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Voiceover by Harold Hoover
The Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) have repelled a large ISIS attack in western Nineveh near the Iraqi-Syrian border.
On Monday, the PMU reached the border with Syria and started digging trenches and preparing positions in order to secure the recently liberated border area and to prepare for a push to liberate villages north of the important ISIS-held town of al-Baaj.
The PMU advance will be actively supported by the Iraqi Air Force. The same approach was implemented during the liberation of Qairawan in May.
If PMU fighters are able to liberate al-Baaj from ISIS, they will significantly expand their control zone along the border with Syria and will set a foothold for possible operations in the direction of Qaim, the Iraqi side of the Syrian al-Bukamal border area.
The successful anti-ISIS operation of the PMU in the border area faced a cold response from US-backed forces in Syria. Kurdish security forces affiliated with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) declared the PMU a threat to the SDF-held area. Then, reports appeared in pro-SDF media that the US-backed force will not tolerate any kind of corridor between Iran and ‘the Syrian regime’ and will oppose any PMU attempt to enter the Syrian territory.
Meanwhile, sources in US-backed militant groups operating in southeastern Syria revealed that the US-led coalition increased supplies, including vehicles and anti-tank guided missiles, to its proxies operating in the al-Tanf area near the border with Iraq.
On Wednesday, the PMU spokesperson, Ahmed al-Assadi, said “armed troops either from army, al-Hashd al-Shaabi [the PMU] or the army’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service crossing the Iraqi borders requires voting by Iraqi parliament as constitution does not allow intervention in other countries’ affairs.”
However, this statement is just a formal declaration. Fighters of some PMU factions such as Hezbollah al-Nujabaa and the Al-Imam Ali Battalions, are already deployed in Syria.
The campaign in Baaj runs simultaneously with government troop operations in Mosul, the biggest ISIS stronghold in Iraq. Iraqi security forces are working to tighten the siege on ISIS terrorists in Old Mosul and in the nearby areas and are preparing for a final push into the ISIS-held area. The terrorist group is in no-win situation.
Future historians might note the way Putin et al were able to find solutions in an Arab country, and discuss the many ways the US/NATO failures to do so could only be intentional.
Expect to see a rash of discussion about how Syria is a different case.
MSM seems also to have picked up on the meme that Hillary cannot take responsibility for her own failure. death knell for phony liberals, perhaps?
I feel a satire coming on … Springtime for Hillary, perhaps?
”the US-backed force will not tolerate any kind of corridor between Iran and ‘the Syrian regime’”
I had to laugh about that, because that is exactly what they want for themselves. It is my guess that the same US-backed forces surroundin Raqqa (You could ISIS also call US-backed force) deliberately let ISIS fighters escape, in order to settle again in the east.
And Hillary… well in case she is reading here, I have an advise for her: she lost when she described a large part of American voters ‘a basket of deplorables’. And those anti-seizure glasses, the fainting in front of her car, then sending an obvious body double outside when she was reanimated… well, that didn’t help either.
“Jordan has officially withdrawn from invading Syria.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Royal Jordanian Army, Lieutenant General Mahmoud Abdel Halim Fraihat, officially announced that Jordanian Armed Forces do not have any presence within the Syrian territory and will never ever even attempt to enter it, saying there is no need for such thing.
In the past, Damascus, accused Jordan of being a key actor in the new British and American plan for military intervention in southern Syria, stressing that any of such moves will immediately be considered hostile…..”
etc
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/06/jordan-abandons-idea-of-invading-syria.html
And the thin line between the Russian and US forces relies just on one telephone line. That is even the biggest risk.
I thought the last low in the deteriorating relation between Russia and the USA was reached when Sen. McCain called Putin a ‘thug’ (try to use that language in an European parliament, you will be harshly corrected).
But it can be even worse. I first thought it was a hoax, but it’s true. Sen. Rubio (R-Fla) has started legislation to rename the street in Washington where the Russian embassy is located. And he wants to name it after Boris Nemtsov: http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/321482-rubio-introduces-legislation-to-name-street-outside-russian-embassy-after
Of course, then the embassy must also change all kinds of documents and their site with that name, just meant to irritate.
In case the Mayor of Moscow decides to do the same with the American embasss, I have a few suggestions:
1. Arkancide Avenue (then people start googling what ‘Arkancide’ means, I’ll spare you the time: https://arkancide.com/
2. Jullian Assange Boulevard
3. Edward Snowden Boulevard
4. Seth Rich Avenue
But I do hope this will not go through. It is becoming so dangerously childisch.
If that Irish guy (Mark O’Rubio) wants to rename the street, I suggest the appropriate name would be Dostoyevsky Boulevard b/c he wrote (all together now) The Rube.
Oops, I meant The Idiot.