Small victories against ‘very determined’ ISIS enemy

NEW YORK - A Pentagon spokesman described minor victories by Kurdish and Iraqi troops against Islamic State (ISIS) fighters on Tuesday, but warned that the sectarian Sunni militia remains a “very determined enemy” across swathes of Iraq and Syria.

US Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said Iraqi government forces had defeated ISIS forces around Baiji oil refinery, Amiriyah and southwest of Baghdad, while Kurdish Peshmerga fighters retook Zumar, some 65km northwest of Mosul, and the surrounding area.

“This is the fourth offensive operation in which Peshmerga forces have been able to regain control of ground from ISIL, including Mosul Dam, Sardek Mountain and Rebiya Gate,” said Kirby, using an alternate acronym for the 30,000-strong radical militia.

“In central Iraq, operations to expand Iraqi control of territory beyond the Baiji oil refinery are making progress.”

Gains in Iraq were supported by airstrikes from a US-led coalition on Monday and Tuesday, including hits on ISIS militiamen, buildings, a tank and other vehicles around Fallujah, Mosul Dam, Baghdad, Sinjar and Haditha, the US military said in a statement.

Four strikes around Kobane, a Kurdish town on Turkey’s border in northern Syria, helped its defenders against a month-long ISIS advance, Kirby said. “The situation in Kobane remains tenuous, with ISIL continuing to put pressure on that city,” he added.

“It is important to point out that ISIL remains a very determined enemy,” he said. “They continue to reinforce areas where they’ve been losing ground, such as in Kobane, Anbar province, and in the vicinity of Mosul Dam, and they continue to threaten innocent civilians wherever they are.”

Meanwhile, US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said US officials welcomed Ankara’s decision to allow Iraqi Kurdish forces to deploy to Kobane via Turkey and reinforce its defenders, after weeks of Turkey barring Turkish Kurds to cross the border to fight.

“Obviously, we’ve advocated and been discussing the importance of allowing the Peshmerga across the border and the facilitation of that,” Psaki said, adding that US officials “certainly encourage” the deployment.

Small victories in Iraq occur after the appointment of Khaled al Obeidi, a Sunni from Mosul, as the country’s new defence minister. He is charged with turning Iraq’s discredited army into a fighting force capable of defeating ISIS, which is also known as IS and ISIL.

Christopher Harmer, an analyst for the Institute for the Study of War who has previously said that the US anti-ISIS strategy over-depends on air power and lacks reliable allies on the ground, said he was “cautiously optimistic” about gains in Iraq.

“Because of America’s airstrikes, increased weapons shipments to the Kurds and the Iraqi Peshmerga now being in a position to help the Syrian Kurds in Kobane, the most optimistic analysis would be that the situation has stabilised,” he told Rudaw. 

“We cannot reasonably say things are trending in the right direction. We have stopped the collapse; we haven’t turned the tide.”