July
5th IRAQ SITREP by
Mindfriedo
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July: Tunisia has withdrawn its diplomatic staff from Iraq.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
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.
“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
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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