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As The Battle For Tikrit Begins, A Map Of Who Controls What
As the world awaits to see if following his speech, Israel's PM will now proceed with launching a full on assault on Iran just to show he means business, or at least stage yet another false flag intervention to greenlight war in the middle east, several hundred kilometers to the northeast, the biggest offensive in the "war on ISIS" is now taking place after thousands of Iraqi soldiers and Shi'ite militiamen seek to retake the northern Iraqi town and birthplace of Saddam Hussein, Tikrit.
As previously reported, U.S. officials said last month that plans are afoot for a massive operation to recapture Mosul from ISIS — probably this spring — but wresting Tikrit from the militants beforehand is seen as critical given the city's strategic location. The question is whether third time will be the charm, er, offensive: Iraq's security forces have tried repeatedly — in June, again in August — to retake Tikrit but made little headway against the militants. This time may or may not be different, with a key variable being whether US air support will be granted to the local "resistance" fighters.
According to Reuters, Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, who has helped coordinate Baghdad's counter-attacks against Islamic State since it seized much of northern Iraq in June, was overseeing at least part of the operation. In other words, the same Iran that was being vilifies in Congress is now fighting on behalf of the US-led "alliance", to eradicate the same terrorists which according to some, have seen a substantial Mossad influence in their appearance. Ironic.
As Reuters puts it, the Iranian's presence on the frontline highlights neighbouring Iran's influence over the Shi'ite fighters who have been key to containing the militants in Iraq.
In contrast, the U.S.-led air coalition which has been attacking Islamic State across Iraq and Syria has not yet played a role in Tikrit, the Pentagon said on Monday, perhaps partly because of the high-level Iranian presence. Iraqi military officials said security forces backed by the Shi'ite militia known as Hashid Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) were advancing gradually, their progress slowed by roadside bombs and snipers.
Adding to the confusion, on the southern flank of the offensive, army and police officials said government forces had surrounded and sealed off al-Dour, but had not yet launched an assault on the town, a source in military operations command said. To the north, they captured a village close to Tikrit, the army said.
More confusion: we now have a war against a stateless enemy that has seen Iraqi and Iranian soldiers fighting side by side:
Soleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, was directing operations on the eastern flank from a village about 55 km (35 miles) from Tikrit called Albu Rayash, captured from Islamic State two days ago.
With him were two Iraqi Shi'ite paramilitary leaders: the leader of the Hashid Shaabi, Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis, and Hadi al-Amiri who leads the Badr Organisation, a powerful Shi'ite militia.
"(Soleimani) was standing on top of a hill pointing with his hands towards the areas where Islamic State are still operating," said a witness who was accompanying security forces near Albu Rayash.
Perhaps he is also pointing to where he hopes Iran borders will stretch in the coming years? Although before crossing that bridge, ISIS ground soliders will have to be repelled from a city which they are fiercely guarding and in which they have been strongly fortified:
The offensive is the biggest in the Salahuddin region north of Baghdad since last summer, when Islamic State killed hundreds of Iraqi army soldiers who had abandoned their base at Camp Speicher outside Tikrit.
Several Shi'ite Hashid Shaabi fighters have described this week's campaign - which has been given the title "Here I am, Messenger of God" - as revenge for the Speicher killings. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has urged them to protect civilians in Salahuddin, a mainly Sunni Muslim province.
And while Tikrit itself is irrelevant, the battle "will have a major impact on plans to move further north and recapture Mosul, the largest city under Islamic State rule."
If the offensive stalls, it will complicate and delay a move on Mosul. A quick victory would give Baghdad momentum, but any retribution against local Sunnis would imperil efforts to win over Mosul's mainly Sunni population.
To the west of Mosul, Islamic State fighters attacked Kurdish forces in the town of Sinjar on Monday, a senior peshmerga source said. Nine peshmerga and 45 militants were killed in the fighting, which began with a suicide car bomb in the Nasr quarter of the town.
Islamic State "want to show people they can still attack and inflict losses on the peshmerga", the source said. Kurdish forces currently control around 30 percent of the town of Sinjar, as well as the hills to the north and the mountain overlooking it.
As noted above: much confusion all around since pretty much everyone in the middle east is now somehow involved in this war on Iraqi/ISIS soil, so to provide some clarity, here is a simple map showing who controls what in this latest diversionary war designed merely to get Syria's president committed so the US has a legitimate pretext to obliterate him.
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How many battles/wars in how many years? That place is fukd.
Someone remind me again why the U.S. doesn't like Assad? Bonus points for not using the terms: "tyrant", "dictator", and/or "kills own people"
He doesn't play ball.
Golf?
Its all part of the Russian/Iran ally smoke and mirrors. Plus he doesnt want to let us steal his country's oil and run pipelines through the place to sell to EU.
It's more about who controls it.... Owns It. We are the USJEWA.
We do as Nit A Yahoo tells us. He owns our FED and Government.
And on the dirt Syrian war
New Anonymous op as White House still ignores murder of American reporter Serena Shim in Turkey
Probably NOT true but if it is whoever got killed that is Their problem. Don't go there and you will not get killed.
Even the Arab nations warned Bush NOT to invade Iraq. They told him it would leave a huge chaotic gap of anarchy.
Dubya wasn't much for thinkin.
Understatement of the century.
I say we nuke 'em from orbit...it's the only way to be sure.
[Persian] Gulf.
"...Someone remind me again why the U.S. doesn't like Assad?..."
1. He doesn't obey Western gas and oil pipeline demands 2. He hates Israel - the Golan land-thieves - and will never allow their Leviathan gas to transit Syria.
In 2011, the U.S., Turkey, the Gulf states and Israel all freaked out when Iran, Iraq and Syria announced the massive Islamic Pipeline project that would feed Pars Field gas to Europe. This threatened everyeone else's gas sales and would ensure Shia-dominated states became wealthy. The U.S./Israeli plan for Iran is to keep the people impoverished and miserable as possible until their eventual slaughter and extermination, just like the Palestinians in Gaza.
The Red Pipeline shown here had to be stopped so it wouldn't interfere with the Gulf States proposed purple Qatar-Turkey pipeline or the Israeli Leviathan gas markets. Easiest way was to manufacture ISIS, whose curious choice of territory coincidentally interferes with almost the entire pipeline route.
It's not about the chemical weapons, it's about the Syrian pipeline
This was huge news in the Middle East. It must have been covered by all the big media outlets in the West, wasn't it??
Get the connection to a Sunni-based insurgency morphing into ISIS and the Gulf state funding now? See why the U.S. used Aleppo as the capital of the Syrian genocide and will never let Syria take it back?
The U.S. hates Assad because the U.S. is both Israel's and the Gulf state's BITCH. The U.S. congress are gutter whores paid to hate Assad, assassinate him and install a U.S.-puppet government that will comply with Israeli and Gulf state dictates.
Money and gas/oil - that's why they hate Assad. And they will damn sure kill every last man, woman and child in Syria to make sure no Islamic Pipeline is ever allowed to exist.
Does that help clear it up?
Nice, concise and accurate.
There's a much more interesting twist in this three-decade humanitarian tragedy for the Iraqi people. This article's title starts out with "...As The Battle For Tikrit Begins..." and in the first paragraph "...the biggest offensive in the "war on ISIS" is now taking place after thousands of Iraqi soldiers and Shi'ite militiamen seek to retake the northern Iraqi town and birthplace of Saddam Hussein, Tikrit..."
What Tyler misses is that this is completely off-script for the Iraqis. It makes perfect sense for Iraqis to want to retake Tikrit for a number of reasons (Saddam's birthplace hardly rates) but they are going rouge by commanding their troops and militias to try to retake Tikrit now - they're not suppose to. The U.S. already planned their next 'big' battle, and that was going to be against ISIS in Mosul this spring. The U.S and Israel need the Iraqi Kurds on board for their future attacks on Iran, and sacrificing Iraqis for 'Kurdish' Mosul was that plan.
Take a look at this simple 1975 map of the Iraqi Kurdistan Autonomous region and note the two big 'Kurdish' cities that were NOT part of Kurdistan then. Since then, Israel (very aggressively) and to a lesser extent, the U.S., have been there buying up politicians, planting spies, signing oil contracts and arming/training Kurdish troops. Here's Wikipedia's idea of the current Iraqi Kurdistan. Compare that to the expansion of Israeli-claimed land here. The Iraqi Kurdish expansion is largely for the benefit of rich Kurds and Western backers, not for the average Kurdish cannon fodder. Much of the Kurdish region 'expansion' was not into historic Kurdish lands, but lands that Kurdish oligarchs wanted - dams, oil fields and pipeline routes. They fueled much of that expansion through ethnic cleansing, kicking arabs out of 'their' territory - mostly Turkmen - that had lived there (peacefully co-existing with neghboring Kurdish towns) for centuries. The U.S. and Israel have already decided how 'big' an autonomous Kurdistan region will be, not the Iraqi people.
So why is the U.S. worried about this Tikrit thing (which will probably fail anyway without U.S. air support)?
I get these daily Situation Report emails from Foreign Policy, which pretty much parrot the neo-con U.S. government sentiment du jour on events. Here's what THEY wrote about Tikrit today:
Complicated battlefield, indeed. The Iraqis may want to take back Mosul some day, but they sure as hell won't sit around and wait to be ordered to like dogs by the Pentagon. The U.S. is walking on eggshells in Iraq - they want Iraqis to kick out ISIS, but not be strong enough to enforce the 1975 Kurdish borders. The U.S. figured it would arm and train enough Iraqis to 'liberate' a greatly-expanded Kurdistan, who would then declare independence and take all the northern oil fields with them. The Mosul-Haifa(Israel) pipeline starts in Mosul - it needs to be part of Kurdistan. The Iraqis can't be armed too much or they might decide they don't want to die for Kurdistan's independence and land-grab.
The Iraqis are understandably pissed off. They don't get any U.S. military crap unless they 'liberate' Kurdistan from ISIS (and Iraq). The Iraqis just said "Screw you, U.S. - Iran will help us in Tikrit." If they do take Tikrit, ISIS will flee north to - among other places - Mosul. Since Mosul is being stolen from Iraq, they're probably never going to want to go there to die for Kurdistan. The U.S. can't arm the Kurds with any heavy weapons or Turkey will go ballistic - the Kurds are looking for large chunks of Turkey to beling to a greater (and independent) Kurdistan. So the incompetent Pentagon tried to dictate what battles the Iraqis would fight and assumed they would obey without question.
To sum up: the U.S. has completely fucked up the entire situation as part of a power/oil/land grab. Death, destruction, poverty, misery and war are the only thing that the U.S. brings anywhere. And the U.S. war in Iraq is still going on today - we're not done killing people there by a long shot. ISIS has gone rogue, our puppet Iraqi government has gone rogue, our Syrian opposition has gone... well, to ISIS. Damn it to HELL - nobody listens to us anymore!
The US and "coalition" partners may not be flying air support for the battle in Tikrit, but Iran is. It's a clever move by Iran. They have taken a play right from the NATO standard playbook by providing generals and "advisors" to both Iraq and Syria to help them in their fights against ISIS.
He is a totalitarian oppressor.
/s
Isn't he an opthamologist? Who the fuck wants an eye doctor at their parties. Always going around saying shit like "I SEE what you are doing there." Fuck him.
I got my eye on you motherfucker
ok, I will play. An eye for an eye, phucker!! LOL.
The US doesn't like Assad because we said he gassed his own people.
Turns out, it was our liver eating moderates, but hey you gotta break some eggs when you want a Quatari pipeline run.
Mixed Metaphors FTW!
pods
I thought it was a run to the Haifa terminal and on to EU?
Gassed his own folks....fify
Of Course when Saddam gassed the Kurds we continued with four billion in agricultural subsidies ;) It was sort of a different set of American ideals at the time somehow, don't you know!!
I've never thought much about Assad.
Israel hates him because he funds Hezbollah,
The Saudi's and fellow travelers want to run a gas pipeline through his backyard. Assad would probably love the pipeline idea if it didn't come with a plague of Mossad, CIA, DIA, etc spies and assassins...., which it would. Then there is all the Arab infighting, which I don't pretend to understand.
Someone put this link today into the comments on Saker's blog about energy was in ME: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175961/
Syria has an active nuke program.
Why doesn't the US like Assad? Hows about most of the conflict in Syria has been initiated by the US and Western Powers, mainly Britain and France in an attempt to over throw Bashar al-Assad because he supports Putin. The Gulf nations (Saudi, et al) want to build a gas pipeline(s) up the coast through Israel (yes, no kidding and they welcome it, too) Syria and on to Western Europe who right now in spite of the North Sea, get most of their Natty from Russia. Assad supports Putin (client state complete with Russian naval base on Mediterranean Sea) and says... NO! Putin of course doesn't want any competition for his gas by the Gulf Nation's gas... and the Gulf nations flame most of it off and in waste and no revenue.
And, of course, we want the petro-dollar to remain the medium of global energy transactions which Putin wants to change to the ruble or gold.
So, there's the reason for the war(s)
Also, same goes for the Ukraine as we overthrew the old government who supported Putin's gas transmission to Europe in favor of evil fascists who want to stop it as per the US's and Britain's intervention. The Brits want Putin shut off, too, as they'd get to sell more of their Natty to Europe.
All this shit going on right now traces back to Natural Gas Pipelines and maintenance of the Petro-Dollar.
I suggest you request an answer from the BLS.
Didn't the US recently have to ask Iran for help in fighting ISIL after Iraq fell apart?
Man I remember working on a road crew just outside Tikrit in Dec 03 when a donkey cart pulled up with a bearded guy wearing a fedora and a steamer trunk with "CIA" stamped on it on the cart, I said, "Man, you best get outta here"
He said "Where?" and I said, "fuck man, head over to that shack, dig a hole and crawl into it, shits about to get real" He reached into the steamer trunk, pulled out a 100 bill and said thanks.
Off he went, wonder what ever happened to that old fella;)
I am sure ISIS will be following the Geneva Conventions...
You mean how 9mm hollow points are cruel but .50 cal armor piercing incendiary rounds are cool.
Naw, that's one of the Hague Conventions, of which the US is not a signatory nation. The Geneva Conventions just bans "weapons that cause superfluous injury." You could argue that 9mm HPs are cool under that definition, though the military likes FMJs for feeding reliability.
Protocol 3 prohibits the use of incindiary weapons on civilians.
Nuttyahoo didnt get that memo
ISIS coming for the pretty young white women!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L2fazw5Y9k
ISIS is Sunni, an enemy of the Shia in Iran. Therefore it's understandable that Iran is helping the US against ISIS because of a common enemy. But the US doesn't want Iran to have Nukes, yet Pakistan is Sunni and already has Nukes which they can give to ISIS. What am I not understanding?
Didn't we win this battle some years ago ? I'm pretty sure I heard something about that back when GWB was POTUS...
We wonned it, before we lost it.
Maybe it depends upon what your definition of 'win' is. The days of considering these events like WW2 and uniformed force on force are gone.
Looking at this from a game theory perspective, it is better to have radicals fighting against trained US forces outside our borders and crushing said radicals than to pull out and have radicals launch from safe-havens to attack innocent folks here. It's a zero sum game; somebody's going to die because of their blood cult. The political victory is to carry the fight abroad and vigilantly protect the folks here.
Winning to these guys is ensuring the war never ends.
Sorry, but "crushing radicals" and fighting the same battle twice seems to be somewhat of a logical contradiction. I'm pretty sure that we "crushed" them once, so why do we have to fight them again in exactly the same place ?
We're not fighting "them" again. These are new guys. Next generation and recruits from western countries. We failed to kill all the women and children like Clint would have done. We were hoping for forgiveness.
Well, at least a few of "the new guys" will end up with their throats slashed then...
Yup
Yeah thats the ticket!! The NeoCon playbook is going great!! We will turn Iraq into a consumer driven democracy!! What the Hell could go wrong!! Everything is peachy!! Onward to the Ukraine!! Who cares about the Trillions of dollars spent anyway. Remember our great NeoCon The "DICK" Cheney said deficits do not matter. Plus rich kids like himself and Dubya don't do get slaughterd,maimed and scarred so whats the problem? Yeah everything is great!! Plus we can spend trillions on wars but it would be impossible to keep the backward hankie heads out..
Who is going to pay for that and where are the raw materials going to come from?
silly boy
don't you know who these guys are
Hint
they hate jews
so they love?????
Silly boy...being critical and being anti_jewish are two different things.
Don't you know that you can't conflate the two and dismiss anything critical you can't argue against?
you hate people who are critical of states you worship...
So who do you love...unconditionally...it appears????
Doesn't Tikrit also look pretty close to Baghdad?
Just sayin'.........
Whats up with this Captain America banner playing every 5 seconds....and you cant turn it off...come one Tyler..enough is enough...this sucks
Get Adblock for Chrome. It works well.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adblock/gighmmpiobklfepjocnamg...
I had to. I am fine with ads, Tyler's need money too. I even click them. But auto streaming and pop up ads. Sorry.
pods
yep...and adblockplus add on for Fire Fox. Works great. So does Ghostery if you want to squash all the tracking gizmos hiding behind the scenes.
Use Blur to kill trackers if you're running Chrome; also ZenMate is very useful for data traffic encryption and IP-masking...
zenmate is cool, didnt know, thx! so finally gettin zerohedge https for free:)
I had to install Adblock here too. I am sorry Tylers, but I won't disable it for your website until the auto starting videos and the pop up stops.
Also, all of that is making by tablet reader crash when I try to view this website.
Kurds must be expecting a separate state . They have oil rich region with them so it's highly unlikely they will get separate state
One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fishkhabur
Long Turkey and Fishharbor
I couid use an Irbil remedy right about now.
Fishkabob. Sounds tastier.
"It's a long way to Tipperary"
Come on, sing with me boys....
Deploy the LAPD to fight the CIA's Frankenstein monster, ISIS; they've no problem murdering unarmed Americans let's see how they do against ISIS.
When they start beheading unarmed, homeless people then we'll know they're up for the fight.
"He was goin' for his head." -- LAPD
Which head would that be?
The one that Obama likes to choom on?
Or, the one where the pea rattles around?
bad idea. they'd likely ally with ISIS to save their own necks -and then return with advanced training as how to terrify and murder unarmed innocents.
How can we even be discussing this minor issue, when a serious crisis is at hand --dozens of congressmen did not show up today to suck Bibi's dick. What are we going to do about them?
Don't worry - they're already yesterday's men.
AIPAC is going to have Emanuel waterboard them in his Chicago Torture Center.
There will be payback.
Those who didn't show up can say goodbye to any further re-election campaign funding.
Looks like then Kurds have them on three sides.
Bleed 'em out in Tikrit first?
Interesting that there is NO air support from the coalition of the willing - can't have those ISIS boys taken out now, can we?
Of course not. The US and "coalition" air forces have been flying support for ISIS, not against them.
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13931204001534
Need to add a marker in Northern Israel where the ISIS flags are made.
plus the IDF resupply point for ISIS and the location of the israeli hospital used to treat wounded ISIS fighters.
Clearly, Jordan has been implicated, and they are NOT happy about the disclosure.
http://warnewsupdates.blogspot.com/2015/02/jordan-furious-over-pentagon-...
Open 300 Cinnebons up and down that line and most of the running around chopping each others' heads off stops -
Deutschland/Rusland uber alles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr7ymJwx4-Q
shitkrit
The battle for Tikrit is litterally a fight between an Iraq-Iran coalition (the supervising General is from Iran) against a Qatari-Saudi-Israel-NATO coalition.
Recently the head of the Iraqi army accused the NATO and "coalition" (which means Australian and NZ) air forces of bombing Iraqi army regulars and dropping "aid" (which means weapons, ammunition and medical supplies) to ISIS militias.
A B83 airburst would do the trick.
We Kurdistaned some folks
Looks like the gate's being left open to push them into Syria.
So let's just have whoever is fighting ISIS call in Iranian air support instead of ours now. Problem solved.