Battle for Ramadi: Iraq counterattacks against Islamic State

Iraqi soldiers launched a major operation Saturday to retake a section of the city of Ramadi seized by Islamic State militants.

Iraqi soldiers backed by Sunni fighters launched a major operation Saturday to retake a section of the city of Ramadi seized by Islamic State group militants, an official and residents said.

The fighting focused on Ramadi's eastern Sijariya neighborhood, which the extremist group said it captured Friday. An official with the Anbar provincial council described intense fighting there Saturday morning that included both sides firing mortars. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief journalists.

Eyewitnesses there, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, corroborated his account.

Meanwhile, local residents in the town of Hit, in Anbar, said civilians were killed by an airstrike on a house. The strike, which eyewitnesses said took place just after noon prayers on Saturday, allegedly killed a family of four, including two children. It was not immediately clear which country was behind the strike.

The Islamic State group has been trying to seize Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, for months now. Sunni militants, including the group's fighters, seized parts of it last January.

The Anbar official also said Islamic State fighters lined up and shot several men Friday from the al-Bu Fahd tribe, which is taking part in the fight against the militant group.

Islamic State group fighters have killed more than 200 men, women and children from Anbar's Sunni Al Bu Nimr tribe in recent weeks, apparently in revenge for the tribe's siding with Iraqi security forces and, in the past, with U.S. forces.

Earlier this month, an American advisory mission visited Anbar's al-Asad air base, searching for potential training locations for fighters battling the Islamic State group, which holds a third of both Iraq and Syria. The move is part of a U.S. plan to train Iraqi forces and Sunni tribesmen, reminiscent of the Sunni Awakening movement that confronted al-Qaida in Iraq starting in 2006. The U.S. launched airstrikes in Iraq on Aug. 8, and a number of countries have since joined in an effort to reinforce Iraqi and Kurdish ground forces fighting the Islamic State group. The U.S. is also part of a coalition of Arab allies that launched strikes in Syria.

Meanwhile Saturday, police said two bombings around Baghdad killed eight people and wounded 21. Hospital officials confirmed the casualties. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.

___

Associated Press writer Vivian Salama contributed to this report.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Battle for Ramadi: Iraq counterattacks against Islamic State
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2014/1122/Battle-for-Ramadi-Iraq-counterattacks-against-Islamic-State
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe