22 January 2015

It was announced today that Abu Anas Al-Samarra'ee, the ISIL commander in western Anbar, was killed in a coalition airstrike on an ISIL convoy making its way from Syrian territory toward Anbar Province in Akashat. A number of his bodyguards were also killed and at least 8 vehicles destroyed by the strikes.

An Anbar Operations security source has announced that fierce clashes have resulted in the liberation of the Khashba area between Haditha and Ana townships, and that at least 23 ISIL gunmen were killed in the fighting.

The Bu-Ghanim tribe in northeastern Anbar has warned the central and local governments and threatened that it will withdraw from the fight against ISIL unless its fighters are supplied with arms and ammunition within five hours. This follows the capture by ISIL gunmen of large areas in the region who killed at least 23 local police personnel and tribal fighters.

Also today, coalition warplanes targeted an ISIL military convoy in the Sihil area northeast of Baghdadi. The convoy was on its way to the town of Alous that was liberated yesterday by security forces, and at least 53 of the gunmen were killed and all of the convoy's vehicles, including a booby-trapped fuel tanker that was to be detonated in the attack on Alous, were destroyed.

In Ramadi, Anbar security sources have stated that the situation in Ramadi is at its most dangerous it has been for more than a year and that ISIL forces are threatening to overrun the city, unless the Defense Ministry and the central and local governments intervene by supplying the Province's forces with the arms and ammunition they need to continue the fight against ISIL. The city has sustained more than one attack during the past two days aimed at seizing the provincial capital.

In Fallujah, the general hospital has reported that 4 residents have been killed and 11 wounded in the ongoing indiscriminate bombardment exchanges between security forces controlling the city's perimeter and the ISIL gunmen holding the city.

Security forces have turned back an ISIL attack on Garma, while coalition warplanes have killed at least 33 gunmen in the town and its surrounding areas.