generalspeaking

Mosul Dam Retaken

"They have reached inside the dam. There is no fighting, just the (roadside) bombs, and the abandoned buildings are all rigged with explosives."
"We will continue to advance and advance until we are given further instruction."
Anonymous Peshmerga commander

The evening advance took place after the Iraqi government finally delivered 16 military Humvees, one of which at least was equipped with a mechanized bomb disposal unit used to dismantle the roadside explosives. The Kurdish forces were delayed by roadside bombs and buildings that had been rigged with explosives, placed there by retreating Islamic State fighters.

After suffering a number of defeats at the hands of the ISIS forces, the Peshmerga is carrying out its own retaking of towns in northern Iraq, from the Islamic State terrorists. As the U.S. targeted fighters of the Islamic State with airstrikes, Kurdish forces managed to recapture the towns and territory around the reservoir of the Mosul Dam. Incalculable harm might have been done with the dam in the continued possession of ISIS.

Early Sunday the Kurdish forces succeeded in retaking the Mosul Dam after a day of American and Iraqi air strikes managed to push back the ISIS fighters, according to General Tawfik Desty. "The west is in control of Peshmerga. But there are some battles taking place in the (east) right now", confirmed Peshmerga spokesman Halgurd Hekmat.

The fourteen airstrikes the U.S. military conducted on Sunday damaged or destroyed ten armed vehicles, seven Humvees, two armoured personnel carriers and one checkpoint; confirmed by a statement issued through the U.S. Central Command. A day earlier, nine U.S. strikes near the dam destroyed four armoured personnel carriers, seven armed vehicles, two Humvees and another armoured vehicle, according to the Command. Presumably also the ISIS fighters using the vehicles.
The vehicles themselves originally supplied to the Iraqi military by the Americans, representing state-of-the-art heavy-duty military equipment that were impenetrable by the light arms in the possession of the Kurd forces. Who are still awaiting the promised U.S. military aid deliveries to enable them to be equally well-equipped as the Islamists who have swept all opposition to their advance before them up to now.

Fighting forces were so poorly armed, said the unnamed commander that he could barely trust they could hold onto captured territory lacking a swift infusion of weapons. "We don't have the right weapons", he emphasized. Not helped one bit by the uneasy relations between the Kurds and the Baghdad central government which has held back the promised arms supplies, leaving the Peshmerga outgunned and vulnerable though they represent the country's first line of defence.

Nor have the Peshmerga forces yet received the awaited new military supplies promised directly from the U.S. They're uncertain how long they will be able to depend on U.S. airstrikes. According to the senior Peshmerga commander, officers of his rank were informed the Americans had delivered mounted machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades to the Kurdish Defence Ministry directly, but not yet distributed for their immediate use.

While the new weapons, once they finally have them, will be useful since they're far more powerful than those they are in possession of, the senior commander ventured they could not stop the advance of the Islamic State militias with their heavily armoured American Humvees left abandoned by Iraqi military troops who fled in panic at the advance of the Islamic State extremist jihadis in June when they first entered Mosul.

Lacking the firepower to pierce Humvee armour, requiring that they be closer than 100 metres from a vehicle with an RPG to destroy it, the commander said weapons mounted on Humvees typically allowed the Islamists to remain back beyond reach at least 400 metres; an advantage for them, a decided disadvantage for the Peshmerga.

Labels: Conflict, Defence, Iraq, ISIS, Jihadists, Kurds, United States

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, August 19, 2014