Aleppo, Mosul and Imperialist Hypocrisy

resisting arrest · Oct 21, 2016

Americans are not very politically sophisticated. They are ready to believe the last "expert" who informs them on any given issue. We must patiently explain to the people the true facts of the case!
READ, PAUSE and REFLECT!

http://www.marxist.com/aleppo-mosul-and-imperialist-hypocrisy.htm

waltky · Oct 28, 2016

Iraq Special Forces Find Underground ISIS Bomb Factory...

Iraq Special Forces Find ISIS Bomb Factory, Tunnels Near Mosul
Oct 27, 2016 | Iraqi special forces east of Mosul probed a network of underground tunnels and uncovered a bomb-making facility on Thursday.

Iraqi special forces east of Mosul probed a network of underground tunnels and uncovered a bomb-making facility on Thursday in a village recently retaken from the Islamic State group as their allies battled the militants in a push toward the city from the south. Special forces commanders said the operation was proceeding as planned, but that they were waiting for forces in the south to advance further before resuming their push toward the country's second largest city, which fell to IS in 2014. "The operation has not been stopped and is proceeding as planned," special forces Brig. Gen. Haider Fadhil said.

Iraqi army Maj. Gen. Najim al-Jabori said forces south of Mosul retook the town of Staff al-Tut in the Tigris River valley the day before, and are now 20 miles (35 kilometers) from the city. He said local tribal and militia forces have been deployed to protect the gains while his troops regroup for their next push toward the city. The special forces, who are 5 1/2 miles (9 kilometers) east of the city, continued cleanup operations in the village of Tob Zawa. They found a tire shop that had been converted into a factory for making roadside bombs and attaching armor to vehicles.

Iraqi special forces hold national flags after retaking Bartella, outside Mosul, Iraq

They also found a tunnel equipped with fans and lights that ran from beneath a mosque out to a road. Iraqi forces have found extensive tunneling networks in areas retaken from IS, which the militants used to elude U.S.-led coalition warplanes. IS has also rigged homes and other buildings with explosives to slow the troops' advance. Many fear IS may resort to more brutal tactics as the forces converge on the city, which is still home to more than a million people. The U.N.'s public health agency said Thursday it has trained 90 Iraqi medics in "mass casualty management," with a special focus on chemical attacks. The extremist group is believed to have crude chemical weapons capabilities, and Iraqi forces say they are prepared to encounter them on the battlefield.

The World Health Organization said that of the 700,000 people expected to flee Mosul, some 200,000 will require emergency health services, including more than 90,000 children needing vaccinations and 8,000 pregnant women. The International Organization for Migration says around 9,000 people have fled so far. Until now, the battles have taken place in a belt of sparsely populated farming communities around the city. The United Nations' refugee agency is shipping tents, blankets and other aid from the United Arab Emirates to northern Iraq to help those affected by the military campaign. Soliman Mohamed Daud, a senior UNHCR supply officer, told The Associated Press that 7,000 units of the relief aid will be sent to northern Iraq starting Thursday.

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UN Preparing for Possible Chemical Attack in Iraq's Mosul
Oct 27, 2016 — The U.N.'s public health agency said Thursday it has trained 90 Iraqi medics in "mass casualty management," with a special focus on chemical attacks, as part of its preparations for Iraq's operation to retake Mosul from the Islamic State group.

The extremist group, which has ruled Iraq's second largest city for more than two years, is believed to have crude chemical weapons capabilities, and Iraqi forces say they are prepared to encounter them on the battlefield. The World Health Organization said Wednesday that of the 700,000 people expected to flee Mosul, some 200,000 will require emergency health services, including more than 90,000 children needing vaccinations and 8,000 pregnant women. The operation to retake Mosul began Oct. 17 and is expected to take weeks, if not months. The fighting has not yet reached the city itself, which is home to more than a million people.

A lift truck driver uploads family tents for the Mosul refugees at the UNHCR warehouses, part of the International Humanitarian City (IHC) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Iraq's special forces said Thursday they have completed their objectives east of Mosul and are waiting on other forces to advance from the south in order to further isolate the city before moving in. "The operation has not been stopped and is proceeding as planned," Brig. Gen. Haider Fadhil said. Iraqi forces have been battling IS militants around the town of Shura, some 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Mosul, in recent days. Iraqi officials have said the offensive is proceeding according to plan and that some operations are ahead of schedule.

The Mosul offensive is the largest Iraqi military operation since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, and involves more than 25,000 Iraqi soldiers, Federal Police, Kurdish forces, Sunni tribal fighters and state-sanctioned Shiite militias. Fighting units are approaching the city from the north, east and south, and the U.S.-led coalition is carrying out airstrikes and providing ground support. The International Organization for Migration says around 9,000 people have fled so far, but aid groups are preparing to receive 200,000 displaced people in the coming weeks and fear many more could flee before the operation is over.

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waltky · Nov 7, 2016

Bodies of 100 decapitated ISIS victims found in mass grave near Mosul...

Mass grave with 100 decapitated bodies found near Mosul
Nov 7, 2016 - A mass grave of 100 headless bodies has been found south of Mosul in a town that was recently recaptured from Islamic State, the Iraqi Army said on Monday.

The grave was found in the grounds of the agricultural college in Hammam al-Alil, 15 kilometres south of Mosul, according to a statement from the army's military information office. State television said the victims appeared to have been killed recently and were likely to have been detainees who had been held and tortured by Islamic State. Their decapitated bodies had been thrown into a rubbish pit, the broadcaster said. The UN warned two weeks ago that Islamic State appeared to have killed dozens of civilians since the offensive against Mosul - the last major Iraqi urban centre held by the jihadists - was launched in mid-October.

Mass graves have previously been found in a number of areas recaptured from Islamic State, including the Sinjar district where the group massacred members of the Yezidi religious minority. Other sites held the bodies of some of the estimated 1,700 Shiite army recruits captured and killed as the group overran swathes of Iraq in 2014. Mass graves dating back to the massacres of Kurds and other opponents by former dictator Saddam Hussein - overthrown in a US-led invasion in 2003 - have also been uncovered in Iraq in recent years. The military said specialist teams were being sent to examine the scene of the latest find.

Also on Monday, Kurdish forces Monday said they had captured the Islamic State-held town of Bashiqa north-east of Mosul, two weeks after they surrounded it and cut off its jihadist defenders. A small number of snipers were still holding out in the town but it was under the control of the Peshmerga, Aziz Wisi of the Kurdish Zerevani military police said. Bashiqa lies about 13 kilometres from Mosul's eastern districts, which are already under assault by elite counter-terrorism forces answering to the central government in Baghdad.

The Peshmerga fighters were meeting less resistance than expected although there were thought to be some 60 Islamic State snipers inside the town, local commander Muhannad Sinjari said earlier. Seven militants wearing explosive belts attempted to hit the advancing Kurdish forces but were killed, Sinjari added. The Peshmerga have played a key role on Mosul's eastern and north-eastern fronts.

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tecoyah · Nov 7, 2016

resisting arrest said: ↑

Americans are not very politically sophisticated. They are ready to believe the last "expert" who informs them on any given issue. We must patiently explain to the people the true facts of the case!
READ, PAUSE and REFLECT!

http://www.marxist.com/aleppo-mosul-and-imperialist-hypocrisy.htm
Click to expand...

I see...so we should listen to your expertize instead?

waltky · Nov 8, 2016

Iraqi experts look into mass grave found near Mosul...

Iraqi experts probe mass grave site found near IS-held Mosul
Nov 8,`16 -- Iraqi investigators were probing a mass grave on Tuesday that was discovered the previous day by Iraqi troops advancing further into Islamic State-held territory near the city of Mosul.

The chilling find was the latest instance of mass graves being uncovered in territory wrested from IS militants. In Iraq and Syria so far, the group has killed thousands of people in summary executions and extrajudicial killings, the graves a dark testimony to its brutality. Associated Press footage from the site shows bones and decomposed bodies among scraps of clothing and plastic bags dug out of the ground by a bulldozer after Iraqi troops noticed the strong smell while advancing into the town of Hamam al-Alil on Monday. "Investigators flew in this morning and are on their way to the grave to conduct examinations and determine the cause of death," said Cabinet official Haider Majeed, in charge of mass grave investigations.

The first officials at the site said the grave, behind an earthen embankment near an agricultural college, likely holds about 100 bodies, many of them decapitated. The town lies some 30 kilometers (19 miles) from Mosul. It was unclear who the victims were, but a soldier at the site pulled a child's stuffed animal from the scraps of clothing and rotting flesh, swarming with flies. IS militants have carried out a series of massacres since seizing large swaths of southern and central Iraq in the summer of 2014, often documenting them with photos and videos circulated online.

An Iraqi federal police officer holds a stuffed toy at the site of a mass grave in Hamam al-Alil, Iraq. Investigators are probing the mass grave that was discovered the previous day by troops advancing further into Islamic State-held territory near the city of Mosul. Associated Press footage from the site shows bones and decomposed bodies among scraps of clothing and plastic bags dug out of the ground by a bulldozer after Iraqi troops noticed the strong smell while advancing into the town of Hamam al-Alil.

The campaign to drive them from Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city and the extremists' last major urban stronghold in the country, began on Oct. 17. Iraqi troops and the Kurdish peshmerga forces are now converging on Mosul, although the deepest advance into an eastern sliver of the city has stalled after militants counterattacked advancing special forces from within built-up, populated areas.

To the northeast, some 13 kilometers (8 miles) from the city, the peshmerga forces continued their push on the town of Bashiqa, believed to be largely deserted except for dozens of IS fighters. Mortar fire, automatic weapons, and explosions rang out through the morning, as a thick plume of smoke hung over parts of the city, obscuring the view of aircraft.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/..._0.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
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waltky · Nov 10, 2016

Oh no, say it ain't so!...

Iraq forces accused of torturing civilians near Mosul
Fri, Nov 11, 2016 - Iraqi government forces killed and tortured civilians south of Mosul, rights groups said yesterday, the first such reports of alleged abuse in a US-backed campaign to retake the city from the Islamic State group.

Amnesty International said up to six people were found dead last month in the Shura and Qayyara sub-districts, who security forces suspected of ties to the militant group which seized a third of Iraqi territory in 2014. Men in federal police uniform have carried out multiple unlawful killings, apprehending and then deliberately killing in cold blood residents in villages south of Mosul, Amnesty International Beirut office deputy director for research Lynn Maalouf said. Human Rights Watch (HRW) said at least 37 men suspected of being affiliated with the Islamic State group had been detained by Iraqi and Kurdish forces at checkpoints and in villages, screening centers and camps for displaced people near Mosul and Hawija, further south.

Relatives said they did not know where most of the men were being held and had not been able to contact any of them while they were in detention, the report said. HRW warned that such conduct significantly increases the risk of other violations, including torture. An Iraqi Ministry of the Interior spokesman denied there had been any violations and said Iraqi forces respect human rights and international law. A spokesman for the Iraqi federal police could not be reached for comment.

A spokesman for the Kurdish regional government denied the HRW report, saying any delays in informing families was due to limited resources. Nobody has been kept in unknown facilities. They are kept in identified facilities, Dindar Zebari said. The Mosul operation, involving a 100,000-strong alliance of troops, security forces, Kurdish Peshmerga and Shiite Muslim militias and backed by US-led airstrikes, has entered its fourth week, but has so far gained just a small foothold in the city.

Amnesty Internationals report described several incidents in the week commencing Oct. 20 in which separate groups of men were beaten with cables and rifle butts, before being shot to death. In one case, a mans head had been severed from his body, it said. Amnesty said that, without accountability, the alleged abuses risked being repeated in other towns and villages as the Mosul offensive continues.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/11/11/2003659037
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Iraqi police reject Amnesty report of killings, torture
Nov. 10, 2016 -- Amnesty International has accused "fighters wearing Iraqi Federal Police uniforms" of torture and extrajudicial killings.

The human rights group said it "crucial" for Iraqi authorities to investigate incidents in villages west and south of Mosul in which up to six people were "extrajudicially executed in late October, apparently due to suspicions they had ties to" the Islamic State. Amnesty International did not directly accuse Iraqi Federal Police of the extrajudicial killings and torture in Mosul's al-Shura and al-Qayyara sub-districts -- identifying the accused repeatedly as "men wearing Federal Police uniforms" -- but has a called on authorities in Iraq to carry out "prompt, thorough, impartial and independent investigations."

The allegations were made after Iraqi security forces, with the aid of the Kurdish Peshmerga, Shiite militias and a U.S.-led international coalition, began an offensive to re-capture Mosul from the Islamic State. "Men in Federal Police uniform have carried out multiple unlawful killings, apprehending and then deliberately killing in cold blood residents in villages south of Mosul. In some cases the residents were tortured before they were shot dead execution-style," Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty International's Beirut Regional Office, said in a statement released Thursday. "Deliberately killing captives and other defenseless individuals is prohibited by international humanitarian law and is a war crime ... Without effective measures to suppress and punish serious violations, there is a real risk that we could see war crimes of this kind repeated in other Iraqi villages and towns during the Mosul offensive."

Through a statement on Facebook, Iraqi federal police on Thursday dismissed the human rights group's report, Rudaw reports. "The Iraqi federal police rejects a report by Amnesty International on our forces having committed crimes against a number of civilians in the region of Shura or elsewhere," the statement said. "The federal police command stresses its full commitment to the instructions of the commander in chief and the joint command on values and principles of humanity in protecting civilians and their properties and affording them all assistance during the operations of liberation south of Mosul."

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...killings-torture/1291478784935/?spt=sec&or=tn
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waltky · Nov 24, 2016

Starvation stalks the resident of Aleppo...

'White Helmets' say Aleppo residents 10 days from starvation
Thu Nov 24, 2016 | The inhabitants of besieged rebel-held eastern Aleppo have fewer than ten days to receive aid or face starvation and death from a lack of medical supplies, the head of the Syria Civil Defence, or "White Helmets", said on Thursday.

The volunteer group which works in opposition-held territory and has rescued thousands of people from buildings bombed in the civil war is also running out of basic equipment from trucks to diesel and gas masks. "You cannot imagine how the situation is," Raed Al Saleh told Reuters through a translator. Saleh was in Stockholm to receive the Right Livelihood Award, known as Sweden's "alternative Nobel prize." "Doctors and the rescue workers in Aleppo are just using what's left of the equipment after bombardments to do whatever they can do," Saleh said.

Members of the Civil Defence rescue children after what activists said was an air strike by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in al-Shaar neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria

Rebels in the eastern part of Aleppo city have agreed to a U.N. plan for aid delivery and medical evacuations, but the United Nations is awaiting a green light from Russia and the Syrian government, humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said on Thursday.

People fill drinking water into gallon jugs, in the rebel-held besieged area of Aleppo, Syria

With freezing winter conditions setting in, about 275,000 people are trapped in eastern Aleppo, where the last U.N. food rations were distributed on Nov. 13. Saleh said doctors were so short of supplies they were resorting to making life and death decisions over who receives surgery. "They cannot accept everyone ... There are not enough materials and not enough doctors," he said. Saleh said the White Helmets had lost 50 percent of their equipment in the last two months.

AMBULANCES
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waltky · Jan 14, 2017

Iraqi forces school ISIS fighters in the art of warfare...

Iraqi forces seize Mosul University, government complex from ISIS
Sat January 14, 2017 - Hundreds of ISIS militants reportedly killed during Iraqi-led advance; Spokesman: Suspected chemical substances and "bomb factory" found at Mosul University

Iraqi-led forces trying to retake Mosul from ISIS have made significant gains after seizing the city's university, a government complex and parts of the east bank of the Tigris River, Lt. Gen. Abdul Wahab al-Saadi of the Iraqi counterterrorism forces said Saturday. Hundreds of ISIS militants were reportedly killed during Friday's advance, which came as Iraqi counterterrorism forces also announced that troops had made it Mosul's Second Bridge on the river's east bank. Counterterror forces this week reached the east bank of the Tigris for the first time since the large-scale military operation to reclaim Mosul began in October. ISIS seized control of the city, now its last major stronghold in Iraq, in 2014.

Iraqi forces aim to retake Mosul

The latest phase in the bid to retake Mosul has advanced more quickly than expected, partly because thousands of Iraqi federal police joined coalition troops that included the Iraqi army, counterterror forces, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite-led paramilitaries. The new government complex in eastern Mosul as well as several Mosul University buildings had at one time been a headquarters and killing ground for ISIS fighters. Iraqi forces discovered large amounts of suspected chemical substances and "a bomb factory" at the university, a strategic base for militants, according to Sabah al Numan, spokesman for Iraqi counterterrorism forces. The materials were being tested.

CNN walks through a city destroyed by ISIS

Additionally, Iraqi federal police announced Saturday that intelligence information had led them to a factory used to produce chemical and toxic material in explosives. They discovered the facility Friday night in al-Bir, about 45 kilometers (27 miles) south of Mosul. ISIS militants have used chemical weapons such as mustard gas in the past, according Iraqi and US officials. By Friday, ISIS had destroyed all five bridges crossing the Tigris River in Mosul, an attempt to slow the advance of Iraqi troops toward the city's western side, according to Lt. Gen. Abdul Amir Rasheed Yarallah, commander of Iraqi forces in Nineveh province.

The unnamed victims of terror

The Tigris divides the eastern and western parts of the city; Iraqi-led forces have not crossed into or started any operations in western Mosul. The bridges had already been damaged in airstrikes by the US-led coalition in recent weeks. In previous instances where ISIS took out bridges, Iraqi forces built temporary or floating structures, slowing down troops but not deterring their advance. Saadi of the counterterrorism forces told CNN this week that night raids have been effective against ISIS headquarters and stretches of eastern Mosul. US Air Force Col. John L. Dorrian, spokesman for the US-led operation against ISIS, said in a video conference Tuesday that Iraqi forces were making progress with the assistance of coalition airstrikes.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/14/middleeast/iraq-mosul-troops-gains/
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waltky · Feb 2, 2017

HALF A VICTORY...

In a Mosul Hospital, Nothing Left but Scavengers and the ISIS Dead
02.02.17 | The Iraqi government, backed by U.S. airpower, has taken eastern Mosul—at great cost. But western Mosul, across the Tigris River, is still in ISIS hands.

Boxes and containers are piled up next to operating tables, chairs, and fridges outside the empty shell of Salam Hospital’s disemboweled main building. Both wings have been hit by coalition airstrikes, collapsing most of the seven floors within the hospital’s beige exterior, leaving only a facade punctured by tank shells and marked by smoke stains rising from the ground floor windows. Volunteers navigate their way through a tangle of twisted aluminum strips that used to hold together walls. They pass contorted ventilation shafts collapsed onto a charred reception desk as they empty the gutted hospital of every last salvageable item. Anything still of use is trucked to a nearby hospital, where it is bolstering scarce resources.

After three months of battle and over two years under the rule of the so-called Islamic State, Mosul’s health sector is stretched beyond its limits, and the destruction of the city’s biggest and most prestigious hospital weighs heavily on the people here. It is symbolic of the price the city has had to pay for its liberation, which remains incomplete. As the volunteers—hospital staff and also men from the neighborhood—continue to empty out the building, an elderly woman approaches their parked trucks. “I need some medicine,” she pleads with Col. Khaleed Whadia, an Iraqi special forces commander overseeing the removal. The woman’s voice is frail, her movements slow. She is hunched over in her long, wide dress, white hair protrudes from her black headscarf. “We have nothing here, this is not a hospital anymore. Everything has been destroyed,” says the colonel, almost apologetically.

The woman persists, insisting on the urgency of her medical needs. “You can have a look inside and see if you find anything yourself,” the officer says finally. “I have to go to a hospital,” says the women despairingly, more to herself than the small crowd gathered around her, before shuffling off.

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US Forces Bank on New Weapon to Protect Civilians in Next Mosul Battle
Feb 01, 2017 | U.S. forces supporting Iraqi troops are counting on a newly fielded rocket to destroy targets without causing civilian casualties.

Elements of the U.S. military supporting Iraqi forces in Mosul are counting on a newly fielded, precision rocket to help destroy enemy targets without causing civilian casualties in the upcoming battle for the western part of the city. After more than three months of heavy fighting, Iraqi Security Forces have liberated the eastern portion of Mosul after killing a "tremendous" number of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria fighters, Air Force Col. John Dorrian, spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, told reporters Wednesday at a Pentagon briefing.

Iraqi forces are poised to launch an assault on the western half of the city, which is more densely populated than eastern Mosul, Dorrian said. "The terrain in west Mosul makes it a challenge to clear," he said. "On the ground, the narrowness of the roads and the density of the buildings set conditions for close fighting." Coalition leaders, however, are confident they can continue to use airstrikes to support Iraqi ground forces "without causing drastically increased civilian casualties or collateral damage," Dorrian said. "Protection of civilian populace is a cornerstone of the Iraqi campaign plan, and our efforts will be consistent with that priority," he said.

M151 warhead rounds integrated with the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II are loaded on an A-10 ahead of a test mission on Eglin Air Force Base, Fla

One advantage the coalition has is the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II, Dorrian said. "This is a laser-guided, high-precision, low-collateral damage weapon that provides the capability to engage targets, including moving targets in dense urban terrain," he said. These precision weapons were "fielded last year, within six months of congressional approval and are now being used for close-air support missions by Air Force A-10s and Marine AV-8B Harriers," Dorrian said.

Since June 2016, more than 200 of these munitions have been employed against enemy fighters on targets such as oil tanks and vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, he said. More than 60 have been used in and around Mosul. Dorrian would not say when the operation to liberate western Mosul will begin. Coalition forces are helping Iraqi forces with planning; advice; airstrikes; and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support. Airstrikes have killed 18 ISIS leaders since last October, forcing the extremist organization to replace these key commanders with less-experienced leaders, Dorrian said. Reports indicate that ISIS forces are displaying desperate behavior as they struggle to hold onto Mosul.

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Balancer · Feb 4, 2017

Such, here, children's toys were left in Aleppo by "moderate opposition" after retreat.

...

Only in one week the Russian sappers have neutralized more than one thousand explosive objects in Aleppo, have cleared of mines 75 kilometers of roads and more than 360 hectares of territories.

Balancer · Feb 4, 2017

It is a little about life in the freed Aleppo. In Russian, but a lot of things will tell video.

[video=youtube;Rb9yA745bNw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb9yA745bNw[/video]

- - - Updated - - -

Mine clearing by the Russian engineers of a historical Citadel of ancient fortress of Aleppo.

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Aleppo, Mosul and Imperialist Hypocrisy

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