US insists IS fight back is working
DESPITE MAJOR new setbacks in Iraq, the US military command leading the fight against Islamic State militants insists that its strategy is working and that the militants’ takeover of a key oil refinery and a government compound are fleeting gains feeding an IS propaganda machine.
‘‘ We believe across Iraq and Syria that Daesh is losing and remains on the defensive,’’ said Marine Brigadier General Thomas D Weidley, chief of staff for Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, the name of the international campaign fighting IS.
‘‘Daesh’’ is the Arabic acronym for the militant group that swept into Iraq from Syria last June and swiftly took control of much of Iraq’s north and west.
Even as Weidley spoke from headquarters in Kuwait, his IS militants were defying his description of them as a force on the defensive. Iraqi officials said IS fighters had captured the main government compound in Ramadi, the capital of battle-scarred Anbar province.
Other officials said they had gained substantial control over the Beiji oil refinery, a strategically important prize in the battle for Iraq’s future and a potential source of millions of dollars in income for the militants.
The battle to push IS out of Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, which some had hoped would begin this spring, now seems a more distant goal.
While the militants have conceded some ground in recent months, including the northern city of Tikrit, they have proven remarkably resilient.
Just over 3000 US
troops
are training and advising Iraqi forces and providing protection for U.S. forces and facilities. Weidley said there is no move afoot to either expand the US presence or ask the Obama administration for authority to put US troops close to the front lines of combat.
The White House said Vice President Joe Biden called Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Friday to reaffirm US support in light of the attacks on Ramadi. It said Biden promised expedited security help, including delivery of shoulder-fired rockets and other heavy weaponry to counter IS car bombs.
While conceding that the militants were managing ‘‘episodic control’’ of certain terrain in Iraq, Weidley insisted their advances were minor and unsustainable.
Weidley said IS fighters had launched a complex attack Friday on Ramadi as part of an effort to ‘‘feed their information and propaganda apparatus.’’ ‘‘ We’ve seen similar attacks in Ramadi over the last several months for which the ISF ( Iraqi security forces) have been able to repel, and we see this one being similar to those,’’ he said, adding that the US is confident the Iraqi government will be able to take back the terrain it has lost in Ramadi.
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Ramadi was not central to the future of Iraq and said its potential loss ‘‘won’t be the end of the campaign’’ against IS.
He said the Beiji oil refinery, the site of fierce battles between militants and Iraqi forces, was a ‘‘more strategic’’ target for IS.
In Ramadi, Iraqi troops were forced to withdraw during an attack in which three suicide car bombs killed at least 10 people and wounded dozens more, said Mayor Dalaf al-Kubaisi. The mayor said the militants raised their black flag over the captured government compound, which houses provincial and municipal government offices.
Meanwhile, Islamic State militants in Syria are positioned near Palmyra, a famous, ancient Roman- era city and a Unesco World Heritage site. According to the BBC, Islamic State militants are just a bit more than a mile away from the archaeological complex after a lightning advance through the desert, battling government forces in the adjacent town of Tadmur.
‘‘If [the Islamic State] enters Palmyra, it will spell its destruction,’’ Syria’s head of antiquities Mamoun Abdulkarim told Agence France Presse. ‘‘If the ancient city falls, it will be an international catastrophe.’’
Palmyra, which is located in the center of Syria, was an old oasis town that turned into an influential desert crossroads for around the first century AD, at a time of significant Roman influence in the Near East. Its architecture and artifacts reflect its place as a meeting point between civilisations and cultures. Some of Palmyra’s major structures are considered to be among the best preserved examples of Roman antiquity.
In the past year, Islamic State fighters have gleefully posted videos of their destruction of ancient Mesopotamian ruins and antiquities in the environs of the Iraqi city of Mosul.
They laid explosives and detonated buildings at Nimrud, a city that dates back to the 13th century BC. And they set upon the fortress town of Hatra, once guarded by the successors of Alexander the Great, with sledgehammers and pickaxes.
If [the Islamic State] enters Palmyra, it will spell its destruction.’’