By Walid Shoebat (Shoebat Exclusive)
News has it from Reuters that ISIS took control on Thursday of most of the western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi, threatening an air base where U.S. Marines are training Iraqi troops while monitoring ISIS Twitter communications reveals that a possible fighter jet belonging to the United Arab Emirates was hit in Raqqa and is possibly downed, as reported by exchanged twitter messages (see for example Syrian Army Free a pro FSA blog that monitors events in Syria). The message was also exchanged on Twitter by ISIS support groups, but was not confirmed by any major sources.
Al-Baghdadi, about 85 km (50 miles) northwest of Ramadi in Anbar province, had been besieged for months by ISIS who captured vast swathes of northern and western Iraq last year and currently holds 90% of it.
“Ninety percent of al-Baghdadi district has fallen under the control of the insurgents,” district manager Naji Arak told Reuters by phone.
And today, ISIS attacked al-Baghdadi from two directions earlier in the day and then advanced on the town, intelligence sources and officials in the Jazeera and Badiya operations commands said.
The officials said another group of ISIS terrorists attacked the heavily-guarded Ain al-Asad air base five km southwest of the town, but were unable to break into it.
About 320 U.S. Marines are training members of the Iraqi 7th Division at the base, which has been struck by mortar fire on at least one previous occasion since December.
Pentagon spokeswoman Navy Commander Elissa Smith confirmed the fighting in al-Baghdadi. She said there had been no direct attack on the air base, adding: “There were reports of ineffective indirect fire in the vicinity of the base.”
However, monitoring ISIS Twitter accounts reveal ISIS’s reports of setting on fire the airbase:
Al-Jazeera also reported that sources in Ramadi police reported that ISIS gunmen stormed into the Baghdadi in Anbar province in western Iraq after an attack by the organization from several axes, while 14 Iraqi troops were killed while another attack south of Tikrit, north of Baghdad was also launched by ISIS.
The sources said that the attack on the Baghdadi, killing and wounding a large number of parties, especially members of the Iraqi forces, backed by troops from the Sahawat (awakening), and the dead included a lieutenant colonel.
Baghdadi al-Assad is the largest military base in Iraq, where many American advisers are there.
In Tikrit, Salahuddin province north of Baghdad center, security sources reported the deaths of 14 Iraqi forces from what is known as the Sahawat and injuring 12 others, in a series of attacks by ISIS at different areas south of the city.
Sahawat anti-ISIS tribal fighters
In Mosul, northern Iraq, Kurdish security sources said at least 17 fighters from ISIS were killed in three simultaneous and coordinated attacks.
The sources added that the attacks targeted locations where Kurdish forces are deployed around the city of Mosul, also stated that the deadliest attack occurred in the district where Zammar district launched about eighty fighters targeted the southern Mosul dam but failed to control it. The reports pointed to the occurrence of other attacks in the regions of Sinjar and Ba’shiqah.
A shift in the strategy is needed. Shoebat.com suggested a plan Believe It Or Not We Can Defeat ISIS By Using The Bible And Without Firing A Single Bullet.
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