Smoke rises during clashes between Iraqi security forces and militants of the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Ramadi, July 26, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Osama Al-dulaimi
Iran's Elite Guards Fighting In Iraq To Push Back Islamic State -- Reuters
(Reuters) - In early July, hundreds of mourners gathered for the funeral of Kamal Shirkhani in Lavasan, a small town northeast of the Iranian capital Tehran. The crowd carried the coffin past posters which showed Shirkhani in the green uniform of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and identified him as a colonel.
Shirkhani did not die in a battle inside Iran. He was killed nearly a hundred miles away from the Iranian border in a mortar attack by the militants of the Islamic State “while carrying out his mission to defend” a revered Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra, according to a report on Basij Press, a news site affiliated with the Basij militia which is overseen by the Revolutionary Guards.
Shirkhani’s death deep inside Iraq shows that Iran has committed boots on the ground to defend Iraqi territory.
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My Comment: This news should not surprise anyone. We have known for the past month that Iranian commanders were on front line in Iraq's fight against Suuni militants .... so why not their soldiers. The question that still needs to be answered is .... how many Iranian soldiers are on the ground in Iraq, and how deep of an involvement is Iran willing to go.
6 comments:
The moment of truth for Iran either has arrived or is very close. Much more of this from ISIS and Iran's adventure in Syria and Lebanon is over and Assad is doomed. This also guarantees Iran will go for the bomb at all costs.
A pet peeve of mine is the media's obsession with labeling various military orgs as elite or battle hardened. Remember Saddam's "elite" Republican Guard? They were barely a traffic bump. Peshmerga (those who face death), apparently did some about facing. None of these guys, including ISIS would stand a chance against the US or Israel if the gloves came completely off, not a prayer.
At LWJ the report did say there were heavy clashes at Zumar , but Sinjar was evacuated without a fight.
ISIS has not seriously pushed north east in to Kurdistan, because they were busy with the Shia in the south?
Or maybe their are different grades of Peshmerga? The Peshmerga gave a poor account of themselves. They had time to load air conditioners. That is not a rout. It is a lack of will to fight.
If we had an order of battle for the Peshmerga, we could assign them a grade of 1 to 4 like the Germans did in WW1. They found that active units were sometimes less battle worthy than reserve units. It should not have been that way, so they came up with their simple rating system in the middle of the war.
Do the Kurds have sufficient weapons to take out heavy machineguns mounted on pickup trucks? Technicals do allow you to concentrate a lot of force quickly where you want it. You can isolate positions by suppressing other positions supporting them and allow your own fighter to approach and envelop the position one by one.
The only way to fight the technicals if you don;t have the range or IEDs is to invite them into town and ambush them. Grab them by the belt.
"The only way to fight the technicals if you don;t have the range or IEDs is to invite them into town and ambush them. Grab them by the belt." Or air or tows.
" Or air or tows."
Agreed. But what air assets do the Kurds have?
I don't think they have TOWs either.
Recoilless rifles?
RPGs would work but you have to get a might bit closer.
I don't think anyone is supplying the Kurds with much of anything.
"I don't think anyone is supplying the Kurds with much of anything."
Probably not, but they (and others) did a lot of talking about how tough they were and they ran.
Aizino,
Thinking along you're idea of urban ambush (which is an excellent way to deal with these guys)and it brings me to the subject of why these guys have been so successful, intel work tactical and strategical. ISIS has outperformed it's enemies in this field to date. Various facets of this have been discussed here by others so I'll to my point quickly. Yes they've had an enormous fifth column advantage working for them and it has allowed them to pick targets that are soft and ready to fall. Move up the techs, overwhelm resistance you know is half- hearted, the rest flee, you chop some heads and put it on FB and voila you have the illusion of invincibility and it's on to the next prepped target. The techs are perfect for this type of warfare. They're problem is they're starting to run out of places where they have the inside support. Which means no more clear picture of where to go and where to fight. As you stated techs would not survive long in a hostile urban environment and if the enemy has a half way creditable air force they're dead meat in the open. This is why I've said that ISIS's near future choices are critical. East toward Iran? I doubt it. Kurdistan maybe, but what's the reward for the risk? North into Turkey, I doubt it, see above. West into Syria and Lebanon? Good chance, some unfinished business there. Jordan? Unless they can get it to fall from within, they'd better not for it would bring in the Israeli's and they DON'T want that. That leaves the South southwest Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. There for military, cultural, religious, and economic imperatives (in their eyes) lies their greatest prize.
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