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Washington, Damascus At Odds In Fight Against IS

Washington, Damascus At Odds In Fight Against IS

Washington (AFP) — Washington and Damascus are “not on the same page” in the fight against their common enemy the Islamic State, whose militants have declared a “caliphate” straddling swathes of Iraq and Syria, U.S. officials said Monday.

The United States has been battling IS insurgents just over the Syrian border in Iraq with a series of air strikes that began on August 8.

Over the past three days, U.S. military aircraft carried out 35 strikes, destroying more than 90 IS targets in the most intensive bombardments since the start of the campaign.

While acknowledging that Syria and the United States shared a common enemy, State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said the two have yet to share common ground.

“I would strongly disagree with the notion that we are on the same page here in terms of what we’re doing,” Harf said.

She also stressed that “in Iraq, we have a government that has asked for our help and asked for our support and welcomed us in. That obviously is not the case in Syria.”

On Monday, Syrian warplanes bombed IS positions in the northern province of Raqa for a second day and warplanes targeted several IS-held positions in Aleppo province.

“It’s a good thing when ISIS fighters are taken off the battlefield, period,” Harf said, using another acronym by which the group is known.

But “I’m not going to say that we share anything in common with the Syrian regime,” she added.

Harf also pegged blame for the militants’ growing presence on “the Assad regime’s own actions that helped lead to the rise of ISIS,” which joined in with some opposition fighters battling the government there.

But IS has also been battling rival opposition fighters in Syria since early January, after a backlash because of the group’s abuses against civilians and rebels, and its bid to dominate captured territory.

In the long-term, Harf said, the United States aims “to take out ISIS’s leadership, to degrade their operational abilities, to cut off their financing sources, to go after them in a comprehensive way, to cut off their ability to do the things we’ve seen them do.”

AFP Photo/Ahmad Al-Rubaye

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Iraqi Forces Battle Islamic State Militants In Tikrit

Iraqi Forces Battle Islamic State Militants In Tikrit

By Shashank Bengali, Los Angeles Times

BAGHDAD — Iraqi government forces and volunteer fighters mounted a fresh drive Tuesday to oust Islamic State fighters from the northern city of Tikrit but were facing stiff resistance from the militant group, news agencies reported.

The Iraqi news site Shafaq reported that three columns of Iraqi soldiers had advanced on Tikrit on Tuesday morning but had withdrawn after coming under withering fire from militants. Islamic State forces have held the city, about 80 miles north of Baghdad, since June.

“The army lost its positions in the southern area of Tikrit that it had controlled a few weeks ago,” the news site quoted an Iraqi military official as saying.

The push to retake Tikrit, best known as the home of former dictator Saddam Hussein, came a day after pro-government Kurdish forces backed by U.S. airstrikes dislodged Islamic State fighters from the strategic Mosul dam in northern Iraq.

The battle in Tikrit, which Iraqi forces tried unsuccessfully to retake in June, suggested the Islamic State fighters would have better luck holding onto urban areas in northern Iraq, where they enjoy support among some Sunni Arab tribesmen.

Unlike the three-day battle for Mosul dam, during which U.S. forces launched 35 airstrikes against the Islamic State, American, and Iraqi warplanes were not part of the fight in Tikrit, officials said. U.S. officials have said airstrikes in urban areas are unlikely due to the risk of civilian casualties, making it more difficult for government ground forces battling the well-armed militants.

The Iraqi army has been joined by thousands of volunteer fighters, mostly Shiite Muslims, but many are ill-equipped and inexperienced, making them a liability on the battlefield. One volunteer fighter was killed in Tikrit and five others were injured, hospital officials in Samarra, 20 miles from Tikrit, told Shafaq news.

U.S. military advisors in Iraq have been wary of government forces attempting a ground battle in Tikrit because the militants are believed to be well entrenched. But the town carries significance for Baghdad not only as the birthplace of Hussein but also because it lies on a strategic highway between Samarra, home to a revered Shiite Muslim shrine, and Baiji, the country’s largest oil refinery.

Also Tuesday, United Nations officials in Geneva announced a major relief operation aimed at helping half a million Iraqis who have fled their homes to escape the fighting.

Planes from Jordan were expected to begin a four-day airlift bringing tents, kitchen goods, and other supplies to northern Iraq, with land and sea shipments to follow in the coming days, officials said.

Half the displaced Iraqis have settled in the semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region, including about 200,000 people who fled their homes this month when Islamic State fighters seized the city of Sinjar and surrounding areas, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

“Emergency support is an urgent need that we are trying to meet,” an agency spokesman, Adrian Edwards, said in a statement.

AFP Photo/Azhar Shallal

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