Posted: 01/07/2016 at 5:04am
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Islamic State ‘loses 40% of territory in Iraq’
By
Dan Wooding, Founder of the ASSIST News Service
IRAQ
(ANS – Jan. 5, 2016) – The BBC is reporting that Islamic State (IS) has
lost 40% of the territory it once controlled in Iraq, a spokesman for the US-led
coalition battling the jihadist group says.
Col.
Steve Warren told reporters that IS was “on the defensive”, and had “not gained
one inch in Iraq since May.”
It
had also been driven out of 20% of its territory in Syria, he added.
“Despite
the losses, IS has continued to launch counter-offensives - including several
near the western Iraqi city of Haditha in the past 48 hours,” said the BBC.
Col.
Warren said coalition air strikes had helped Iraqi government forces repel an
assault on Monday by about 200 militants, and that more than 100 had been
killed.
He
did not give a figure for casualties on the government side, but a Sunni tribal
commander told AFP news agency that they had lost more than 25 fighters.
The
BBC went on to say that Haditha Mayor Mabrouk Hamid said the IS
counter-offensive had involved more than 40 armored vehicles, some of them
filled with explosives.
Col.
Warren said IS had shifted its focus to Haditha, situated near a key dam in the
north of Anbar province, after losing control of the provincial capital Ramadi
the government last week.
The
coalition spokesman also denied claims by IS that it had captured the towns of
Barwana and Sakran, near Haditha. He insisted it had not gained any territory in
Iraq since May, when Ramadi was overrun in an embarrassing defeat for the
army.
“In
June 2014, IS seized large parts of northern and western Iraq, and proclaimed
the creation of a caliphate stretching across the border with Syria,” said the
BBC.
Iraqi
government and Kurdish Peshmerga forces - supported by Iranian-backed Shia
militiamen, Sunni tribesmen and coalition air strikes - have since regained more
than 20,000 sq km (about 8.000 sq miles), according to the coalition.
IS
militants have also been driven out of the city of Tikrit in the past year, but
they continue to control Mosul, the largest city in the north.
“In
Syria, the jihadists have been losing ground to President Bashar al-Assad's
forces, rebel groups, and Kurdish militia fighters. But they have also been able
to capture new territory of strategic value, including the ancient city of
Palmyra,” concluded the BBC story.
Photo
captions: 1) Iraqi government forces repelled an Islamic State assault on
Haditha, officials said on Tuesday. 2) Dan Wooding reporting for ANS from
outside the Kurdistan Parliament in Erbil, Northern Iraq.
**
You may republish this or any of our ANS stories with attribution to the ASSIST
News Service (www.assistnews.net).
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