Iraqi forces, now including coalition-trained troops for the first time, make progress in Anbar prov
7 replies, posted
[quote]Iraqi forces have gained ground against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) near al-Tharthar in Anbar province, but suffered casualties in suicide attacks carried out by the armed group, the Iraqi defence ministry has said.
In a press release on Friday, the ministry said that its forces, joined by members of Shia militias known as Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), killed at least 15 ISIL fighters and detonated 70 planted bombs.
At least 47 ISIL fighters were killed in air strikes conducted by the Iraqi army, the ministry said.
[B]An Iraqi military sources told Al Jazeera that at least 77 Iraqi troops were killed in the two suicide attacks blamed on ISIL.[/B] At least four civilians were also killed in the attacks while several others were injured.
[B]On Thursday, a series of suicide car bombings rocked north and east of Fallujah in Anbar province, targeting Iraqi security forces and the PMF,[/B] military sources said.
-------------------
[B]Iraq has for the first time deployed soldiers trained by the US-led coalition in their campaign to retake the city of Ramadi from ISIL, the US military said on Thursday.[/B]
The disclosure came during an unannounced visit by US Defence Secretary Ash Carter to Baghdad, where he met Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abbadi and underscored the need for capable Iraqi ground forces to battle back ISIL.
"We're making some progress. We need to make more," Carter told US troops gathered at the Baghdad airport.
Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren told reporters traveling with Carter that the [B]roughly 3,000 coalition-trained soldiers joined the Ramadi operation[/B] in recent days.[/quote]
[url]http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/07/iraq-forces-suffer-casualties-advance-anbar-150724131600351.html[/url]
Using suicide attacks are kinda signifying that your side is loosing id say. the only way youre gonna make meaningful gains is if you are trading a guy with inexpensive equipment for a massive amount of manpower and equipment, like a battleship. Otherwise youre just taking a hit to throw a hit, getting your cause nowhere.
[QUOTE=Sprockethead;48304452]Using suicide attacks are kinda signifying that your side is loosing id say. the only way youre gonna make meaningful gains is if you are trading a guy with inexpensive equipment for a massive amount of manpower and equipment, like a battleship. Otherwise youre just taking a hit to throw a hit, getting your cause nowhere.[/QUOTE]
They've always used suicide bombers, though. And to great affect.
Their suicide bombers had opened the way to capturing Ramadi in the first place.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;48304537]They've always used suicide bombers, though. And to great affect.
Their suicide bombers had opened the way to capturing Ramadi in the first place.[/QUOTE]
Well i guess i was thinking about it wrong, like a honest fight where two sides square off openly.
And not a war where you hide suicide bombers among civilians.
They've been anything but giving an honest fight.
[QUOTE=Sprockethead;48304452]Using suicide attacks are kinda signifying that your side is loosing id say. the only way youre gonna make meaningful gains is if you are trading a guy with inexpensive equipment for a massive amount of manpower and equipment, like a battleship. Otherwise youre just taking a hit to throw a hit, getting your cause nowhere.[/QUOTE]
Not at all. Suicide attacks, when well-prepared tactically, are very effective. You lose one person or a mere handful of people (in this case), but you can cause a lot more damage and kill many more people anyway, or you can potentially open up gaps for the rest of your forces to exploit-- so the loss of a single fighter or a few fighters doesn't matter; it was worth it for the larger gains that were made.
And then there's the demoralizing aspect to them, "these people are willing to do whatever it takes to win and do not care whether or not they die". That fight to the death mentality is powerful and has been a staple of human military culture since the beginning of warfare. Now with modern technology, it's even more terrifying.
The biggest problem with fighting these kinds of people is the mentality in the west the Sprockethead (not trying to pick on you) has brought into this thread: "Honest fighting"
You can't win a war with "Honest Fighting", you win a war with effective fighting. And the most effective thing for them to do is dress up a civilians walk in to a bunch of people and blow yourself up because we won't touch the civilians without CNN and the moral police throwing it up for everyone to reinforce their "anti-imperialism" boners.
The only way we can win this is unrelenting brutality. Torturing people in a dark hole on some Communist Isle isn't the kind of brutality we need to win this and break their will. We need the kind that breaks Cultures, like Hiroshima and Nagasaki to Imperial Japan. Unfortunately because we believe we can separate the civilians from a war between governments. All we are going to do is keep feeding people into a meat grinder so people can feel like they are accomplishing something while they make the problem worse.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;48304537]They've always used suicide bombers, though. And to great affect.
Their suicide bombers had opened the way to capturing Ramadi in the first place.[/QUOTE]
And if anything, the car bombs of ISIS are a force to be reckon with.
I mean, have you seen the fucking footage of these car bombs? They fucking level entire buildings with 1 truck.
And they've learned to improvise armour such that small arms does jackshit to a speeding armoured bomb.
There's a video in Mosul where they attacked a hotel, the truck swerved past concrete checkpoints, even taking direct RPGs, and it still managed to level the building.
[editline]28th July 2015[/editline]
Look at this shit, the Kurdish forces blew up one of the security cars turned into a vbied. Not only is it armoured as fuck, the explosion is huge, and could easily knocked out base defences.
[url]http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b38_1419961238[/url]
What they need is heavy weaponry to defeat these, until then, they can only run from these speeding bombs.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.