NOVANEWS
Battle for Baghdad: ISIS now within 8 miles of airport, armed with MANPADS
… from Russia Today
Iraqi pretend-a-soldiers about to be executed, even the ones not tied up don’t have enough sense to rush the Jihadis and die fighting.
[ Editors Note: We are in the middle of a history making event. It appears that the West is letting the situation get so out of hand in the Mideast that blanket authority will be given to make some big moves when things reach a desperate state, which they are.
Iraq has rotted out from the top down from an array of causes, the never ending Sunni-Shia political struggle, massive corruption like the phantom armies where half the troops stay home and get half pay while the officers collect the other half. This game was played with the ARVN in South Vietnam.
Some of the biggest contractor scams have been the fortunes paid out to well-connected US companies who whizzed away training “paycheck” armies, people who wanted to play soldier standing around at checkpoints and avoiding hard labor or unemployment.
Baghdad’s response early on was sadly comical, beginning with the ridiculous theater of calling for the one million volunteers staged to take press photos, remember that? Where are they? They went home after the photo shoot of course.
Of course there was no money, no training personnel, nor weapons for them. It was all just another lie which is what you get when you have political mobsters running a country, as we are trending ourselves, especially in foreign policy.
Of course the Jihadis can find kids willing to fight for them.
Nobody in Iraq really wants to fight as they view that as a suckers game. The people have no faith in their government or the military.
Rather than demonstrating they can defend the country, they play tough guy ordering the Kurd around about what they can and cannot do…and putting out calls for Western air power to defeat ISIL. The only real defensive effort you are going to see will be at the provincial level where their home turf is at stake.
As Gordon Duff has written, the effort that Obama foolishly bragged about in his UN speech would take 500 sorties a day, and a drone force that could drop down and kill any moving ISIL forces.
We have what we need to do it, but it is not being deployed. We knew quickly because a lot of the air units are reserve ones and they have to get called up early to prepare to deploy because major air operations are a major logistical job.
Our “Allies” sending in a few token show planes was also just for theater, creating a Potemkin counter force that every professional up and down the chain knows is insufficient to do the job. Our top brass covered themselves by going on record that boots on the ground would be needed to defeat ISIL…but knowing that Obama would say no.
That left the only real possible way to have any chance of defeating ISIL was to join with the Syrian Army to do it, which of course they will not do. So what we are going to have here is a failure, that is obvious, and that is being allowed for something else that they want that they have to have a crisis to slip by us. It will not remain hidden for long… Jim W. Dean ]
In response to Obama’s charge to destroy ISIL, it launches major attacks in two directions, on the Kurds in Kobani, and Baghdad
Islamic State’s offensive on the Iraqi capital intensified as the jihadist fighters advanced as far as Abu Ghraib, a suburb only 8 miles away from Baghdad’s international airport. The outer suburb of Abu Ghraib is also the site of the infamous prison the US military used to humiliate and torture Iraqi detainees.
There are reports by the Iraqi military that the militants are in possession of MANPAD anti-aircraft missiles. The short-range, shoulder-fired missiles can shoot down airplanes within a range of 15,000 feet.
The Iraqi military, aided by US military personnel, have so far failed in foiling the advance toward Baghdad of the Islamic State militia (also known as ISIS, or ISIL), which has expanded its control of huge swathes of Iraq and Syria despite the increase in US-led airstrikes.
A total of 60,000 Iraqi soldiers are assigned to defend the capital, alongside 12 teams of American advisors, an Iraqi officer told CBS News.
Meanwhile, undercover IS militants active within Baghdad are setting off bombs and carrying out attacks. Swift advances have also been by the jihadist militia in Anbar, where Iraqi officials have made an open plea for military aid, warning the city will soon fall to IS.
The situation in Anbar, a town due west of Baghdad, is “fragile” a US official told AFP. IS has seized army bases in Anbar province, and has been shelling the provincial capital, Ramadi, 75 miles (120 kilometers) from Baghdad. CNN reported that Iraqi troops in Anbar are in danger of being bottlenecked, citing a senior US defense official.
“We do see ISIL continue to make gains in Anbar province and [are] mindful of how Anbar relates to the security of Baghdad,” another senior US defense official said.
How can ISIL sustain the resupply needed for their attack on Kobani with modern airpower over them?
Anbar province is home to Iraq’s second biggest dam at Haditha, a major source of water and electrical power. The dam is currently controlled by Iraqi forces, and US airstrikes have targeted IS forces in the area .
It has been stated both by the US and Iraq that preventing IS from capturing the area is a key objective, as is holding Baghdad.
In Syria, IS forces are vying for control of Kobani, which they now control 40 percent. Kobani is on the Syria-Turkish border and has a Kurdish majority.
UN envoy Staffan de Mistura warned Friday that if Kobani falls to ISIS, civilians there would “most likely be massacred.”
In June, ISIS insurgents quickly captured Iraq’s second-biggest city, Mosul, north of Baghdad. When they took the city, they seized a large amount of military US equipment originally given to the Iraqi army.
