Jack Moore, Newsweek: Only Foreign Fighters Remain In ISIS' Last Stand For Ramadi
Only foreign fighters from the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) remain in the city of Ramadi after local Sunnis, who helped the group capture the city in May, fled in the face of a large-scale Iraqi military offensive, the governor of Anbar’s office told Newsweek late Tuesday.
The local Sunni population who aided ISIS’s capture of Ramadi in May, acting as double agents and sleeper cells, have left the city and the remaining few hundred ISIS militants leading the resistance are from the group’s international cohort, says Muhannad Hainour, special advisor and spokesman for Sohaib Alrawi, the governor of Iraq’s largest province.
“The locals who have been involved with Daesh (an Arabic acronym for ISIS) have fled,” he says by email. “Those left fighting inside the city are the foreign fighters.”
WNU Editor: Apparently there are only 300 foreign ISIS fighters in Ramadi .... facing over 10,000+ Iraqi military and militia forces backed by air-power .... Army busts into central Ramadi: thousands take on 300 jihadists (AFP).
7 comments:
I'm wondering who is the Leonidas among this 300 :-).
good point Si-vis-pasen-
If ISIS loses 300 and the Iraqi Army loses 900 or more, it may be an ISIS win.
If the ISF lose 1,500 could be considered a strategic victory and a defeat at the same time.
This isn't football; a win isn't necessarily a win. Pyrrhus won and it did not help him. As far as I know, when you take 15% casualties in a battle (rule of thumb), you have had a bad day.
The margin of victory matters when it comes to unit effectiveness (large and small) in the future, economic damage and so forth.
If ISIS cut the roads and uses lot of manpads, it could go very badly for those 19,000+. Probably won't happen. I have not seen a lot of manpads used by ISIS. The could be saving them up for an occasion, but I doubt it.
10,000 Iraqis to 300 ISIS? The odds are stacked against the Iraqis.
Aizino,
" I have not seen a lot of manpads used by ISIS. The could be saving them up for an occasion, but I doubt it." this might interest you on the MANPAD question. He goes over some old stuff, but there's some nuggets:
http://formerspook.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-isis-science-project.html
Aizino Smith
What really conserns my is that this idiots can get this manpads in to Europe...
The Pentagon spokesman said the aircraft operated at the edge of the manpads envelope. I got that. I knew that.
But Al Taqadum is an airhead. Supply aircraft and helicopters come in there. They have to fly low to land.
I would think adding weight and changing the profile of a missile would change its range and possibly (probably make it unaerodynamic).
Turkey has or had a license to produce Stingers and give them to the free Syrian Army. Turkey has been up to a lot of no good things. Would Erdogan give Stingers to ISIS? Erdogan let ISIS use southern Turkey as maneuver space so they could attack opponent from the rear. He also let ISIS fighters be patched up in Turkey and then rejoin the fight.
Is supplying Stingers to ISIS a bridge too far?
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