Planning underway for Mosul retake – Suicide bombings claim 12

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WASHINGTON, June 28, (Agencies): Planning is underway for the military campaign to liberate Mosul from Islamic State, Brett McGurk, US President Barack Obama’s special envoy in the fight against Islamic State said on Tuesday. “Mosul will be a significant military challenge but also a political, diplomatic and humanitarian challenge. The planning is now underway,” McGurk told a US Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

The Pentagon on Monday welcomed the recapture of the Iraqi city of Falluja from the Islamic State group, but warned of widespread booby traps and pockets of remaining jihadist resistance. Iraqi forces seized the IS group’s last positions in Falluja on Sunday, establishing full control over one of the jihadists’ most emblematic bastions after a month-long operation.

“The United States military and our coalition partners are proud to have supported the Iraqi Security Forces under the prime minister’s command in this important operation,” Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said in a statement congratulating Iraq Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Iraqi forces will likely continue to meet pockets of resistance and have much dangerous work ahead as they clear homemade bombs — known as IEDs — from the city, officials cautioned. “Not just vehicle-borne IEDs but these house-borne IEDs which are particularly nasty to try to clear,” said Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis.

Carter added it was important the Iraqi government investigates alleged human rights abuses carried out by security forces against some civilians as they tried to flee the city. The US-led anti-IS coalition’s focus now shifts north, where the ultimate goal is to recapture Mosul, the jihadists’ main Iraq stronghold.

The coalition is helping Iraqi troops move north from Baiji towards the town of Qayyarah, which lies around 35 miles (60 kilometers) south of Mosul on the banks of the Tigris river.

Abadi had already declared victory in Falluja on June 17 after IS defenses collapsed, with Iraqi forces facing only limited resistance in subsequent clearing operations. The fighting to get into Falluja was initially fierce, particularly on the southern side, and Iraqi forces were supported by more than 100 US-led coalition air strikes.

“To some extent once (Iraqi troops) got through the hard candy shell and into the chewy center, things went much more quickly,” Davis said. “It was really a heavy fight along the frontline but once they penetrated in it seemed to go very quickly.” Davis said the recapture of Falluja would “significantly” help the security situation in Baghdad, where IS fighters thought to have come from Falluja have carried out a string of bomb attacks in recent weeks.

“The loss of Falluja will further deny ISIL access to a province that is critically important to its overall goals,” he said. Suicide A suicide attack around midnight at a mosque in Abu Ghraib, roughly halfway between Falluja and Baghdad, killed at least 12 people and wounded 32 others. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Control of Falluja is now shared between the army, elite counter-terrorism forces and federal police. Some fighters from Shiite Muslim militias, which have held several outlying areas for months, are also present inside Falluja proper.

The army, along with local police, are expected to take full control in the coming days, a military source said. Central districts of Falluja, which in January 2014 became the first Iraqi city to fall to Islamic State, were mostly quiet on Monday as bomb removal operations along roadways and in buildings began in earnest. Military sources said the city had been heavily mined by Islamic State, but the extent of damage to infrastructure and property could not be assessed easily.

Dozens of buildings across the city have been set on fire, something government forces blamed mostly on fleeing militants. At least one building, a converted prison in Nazal district, was torched after Islamic State was pushed out. In video published a week ago showing the cages where the militants had allegedly detained Iraqi security officials, the building appeared fully intact.

When a Reuters team visited the same site on Monday, soot covered the floor and most rooms were stained black from smoke. A spokesman for Iraq’s federal police acknowledged the arson, but said his forces no longer controlled the area. He suggested the destruction was carried out by residents angry about their missing relatives, though most civilians had fled the city by the time the prison was discovered.

Blow
An Iraqi court has dealt a blow to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s efforts to replace a cabinet dominated by entrenched political parties, invalidating the session that approved new ministers. But it also settled the issue of whether parliament speaker Salim al-Juburi retains his job — a question that had resulted in two rival claimants to the position — by scrapping another session at which lawmakers voted to sack him.

The sessions were held during a chaotic month for Iraqi politics in which lawmakers failed to approve all but a handful of new ministers proposed by Abadi, angering protesters who eventually stormed parliament. With the ruling, the court effectively turns back the Iraqi political clock to the pre-April status quo: no new ministers have been approved, and Juburi is confirmed in his position. “The federal court decided to invalidate the parliamentary sessions of April 14 and 26,” higher judicial council spokesman Abdelsattar Bayraqdar said in a statement on Tuesday.

The first session, at which lawmakers voted to sack Juburi, lacked the necessary quorum, with only 131 MPs present, a judicial official said. The second, in which lawmakers voted to accept some of Abadi’s cabinet nominees, took place in an atmosphere “inconsistent with freedom of opinion” as guards entered the session and some MPs were prevented from attending, the official said. Abadi has pushed for Iraq’s current party-affiliated cabinet to be replaced by technocrats, but has faced significant opposition from powerful political forces that rely on control of ministries for patronage and funds.

Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr organised demonstrations calling for a government of technocrats, and his supporters have breached the fortified Green Zone area, where the government is headquartered, multiple times in recent months. Sadr halted the protests for the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, but has called for a major demonstration after it ends next week, which will increase pressure for the fractious parliament to take action.

The political chaos has paralysed parliament at a time when Iraq faces a slew of challenges, including a war against the Islamic State jihadist group, an economic crisis caused by slumping oil prices, and abysmal public services that have long angered citizens.

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