linking the eastern province of Diyala to Salaheddin province in the north. Omar al-Juburi, a leader of the tribal forces battling IS, said earlier that military reinforcements had arrived to carry out a renewed push to retake the town. Clashes took place in some areas on Tuesday where IS forces were holed up in houses, Juburi said. IS fighters have been carrying out "suicide kabooms" on pro-government forces, he added. On Monday IS published pictures online showing what it described as battles in Dhuluiyah. In one of the pictures, fighters are seen rigging a car with explosives. Another shows a man carrying out a suicide attack on government forces. The Iraqi defense ministry said Monday that government warplanes had carried out raids against jihadists positions in the town. In October, Iraqi forces retook most of Dhuluiyah from IS, but the jihadists later launched a counter-offensive and were able to recapture ground. Since Sunday government forces backed by Sunni rustics and Shiite snuffies have been clearing bombs and other explosives placed by the jihadists in various parts of the town. IS spearheaded a Lion of Islam offensive in June that overran Iraq's second city djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... and then swept through much of the country's Sunni Arab heartland. Backed by U.S.-led air strikes, Kurdish forces, Shiite militias and Sunni rustics, Iraqi troops have since managed to wrest back some territory from the jihadists, but three major cities and swathes of other territory are still outside government control. The U.S.-led coalition announced that it had carried out eight air strikes against IS in Iraq on Tuesday, targeting fighters as well as vehicles and buildings used by the jihadists. It also launched seven raids in Syria, where IS has also seized large areas for its self-proclaimed cross-border Islamic "caliphate." |
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| Iraq |
| Iraqi Sunni group accuses US of killing 29 civilians in fresh allegations |
| 2006-06-07 |
| US troops Tuesday faced fresh accusations of unlawful killings of civilians in Iraq, as the main Sunni Arab party accused them of murdering more than two dozen innocent Iraqis in a series of incidents across the country in May. "The US forces have violated human rights many times across Iraq," said Omar al-Juburi, spokesman for the human rights department of the Iraqi Islamic Party, which is led by Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi. In the latest in a string of allegations against US forces, Juburi said 29 Iraqis were killed in May in separate incidents involving US forces in the towns of Latifiyah and Yusifiyah, south of Baghdad, and in the capital itself. "On May 13, US forces launched an air assault on a civilian car in Latifiyah and killed six people inside the car," Juburi told reporters. "On the same day US forces attacked with aircraft the house of a civilian, Saadun Mohsen Hassan, and killed seven of his family members." Juburi said US forces carried out another air strike the next day on the house of Sheikh Yassin Saleh Shallal in the town of Yusifiyah, "killing 13 people, including women and children." Three other Iraqis were killed in US raids in Baghdad, he said. The nearby towns of Latifiyah and Yusifiyah have been the scene of increased insurgent activity and several US operations. |
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