BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraq’s military has halted Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) militants 40 kilometers outside of Baghdad according to news agency reports, stalling a potentially devastating drive toward the Iraqi capital.
Iraqi airstrikes on Sunday held the jihadist fighters at Ameriyat al-Fallujah, a strategic town west of Baghdad and south of ISIS-controlled Fallujah. But panic spread in the capital as rumors circulated of IS attacks in the city’s immediate suburbs.
Amid confusion on the ground about the exact location of IS fighters, the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, an Anglican group, wrote on its Facebook account that the militants were as close as two kilometers from the city. Canon Andrew White, vicar of the city's St George's Church, the only Anglican church in Iraq, said 1,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed in the offensive the day before.
Baghdad resident Sijad Muhammad told Rudaw, "ISIS might not be able to progress to the city, but it definitely is a big threat: it will carry out terrorist actions here."
The local population is bracing itself for the threat of increased violence as the Eid al-Adha holiday approaches, and police have been deployed throughout the city in anticipation of attacks.
IS has held territory near Baghdad since June, but fighters have been making progress in the area in recent days, despite Iraqi and international airstrikes.
US airpower hit positions in Anbar province 80 kms outside the city in strikes that began Sunday evening and continued throughout the night.
American planes also hit positions in Snune, a town in the Shingal area of northern Iraq, killing at least 10 IS fighters, according to Qassem Simo, the head of local Kurdish intelligence. IS has made gains in the area, which saw an exodus of Yezidis, Christians, and other minorities in August.
In Syria, American planes bombed various targets in Aleppo, Raqqa, Hassakeh, and Deir al-Zour provinces. This included four oil fields, a fuel market, a grain silo, a storage container, and the Conoco gas plant -- which supplies electricity to much of the country and key oil field generators -- according to various activists including the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
The group also reported civilian casualties in at least one of the targets, but was unable to verify the details today. Yesterday, SOHR claimed that approximately 114 people were killed in the country, only nine from the jihadis.
The 10-day-long IS siege of Kobane, a Syrian Kurdish town on the Turkish border, intensified as militants bombarded the center of the city.
Omer Kalo, a Rudaw correspondent on the Turkish border, reported that the shelling began at 10 am and appeared to come from every direction.
Two mortar shells landed on Turkish soil, prompting the Turkish military to move 15 tanks to a postion near a military base on the border northwest of Kobane. Reuters reported that the tanks fired at IS positions east and west of the city.
Turkey has allowed Syrian men to return to join Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the city’s defense, despite the fact that the country considers the group a terrorist organization. They did not allow Turkish Kurds to cross the border.
“Another wave of people is fleeing Kobane as IS shells continue hitting the town,” Kalo said, after many residents returned to the city in recent days.
There were no coalition airstrikes on the beleaguered city since Sunday morning.
Abbas al-Bad a 50-year-old Baghdad citizen told Rudaw," The insecurity of the city is because of the absence of an official interior and defence ministers, because (Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar) Abadi cannot run all the major positions all alone."
Political analyst Amjad Hussein told Rudaw, "Abadi's selection as prime minister was optimistic, but the severe conditions we have seen in the last two weeks, including the absence of interior and defence ministers, have made people wish Nuri Al-Maliki was still holding his position."
Hamid Mutlaq, an Iraqi parliamentarian, told Rudaw, " ISIS is attempting to increase terrorist activities in different places because they can't respond to the airstrikes that have been carried out by the US-led coalition, therefore they express their anger that way."
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