Iraq troops, militia battle Daesh on several fronts

50 additional US troops head for deployment near Ramadi

baghdad — Iraqi forces battled extremists on several fronts on Thursday and were poised to receive the help of 450 extra US troops slated for deployment near Ramadi.

Washington’s decision to send more advisers and trainers to Iraq however failed to silence critics who say the White House lacks a strategy to combat the Daesh group.

A year after a militant-led offensive saw the government lose control over swathes of Iraq, military operations to weaken Daesh were experiencing mixed fortunes.

The autonomous Kurdistan region’s peshmerga forces pushed south and west of Kirkuk on the back of intensive bombing by Iraqi and US-led coalition warplanes, security officials said.

One of the targets was a bombmaking workshop Daesh had set up after their main car bomb factory in nearby Hawijah was completely levelled in a coalition air strike last week, one official said.

The June 3 strike caused an explosion that was heard 50 kilometres away and destroyed what some officials said was Daesh’s largest such plant in Iraq and Syria.

Iraqi federal troops and the Popular Mobilisation — an umbrella for mostly militias and volunteers — also continued operations aimed at securing Baiji, north of Baghdad.

The area has seen relentless fighting over the past year and Iraqi forces in recent days achieved some progress in pushing Daesh fighters out of the town of Baiji as well as from the nearby refinery, the country’s largest.

Anti-Daesh forces launched a wide-ranging military operation early on Thursday to clear “the last Daesh pockets along the Tigris River” around Baiji, an army major general said.

Establishing firm control over Baiji is seen as key to isolating Daesh in the vast western province of Anbar, whose reconquest is Baghdad’s declared priority.

The militants beat the government to the punch however, seizing provincial capital Ramadi on May 17 and dealing Baghdad its worst setback in almost a year.

Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi vowed to swiftly retake Ramadi but operations have been sluggish and questions are still being asked about the security forces’ ability following their chaotic retreat from the city.

US President Barack Obama on Wednesday approved the deployment of 450 more troops to Iraq, in what would nudge the ranks of Washington’s “train, advise and assist” mission past 3,500.

The new US training contingent will be based at Taqaddum Air Base, nestled along the Euphrates between militant-held Ramadi and Fallujah.

“There is always a risk whenever we’re in Iraq that we could be hit with indirect fire, as we have in the past, that we could be attacked,” said senior Pentagon official Elissa Slotkin.

The fall of Ramadi last month was not just a blow to Baghdad but also to Washington’s strategy in tackling a militant group whose appeal has kept growing, making it a global threat.

The US-led coalition has carried out close to 4,500 air strikes since August 2014.

There is always a risk whenever we’re in Iraq that we could be hit with indirect fire, as we have in the past, that we could be attacked

Elissa Slotkin, Senior Pentagon official