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Home / News View Photo Gallery » Peshmerga fighters watch the front line at the furthest edge of the IrbiltoMosul highway Dec. 8, 2014, in Iraq. JAD SLEIMAN/STARS AND STRIPES RELATED Iraq battalion was sole group to stand up to Islamic State's summer surge Two entire divisions — more than 30,000 soldiers Peshmerga near Mosul say Islamic State militants are weakening ‘day by day’ Peshmerga fighters watch the front line at the edge of the highway connecting Irbil and Mosul in Iraq on Dec. 8, 2014. The Islamic State fighters were less than a mile away. JAD SLEIMAN/STARS AND STRIPES View Photo Gallery » By Jad Sleiman Stars and Stripes Published: December 13, 2014 HASSAN SHAM, Iraq — The farthest edge of the Mosul highway still controlled by Iraqi and Kurdish forces ends in towering concrete barriers. Immediately beyond are blackened craters blasted by speeding suicide car bombs and the Islamic State positions. It’s here — a 20-minute drive from Mosul on the road linking it to the Kurdish capital of Irbil — that the Kurdish troops, known as peshmerga, hold the line in full view of the militants’ fighting positions. But it remains uncertain if or when they will march into Iraq’s second-largest city and the extremists’ stronghold. The Islamic State group’s blitzkrieg, which stunned the world and shocked the West into action with its ADVERTISEMENT Soldier who deserted, served in French Foreign Legion is sentenced to 4 years in prison December 16, 2014 Opinions mixed on changing names of US bases that honor Confederates June 25, 2015 1 of 2 escaped NY prisoners shot dead by Border Patrol agent June 26, 2015 Vandals target Confederate monuments in half- dozen states June 26, 2015 Meet Kristin Beck, a transgender former Navy SEAL running for Congress June 25, 2015 Confederate generals and Army bases June 25, 2015 POLL | Should US military bases named after Confederates be renamed? June 22, 2015 New report: Education standards could impact ADVERTISEMENT More videos: U.S. Skips Aegis Transgender Vet Unique Cafe U.S. Skips Aegis Ashore Missile Test After Target Malfunction Inform Digital Access Subscribe Sign Out Home News Sports Travel Military Life Opinion Classifieds Rewards Digital Editions Contact Us Digital Access Home Blogs Multimedia Store Weather Site Map Email Newsletters Mobile Apps eBooks Veteran Home Loan Info Veteran Jobs
Transcript of Peshmerga near Mosul say Islamic State ... - WordPress.com · stand up to Islamic State's summer...
6/27/2015 Peshmerga near Mosul say Islamic State militants are weakening ‘day by day’ - News - Stripes
http://www.stripes.com/news/peshmerga-near-mosul-say-islamic-state-militants-are-weakening-day-by-day-1.319127 1/5
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View Photo Gallery »
Peshmerga fighters watch the front line at the
furthest edge of the Irbil-to-Mosul highway
Dec. 8, 2014, in Iraq.
JAD SLEIMAN/STARS AND STRIPES
RELATED
Iraq battalion was sole group tostand up to Islamic State'ssummer surgeTwo entire divisions — more than 30,000 soldiers
Peshmerga near Mosul say Islamic State militantsare weakening ‘day by day’
Peshmerga fighters watch the front line at the edge of the highway connecting Irbil and Mosul in Iraq on
Dec. 8, 2014. The Islamic State fighters were less than a mile away.
JAD SLEIMAN/STARS AND STRIPES
View Photo Gallery »
By Jad Sleiman
Stars and Stripes
Published: December 13, 2014
HASSAN SHAM, Iraq — Thefarthest edge of the Mosulhighway still controlled byIraqi and Kurdish forcesends in towering concretebarriers. Immediately
beyond are blackened craters blasted by speedingsuicide car bombs and the Islamic State positions.
It’s here — a 20-minute drive from Mosul on theroad linking it to the Kurdish capital of Irbil — thatthe Kurdish troops, known as peshmerga, hold theline in full view of the militants’ fighting positions.But it remains uncertain if or when they will marchinto Iraq’s second-largest city and the extremists’stronghold.
The Islamic State group’s blitzkrieg, which stunnedthe world and shocked the West into action with its
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6/27/2015 Peshmerga near Mosul say Islamic State militants are weakening ‘day by day’ - News - Stripes
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— along with Mosul’s entirepolice force disintegrated andfled from Iraq’s second-largest city and thesurrounding area in Junewhen faced with the IslamicState’s lightning advanceacross much of northern Iraq.
Some Christmascheer for displacedIraqi Christians inIrbilAs Christmas approaches,religious leaders and officialsrunning a camp for Iraqi
Christians who fled advances by Islamic Statemilitants are working to instill some holiday cheerfor those spending their first Christmas away fromtheir homes.
Iraq’s Sunnis andShiites coexist inKurdish refugeecampThe French relief agency incharge of Camp Hashemmanages to maintain order
among the mixed, destitute Iraqi population withjust a half dozen employees and no securitypersonnel.
Several nations tosend total of 1,500troops to aid inIslamic State fightSeveral nations have pledgedto send a total of about 1,500troops to support the U.S.-led
campaign against Islamic State militants, Army Lt.Gen. James L. Terry says.
New US-sponsoredinternationalcoalition vows todefeat Islamic StateCoalition airstrikes againstIslamic State militants inSyria and Iraq have had a
significant impact on the battlefield, allowing Iraqigovernment forces to regain lost territory anddegrading the insurgents’ military capabilities,Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday.
summer conquests across northern Iraq, is nomore, the Kurds say.
At the front, the peshmerga men now faceharassing tactics eerily reminiscent of the waninginsurgency Americans faced in the final years oftheir Iraqi occupation.
Although the hundreds of U.S. airstrikes sinceAugust have stopped the militants’ advance, theIraqi army and its Kurdish allies have so farsucceeded in retaking only slivers of occupiedterritory. The front line now meanders across muchof northern Iraq, stretching for hundreds of milesfrom the Syrian border to an area west of thecapital Baghdad.
“We as peshmerga are very strong. while day byday ISIS gets weaker,” said Latif Razbedi, usinganother name for the Islamic State. He spoke at thefinal peshmerga checkpoint between Irbil andMosul. “In the day they hide from American planes,and even after dark they can’t show themselves.”
To the Kurdish fighters here, the once-vauntedpower of the Islamic State has been reduced totaking potshots from afar and the occasionalrocket-propelled grenade fired hastily in the night.They no longer fear a deluge of well-armed,fanatical Islamic militants sweeping through theirlines across the front line.
The highway behind them, however, still bears theevidence of the shock of the groups’ stunningsummer advance, as well as the toll they paid whenthey were repulsed by Western air power and arallied peshmerga.
The Islamic States footprint starts near theoutskirts of the Kurdish capital — the militantswere once less than 30 miles from Irbil. There,refugees mill about skeletal concrete structuresthat were supposed to be completed apartmentbuildings by now.
Closer to Mosul the peshmerga checkpointsbecome more and more frequent. Dozens of cars left behind by fleeing Iraqis gatherdust on a field beside the road.
In August, peshmerga forces told the 5,000 refugees at the Khazir refugee camp, locatedseveral miles behind the current front, that they could no longer protect them in theface of the Islamic State’s unrelenting advance.
The camp was closed and is today a sprawling square of rubbish abandoned in the hasteof the evacuation.
But the peshmerga returned in force in October, pushing the Islamic State fighters backwith the aid of coalition airstrikes that started that month.
“We stayed up that night and came down from the mountains and chased them away,”said Adham Omer, a senior fighter. “Boom, bang, everywhere explosions. We loved it.”
Past the debris of the former refugee camp, rusting hulks of vehicles that once bore theblack flag of the Islamic State still dot the landscape. Western air power decimatedIslamic State convoys and heavy weapons, peshmerga say.
“If it moves, we can blow it up,” said a peshmerga officer in charge of calling in theairstrikes. He declined to give his name for security reasons but said he had beentrained by Americans years earlier and helped fight the Iraqi insurgency after the 2003invasion. “We get intelligence or we actually see them moving and we use GPS to targetthem.”
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6/27/2015 Peshmerga near Mosul say Islamic State militants are weakening ‘day by day’ - News - Stripes
http://www.stripes.com/news/peshmerga-near-mosul-say-islamic-state-militants-are-weakening-day-by-day-1.319127 3/5
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Just before the final Kurdish positions are the bullet-ridden homes occupiedprogressively by civilians, the Islamic State and now the peshmerga. The oldest graffiti,which reads “Yes, yes, for Saddam,” was crossed out and replaced by “Islamic State,”which in turn was replaced by “Good luck peshmerga.”
In one house, a peshmerga fighter tied his scarf over his face. The smell of rot wasoverwhelming. In the main foyer, a pool of human blood had gelled solid.
The fighters said they removed a headless body but have no idea who the victim was.
The peshmerga at the front recognize that the force down the highway is stillformidable, if diminished. And they still find themselves outgunned.
Outside their headquarters, a handful of Humvees — provided by France — flew theKurdish flag and sported new .50 calibre machine guns. But most of the fighters carriedaging Kalashnikov rifles and complained that they didn’t have the heavy weaponry topunch through the U.S. armored vehicles that Islamic State forces plundered fromMosul’s Iraqi Army bases.
Although Islamic State forces are unlikely to threaten Irbil again, it remains unclearexactly who will evict them from Mosul.
“Kurdistan will stay under threat if ISIS will stay in Mosul. In other words, the target forthe time being must be Mosul,” Fuad Hussein, chief of staff to Kurdistan PresidentMassoud Barzani, said in October.
Since then officials of Iraq’s regional Kurdish government have been more reluctant topublicly commit to a joint Iraqi-Kurdish attack on the city.
Lt. Col. Mohammad Harki, who commands the peshmerga battalion manning the frontline at the edge of the highway, said he was certain ISIS wouldn’t make it past theirlines. But he couldn’t tell when or if his men would march on Mosul.
“Politics,” he said, shrugging. “We don’t know.”
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