Raid destroys huge IS car bomb plant in Iraq: officials

[Bosonic]

Last edited Wed Jun 3, 2015, 04:11 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: AFP

Kirkuk (Iraq) (AFP) - An air strike in Iraq completely levelled one of the Islamic State jihadist group's largest car bomb factories on Wednesday in a massive explosion heard for kilometres (miles), officials said.

The strike hit a facility at the entrance to the town of Hawijah in northern Iraq that was used to rig vehicles with explosives for bombings that are one of IS's deadliest tactics, they said.

The facility, which included tanks, Humvees and large quantities of explosives, was "the biggest factory in Iraq and Syria", an Iraqi colonel said.

The officers said the blast caused heavy IS casualties but also killed and wounded civilians.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/raid-destroys-huge-car-bomb-plant-iraq-officials-192053684.html;_ylt=AwrC0CPJVG9Vi2YA62fQtDMD;_ylu=X3oDMTByOHZyb21tBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg--

[jamzrockz]

1. Good job

I also wonder if this was done by the US forces or by the Iraqis or their shia allies. It weird how the article did not mention which group carried out the attack. My guess is that it was carried out secretly without the US knowledge. Our air campaign has been total failure in repelling ISIS, the only videos they produce are video hitting single cars and stationary oil infrastructure.

[erronis]

2. Doubt that the US was in the dark.

I don't think much happens in the ME without a lot of reconnaissance from US aerial (and ground) resources. I wouldn't know how directly the US is involved in actual strikes and I would think it would like to not be, or have very strong deniability.

Grainy videos are just a way of masking information. Everything everywhere is filmed in cinematic quality for your future entertainment.

[jamzrockz]

5. Why deny it if they

were actually the ones responsible for the strike? They post videos all their time of their "successful" strikes on the IS all the time. There is no news of civilian casualty. So why deny it? I am beginning to believe that the US carefully using IS to conquer Syria and destabilize Iraq and a big strike like this will be a setback to that goal.

There is a strong Shia militia i.e. the only ones doing all the fighting in Iraq that distrust the motives of the US. Not sure if they have the capability of doing an air strike, but I can guarantee you that if they carried out one, they wouldn't give the US pre knowledge of the attack.

[erronis]

6. Hmmm. Interesting proposition. "The US carefully using IS" sounds like a recipe for disaster.

[jamzrockz]

8. The news has been updated and it

turns out it was a US coordinated strike. Still I have been reading lots of stories of the US handling ISIS with delicate hands. Just read this story, yea its from fox news but its points to something more sinister if true

US military pilots complain hands tied in ‘frustrating’ fight against ISIS

U.S. military pilots carrying out the air war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria are voicing growing discontent over what they say are heavy-handed rules of engagement hindering them from striking targets.

They blame a bureaucracy that does not allow for quick decision-making. One Navy F-18 pilot who has flown missions against ISIS voiced his frustration to Fox News, saying: "There were times I had groups of ISIS fighters in my sights, but couldn't get clearance to engage.”

He added, “They probably killed innocent people and spread evil because of my inability to kill them. It was frustrating."

Sources close to the air war against ISIS told Fox News that strike missions take, on average, just under an hour, from a pilot requesting permission to strike an ISIS target to a weapon leaving the wing.

A spokesman for the U.S. Air Force’s Central Command pushed back: “We refute the idea that close air support strikes take 'an hour on average'. Depending on the how complex the target environment is, a strike could take place in less than 10 minutes or it could take much longer.

"As our leaders have said, this is a long-term fight, and we will not alienate civilians, the Iraqi government or our coalition partners by striking targets indiscriminately."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/05/28/us-military-pilots-complain-hands-tied-in-frustrating-fight-against-isis/

[Jesus Malverde]

16. A report I read said they only dropped bombs on a quarter of their sorties.

After lambasting the will of the Iraqi army, it seems we are only in this 25%.

[7962]

4. Since it was an "airstrike", does Iraq have any aircraft yet?

I, too, would like to know who did the strike.
And I agree with your statement about our weak-ass attacks.

[TheCowsCameHome]

3. Will this mean layoffs or short-term shortages?

Screw those murderous animals. I hope they nailed every one of them, along with the devices they were building.

[nichomachus]

7. Step One: Dehumanize the "enemy."

Works every time. Then we can commit any atrocity we want. Yay us.

The only problem is that in the notion of caliphate, the more of them you kill the more it means that the caliphate is succeeding. Once we kill 90 percent, the apocalypse begins. And then we all die. So killing them isn't as demoralizing to them as you would hope. And the more we kill, the greater obligation it imposes on devout Muslims all over the world to go join them.

The only way to put an end to the caliphate is to seize their territory. Without territory, there is no caliphate. We're not going to do that with drones and air strikes.

[jamzrockz]

9. The same thing uyu accuse the people

fighting ISIS, the ISIS does way worse to the people they conquer. They kill innocent people with suicide bombs, conduct mass executions on captured soldier and somehow its not creating more opposition fighters against it. I say the whole world try the same thing on them and kill as many of the roaches as possible.

Also there's no need dehumanizing them, they do a fantastic job of that all my themselves. What we need is commitment from the west to sanction countries that support the IS. Starting with Turkey and them moving to Saudi Arabia and then Jordan. I am talking about the kind of sanctions levied on Russia. We also need to talk to Israel about treating any of the rebel soldiers that come to the Golan height for help. If they happen to treat them, don't release them back out to fight, hold and arrest them all.

Finally, we need to end all sanctions on the Syrian govt and Hezbollah until the fighting is over. That or just removing all the new sanctions put in after the last of the moderate rebels disbanded about a 6 months ago. Do that and the IS menace goes away for good. You need killing along with these other steps to win the fight.

[Schema Thing]

11. Well now that's a whole new level of stupid

"sanction... Turkey...Saudi Arabia....Jordan"??? lol.

[jamzrockz]

15. How can the US claim that they are

fighting the war on terror if they are unwilling to sanction countries sponsoring terrorists? There is news about Turkey sending weapons to the IS the other day on yahoo news. I will post the info and just looking at the map of the areas they control you can see that they are definitely getting support from Turkey.

So if the US really believes the IS is a threat to American security, then they owe it to us citizens by sanctioning the hell out of any country caught supporting them and this starts by a big ole Russia style sanction on Turkey

An Islamic State fighter currently under trial in a Turkish high criminal court has implicated Turkey's state intelligence service in the willful transfer of weapons and military hardware to the jihadist group fighting in Syria, Today's Zaman reported on Monday.

Mehmet Askar, who was detained together with another 11 suspects belonging to Islamic State, Jabhat al-Nusra and the moderate Free Syrian Army, revealed that in 2011 a planned transfer of arms was hampered by the capture of key border town by the Syrian army, blocking the route often used to infiltrate the war-torn Arab country.

Askar's accomplice, Haisam Toubalijeh, also known as Keysem Topalca, who was involved in a weapons transfer thwarted in 2013 by Turkish forces, reassured him that contacts inside MIT, Turkey's intelligence organization, would help facilitate the movement of the cache, which included some 100 NATO rifles across the border.

“Topalca and the gendarmes made some telephone calls that I couldn't hear. Without any checks on my vehicle, which was loaded with arms, we were taken to the border with a military escort,” Aşkar said.

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Turkish-Intel-provided-weapons-to-ISIS-terror-suspects-says-390571

I couldn't find the article that was posted on yahoo news a few days back but this will do. Everybody and their dog knows that Turkey is assisting the IS and Saudi Arabia too. So if you claim to be serious about fighting the IS, then you have to do something about it and sanctions is one way of doing soemthing without starting a war. GIve those countries an ultimatum and start the sanctions if they refuse to stop assisting them.

[Jesus Malverde]

17. Who created ISIS and why...

[JDPriestly]

14. We can prevent ISIS from holding territory with our bombs. That's what bombs do.

They destroy the territory. ISIS will eventually be viewed as a failure thanks to the bombs. It's horrible, but the religious fanaticism of ISIS is worse.

ISIS is not the Muslim religion. Not by any means. It is an anomaly, a fanatic fringe of Muslims.

[seveneyes]

10. Erin go boom

[JDPriestly]

12. Here's the reality.

Our bombers cannot prevent ISIS from taking towns, taking territory. But they can prevent ISIS from holding towns, holding territory. There is a great cost in terms of life and infrastructure when bombs are used. But sooner or later, they will either destroy ISIS or bring it to sanity. There will be a lot of pain, all of it to be charged to the irresponsibility and cruelty of ISIS, before ISIS is either destroyed or brought to reason.

But the bombs will prevent ISIS from holding its conquests. It will force ISIS to take losses and prevent them from securing what they take. The cost in lives will be enormous.

The Iraqis need to fight back on the ground with much more determination than they have thus far.

[TheCowsCameHome]

13. Just as long as we don't "dehumanize the enemy"

Ooooooh no, can't do that.