Iraq- civil war update - 07/05/2014

July 5th IRAQ SITREP by 

Mindfriedo

Vineyard of the Saker,

5 July, 2014

4th July: Iraqi and US security personnel are warning of rebel sleeper cells within Baghdad numbering 1500 in Western Baghdad and 1000 on the outskirts that are waiting for "zero hour." Their plan would be to attack and hold sections within the city in anticipation of a rebel push from without. Sunni residents of Baghdad are complaining of atrocities being committed by Shia militias such as the Asahb Ahl al Haq under cover of rooting out collaborators.

4th July: Sistani's representative in Karbala reads out Sistani's sermon calling the failure to form government an "unfortunate failure."

5th July: Osama Al Nujaifi withdraws his candidacy for the post of speaker and proposes that Maliki do the same.

5th July: Maliki "I will not never give up my nomination for the post of prime minister." He argued further that his coalition had received, by far, the largest number of votes and had the right to decide on government formation.

5th July: Tunisia has withdrawn its diplomatic staff from Iraq. It has left one member back to manage its mission till things return to normal.

5th July: the Kurds are finding it financially and politically difficult to declare independence. They are finding it higher to sell the crude oil they have and lacking refining capacity, have to depend on Baghdad to supply petroleum products. One of their tankers is sitting off the coast of Morocco filled with crude but without buyers. Their border countries, Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq are against an independent Kurdistan and the US has asked the Kurdish leadership to remain within Iraq.

5th July: Iraqi tribesmen have killed a senior Daash fighter, Nasir Sabet, in clashes in Hawija. He was killed on Friday.

5th July: Iranian pilot, Colonel Shoja'at Alamdari Mourjani, is killed in Iraq. Iranian media reported him killed while defending the Shia shrine in Samarra but did not specify if he was killed in his role as a pilot or as an infantryman.

5th July: The UK treasury has frozen the assets of British jihadists who appeared in a recruitment video earlier in June.

5th July: The fatwa by Shia Marja Sistani is being seen as the primary reason for Baghdad surviving the rebel advance in Iraq. Sunni politicians have however called it Ill timed and divisive.

5th July: Daash posts multiple images on twitter of it destroying Shia shrines and mosques in Tal Afar, north Iraq

5th July: Daash militants destroy a Sunni shrine, the tomb of the grandson of the second Caliph Ummar ibn Khattab, in Mosul

5th July: Reinforcements have been sent to Baiji refinery

5th July: Skirmishes have taken place between security personnel aided by pro government militias and militants in Babil, south of Baghdad. The government side targeted rebel positions with mortar fire.

5th July: four civilians are injured in Sadr city when an IED was detonated

5th July: A Major with the Peshmeragas is killed by a rebel sniper in the north east of Baqouba, Diyala province

5th July: Two civilians are killed and four injured when an IED explodes near a shop in the village of Qara Tiba, north east of Baqouba, Diyala province. Mortar fire kills two civilians and injures four in Sa'adiya district district of Baqouba. The injured include an old woman and a child.

Related news:

4th July: Bahrain sees protests between security services and Shia youth on the death of Abdul Aziz al-Abbar, in the west of Manama.

5th July: Six men including two security personnel and a suicide bomber are killed in Saudi Arabia near the Yemenis border.

5th July: The Syrian army claims to be in complete control of the industrial zone outside Aleppo

ISIS jihadists demolish 

mosques, shrines in 

northern Iraq

RT,

5 July, 2014

Islamic militant sect, ISIS, which has been rampaging across the north and west of Iraq since last month, has been demolishing sacred sites such as shrines and mosques around the historic northern city of Mosul in Nineveh province.

Photographs from the area posted online under the banner “Demolishing shrines and idols in the state of Nineveh” depicted mosques being turned into piles of rubble – explosives deployed against Shiite buildings - and bulldozers flattening the shrines. 

At least four shrines to Sunni Arab or Sufi figures have been destroyed by the bulldozers, according to AFP. The structures had been built around graves of Muslim saints. Six Shiite mosques have also been destroyed using explosives.

(Image from justpaste.it)

“We feel very sad for the demolition of these shrines, which we inherited from our fathers and grandfathers,” 51-year-old Mosul resident Ahmed told AFP.

 



“They are landmarks in the city,” he said.

Local residents verified that buildings had been destroyed and two cathedrals occupied to the agency. Crosses at the front of Mosul’s Chaldean cathedral and Syrian Orthodox cathedral were removed and replaced with the black flag of the Islamic State

(Image from justpaste.it)

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The city of Tal Afar, approximately 70km west of Mosul, was also targeted, with a Shiite Huseiniya temple being blown up.



One of the shrines destroyed had survived a prior targeting by the group on June 24.

(Image from justpaste.it)

“Dozens of men, women and children formed a human wall and surrounded the sacred shrine of Sheikh Fathi in al-Mushahada neighbourhood of western Mosul and prevented the terrorists from storming it,”Ninawa tribal council deputy head Ibrahim al-Hassan told Al-Shorfa shortly after the incident.

(Image from justpaste.it)

Sheikh Fathi’s shrine – one of Mosul’s most important, dating back to 1760, was among those destroyed.



Mosul was captured on June 10 when Sunni militants drove Iraq’s army out of the city. Thousands of civilians fled as jihadists took control of the city against the Shi’ite majority Baghdad government led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

(Image from justpaste.it)

Maliki has sworn to defeat the jihadists; on Friday he stated publicly that: 

“Pulling out of the battlefield while facing terrorist organizations that are against Islam and humanity would show weakness instead of carrying out my legitimate, national and moral responsibility.” 



“I have vowed to God that I will continue to fight by the side of our armed forces and volunteers until we defeat the enemies of Iraq and its people,” he said.

(Image from justpaste.it)