Wednesday, June 25, 2014

June 25th IRAQ SITREP by Mindfriedo

24th June: First batch of US “Advisors” arrive in Iraq. Most arrive in Baghdad but some have been sent to Kirkuk to try and establish a coordinated intelligence gathering centre in Kirkuk and in Baghdad. The US plans to fly 30-35 reconnaissance missions over Iraq soon. The Iraqi government has agreed to share intelligence with the US.
24th June: Iraqi news sources are reporting on US drones carrying out strikes on Daash positions in Anbar.
25th June: Gunmen have killed three Iranian Security Personnel on patrol along the Iran Iraq border in Kermanshah.
25th June: The Milliyet Turkish Daily states that citizens from the following countries are detected at the Turkish Syrian border: China, Germany, France, Switzerland, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, the United States, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Yemen, Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, Sudan and Russia
25th June: Iraqi PM Nouri Al Maliki on efforts by the West to supplant him “The call to form a national emergency government is a coup against the constitution and the political process. The dangerous goals of forming a national emergency government are not hidden. It is an attempt by those who are against the constitution to eliminate the young democratic process and steal the votes of the voters.”
25th June: Iran Moves in. According to the New York Times Iran is sending two flights per day of 70 tons each of military supplies. Iran has also set up an intelligence gathering centre and a communications intercepting post in Baghdad. It has also started flying reconnaissance drones over Iraqi airspace.
25th June: Iran has repatriated 88 (some sources claim 130) aircraft, military and transport, that it held for 20 years to Iraq. Qassim Atta the spokesperson of the Iraqi Armed Forces states that these aircraft will now be used to fight Daash.
25th June: Syria carries out airstrikes on rebel positions in Western Iraq. The rebel authorities are reporting civilian casualties. Syria is also reportedly flying drones over Iraqi areas along Syria’s border. The Sunni residents of Western Iraq are protesting these airstrikes.
25th June: Time magazine publishes a piece titled “the End of Iraq.” The future map of Iraq it proposes hands Kirkuk to the Kurds and Baghdad to the Sunnis. The Sunni parts include parts of Syria and the Kurdish future state has both Iraqi and Syrian parts of Kurdistan as one.
25th June: Forty Five Grad and Katyusha rockets are seized west of Basra on the Iraqi Saudi border.
25th June: Iraqi government security forces are digging in around the town of Haditha. The dam and hydro electric power plant there is of strategic importance. The local Al-Jaghafa tribe has pledged support of the government force. The commander of the Iraqi forces in Anbar, Rashid Falih, is confident that his perimeter will hold.
25th June: The US authorities have upped their estimate of Daash fighters in Iraq from 7000 to 10000 and climbing.
25th June: Bernard Kouchner, the French Foreign Minister, states that he will travel to Kurdistan soon to witness the establishing of an independent Kurdish state.
25th June: The United States authorities are more or less confident that the defence of Baghdad against a Daash led assault will hold.
25th June: The Egyptian government stops broadcasting three Iraqi channels, Baghdadiya , al-Rafedain and al-Hadath, after the Iraqi government requests that they be banned for inciting sectarian conflict in Iraq.
25th June: Jordanian truck drivers returning from western Iraq are reporting the absence of Daash militants. They state that Sunni tribes have rebelled against Maliki’s government. They state that locals are generally happy that the government forces have been routed.
25th June: Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI) is calling for the prosecution of Shia Militias involved in the killing of Sunni prisoners in Hilla earlier in the week. Sixty nine detainees were killed.
25th June: Iraqi government reports of violence in Iraq on the 25th of June:
Inter Rebel clashes in Saida in Diyala. Peshmerga forces witnessing the clashes withdrew in order to let rebels better kill each other.
Daash attacks on a Pershmerga base in Baqouba have left 2 Peshmergas dead.
Mortar fire has killed two civilians and injured four in Jalawa, Diyala.
Five Daash fighters killed in Tikrit. They were killed in government air strikes near Spiker base. This base in Tikrit is where government forces had fled and 1500 had been captured by rebels on the 12th of June. 350 SWAT members were chained and paraded, then locked up.
Daash militants have taken 180 civilans hostage from Shiekhan and Kubba villages in Nineveh. They had earlier destroyed two mosques there.
25th June: The brother of Sunni politician Mashaan al-Jobouri has been assassinated in a hotel in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan. A silenced pistol was used in his assassination. Mashaan al-Jabouri was in exile in Syria earlier and had fled Iraq in 2006. His TV channel had been critical of the American Forces in 2003 and had been described as inciting sectarian division by the Iraqi government. He later returned to Iraq in 2013 and spoke against Kurdish control of Kirkuk. The Kurds saw this as an effort on his part to curry favor with Maliki.

Further reading:
The following is a revealing debate on Al Jazeera following Saddam's execution between a Shia Iraqi politician and an Iraqi Sunni politician (Mashaan al Jobouri). The Sunni politician distinguishes between Iraqi Shias and those that are pseudo Iraqi, proxies of Iran and a part of Iran’s “Safavid” project. Transcript of Jobouri’s explanation at the end of the debate after the Shia politician walks out on being called an Iranian dog:
“Well, first, if you please, Mr. Faisal allowed me to explain to the audience…. you were unable to bring one national Shiite guest accepts to show himself in this position.
Clarify for the Iraqis….. these papers issued by the Interior Ministry, this person [Sadeq al-Musawi] who his name is "Tarek" request of Iraqi nationality in 2004, You know that he entered Qatar as Tariq and not on as Sadeq Al Mousawi, his father and mother living in Iran when recalling his friends, he recalls Ibrahim al-Jaafari and says that the has no family in Iraq.
This person is not of an Iraqi citizen, he is part of the Safavid, Iranian project, when I say Shiites I do not mean the sons of Iraq from the Shiites Patriots.”
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=29590