Iraq Launches Operation to Reclaim Anbar Province
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Iraq Launches Operation to Reclaim Anbar Provinceby webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
The Iraqi government said it has launched an operation to retake the western province of Anbar from Islamic State militants. The announcement Tuesday on state television comes less than two weeks after the Islamist fighters seized the provincial capital, Ramadi. Since then, Iraqi troops and pro-government militias have been massing east of the city, preparing for an offensive to reclaim the largely Sunni province. Anbar is a vast desert area stretching from just west of the capital,...
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Noon (0900 GMT)...
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(BAGHDAD) — Iraq on Tuesday announced the launch of a military operation to drive the Islamic State group out of the western Anbar province, where the extremists captured the provincial capital, Ramadi, earlier this month.
Iraqi state TV declared the start of the operation, in which troops will be backed by Shiite and Sunni paramilitary forces, but did not provide further details.
The Islamic State group seized large parts of Anbar starting in early 2014 and captured Ramadi earlier this month. The fall of the city marked a major defeat for Iraqi forces, which had been making steady progress against the extremists over the past year with the help of U.S.-led airstrikes.
Security forces and Sunni militiamen who had been battling the extremists in Ramadi for months collapsed as IS fighters overran the city. The militants gained not only new territory 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of Baghdad, but also large stocks of weapons abandoned by the government forces as they fled.
The capture of Ramadi was a major blow to the U.S.-backed strategy against the Islamic State group. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Sunday that Iraqi forces had “vastly outnumbered” the IS militants in Ramadi but “showed no will to fight.”
Saad al-Hadithi, a spokesman for Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, said the government was surprised by Carter’s remarks, and that the defense secretary “was likely given incorrect information.”
Al-Abadi has called on Shiite militias to help Iraqi troops retake the Sunni province of Anbar. The militiamen have played a key role in clawing back territory from the IS group elsewhere in Iraq but rights groups accuse them of looting, destroying property and carrying out revenge attacks. Militia leaders deny the allegations.
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As online space becomes increasingly toxic, Afisha talks to four prominent figures about managing torrents of personal abuse
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‘The hatred and pain will pass’
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JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has proposed resuming peace negotiations with the Palestinians but with the initial focus on identifying those Jewish settlements that Israel would keep and be allowed to expand, an Israeli official said on Tuesday.
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Iraqi state television has announced the launch of an operation to drive Islamic State militants out of the western Anbar province, where the Islamist group captured the provincial capital of Ramadi earlier this month.
Sydney mother allegedly abandoned her two children to join Isis in Syria by Australian Associated Press
A friend of Muslim convert Jasmina Milovanov says she travelled to Syria to get married ‘as she was very lonely’ and not to join fighting
A Sydney woman who abandoned her two children to join Islamic State has been brainwashed, her mother says.
It’s believed Muslim convert Jasmina Milovanov left her seven-year-old son and five-year-old daughter for a life with Isis in Syria.
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VIENNA (Reuters) - Private security staff at Vienna Airport are suspected of smuggling refugees, mainly Sri Lankans, through security checks onto flights to the United States and Britain, Austrian prosecutors said on Tuesday.
Former British PM tells the UN that this year is the worst since WWII for children, with huge numbers becoming refugees or being forced from school
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Britain's David Cameron and Russia's Vladimir Putin have agreed to restart talks on finding a solution to the crisis in Syria, Cameron's office said on May 25.
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