29 June 2015

In the western township of Al-Qaim on the border with Syria, Coalition warplanes launched a series of air strikes on a number of areas there, including Akashat and its phosphate plant, where large numbers of ISIL gunmen had gathered for a series of meetings. A security source has reported that dozens of the gunmen were killed.

In Ramadi, security forces are reinforcing their stranglehold on the city’s perimeter areas, while clashes were continuing in the Eastern Husayba and Juwayba to the east of the city. Coalition warplanes and Iraqi gun ships struck a number of ISIL positions, killing at least 13 gunmen. More than 800 additional tribal volunteers have been deployed to support the security forces.

An Anbar Council source has reported today that the Council has asked the Prime Minister to withdraw the People’s Mobilization forces that breached discipline by setting fire to a number of homes in the Nukhaib area, including the home of Sheikh Mit’ib Al-Unaizi, a tribal leader of the Unizza tribe. Residents have been accusing the force members of also setting fire to private vehicles in those areas.

In Fallujah, the General Hospital announced today that 9 residents, including 3 women and 4 children, were killed and 11 others were wounded by the ongoing random bombardment exchanges between security forces along the city’s perimeter and the ISIL gunmen holding the city. Central and northern residential districts were hit.

In Garma, The ‘Garma Dawn’ military operation to liberate the town center was launched last night and clashes have been continuing throughout the day. But security forces have not yet been able to penetrate into and seize the town center.

In Amiriyat Al-Fallujah, mortar and rocket fire during the night has struck the town’s residential districts, causing extensive structural damage.

20 January 2015

At dawn this morning, ISIL gunmen launched an attack on the Al-Bu-Risha area northeast of Ramadi, targeting the buildings and reception facilities belonging to Sheikh Ahmed Abu-Risha, head of the Iraqi Awakenings Council. A number of booby-trapped vehicles were used in the assault on the complex. Security and police sources are reporting that the ensuing clashes resulted in killing at least 7 of the gunmen. Other sources have reported that ISIL gunmen have seized a number of buildings in the Abu Risha compound.

To the west, ISIL gunmen attacked border areas around the Al-Waleed crossing, intending to overrun a number of army posts using booby-trapped vehicles, but security forces supported by coalition warplanes succeeded in repelling the attacks, killing a number of the gunmen and destroying a number of their vehicles.

In Al-Nukhaib in southwestern Anbar, ISIL gunmen tried to seize control of an army facility belonging to the Anbar Operations Command, but the attempt was foiled. Meanwhile, the Anbar Police commander, Gen. Kadhum Al-Fahdawi, announced that army forces supported by local police and tribal forces have taken control of the Zdariyah area in the western sector of Haditha township.

Fierce clashes and coalition airstrikes are underway in Garma, northeast of Fallujah. Anbar Operations sources are confirming that at least 37 ISIL gunmen have been killed in the action.  Meanwhile, unidentified mortar fire has struck residential districts in Garma, killing 7 residents, including 3 women, and wounding at least 23 others.

In Fallujah, a General Hospital source has announced that 3 residents have been killed and 7 wounded by the continuing indiscriminate bombardment exchanges between ISIL forces within the city and security forces around its perimeter.

In Ramadi, to-and-fro battles are continuing in the southwestern and southern sectors of the city, with ISIL gunmen attempting to re-enter the Hawz and its surrounding districts. The attempt has been foiled and 4 ISIL snipers, including a non-Iraqi Arab, were killed. ISIL forces replied with mortar fire aimed at the southern residential districts. 4 residents were wounding amid severe structural damage.

27 April 2014

There has been an escalation of the security situation in Ramadi with an increase in violence in the city's southern districts.

A suicide car bomber detonated his explosives at the Anbar Emergency Regiment, killing five people and injuring seven others.

A gunmen wearing a suicide vest and driving an explosives-loaded car blew himself up along with his car on the Al-Ghadhaf Bridge connecting the governorates of Anbar and Karbala between Al-Nukhaib township and Ramadi in the southwest of Ramadi.

Polling stations are still being targeted, particularly those set up in schools. In Ramadi, the detonation of a car bomb targeted one such polling station, but nobody was hurt although the building suffered extensive damage.

In Fallujah today, 16 people were wounded by the indiscriminate shelling that began Saturday night and continued through this afternoon. The casualties include three killed and 13 wounded, in the shelling of several of the city's residential districts.

There has been heavy shelling targeted at Al-Garma and at areas around Al-Ru'oud south of Al-Garma.

Election campaign publicity is still relatively low-level in Anbar's western towns because of the threats by gunmen against the various candidates if they continue campaigning. There is concern that election rigging will be used, given the instability caused by the security situation.

24 April 2014

In the early hours of this morning, gunmen blew up a polling station - which is in fact a primary school - in the Al-Mhammadi township in Hit, killing 3 young men who were guarding the building. The attack took place a few days before the parliamentary elections scheduled for April 30th. Armed groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda have distributed leaflets in Hit, Kubaisa, Al-Mhammadi, and parts of Al-Rutba in western Anbar; the leaflets are warning residents against taking part in the elections.

The Al-Nukhaib township police chief was severely injured and lost an arm and a leg in the detonation of an explosive device near a police patrol. Another police officer was injured and 3 personnel were killed.

In Ramadi today, an attack by groups of gunmen in Al-Hamidhiya and adjacent districts was repelled, and intermittent clashes are still going on at this time.

In Fallujah, a medical source announced today that 6 residents were killed, among them a woman, and 11 others were injured by the indiscriminate shelling of the city's residential districts. The total casualty figures in Fallujah since the crisis erupted at the end of last year now stand at least 259 killed and at least 1,147 injured.

Large areas between Fallujah and Abu Ghraib are now under water to unprecedented levels, with hundreds of homes and thousands of acres of cultivated land being flooded. The situation cannot be resolved because gunmen are still controlling the Fallujah barrage, whose sluice gates they have once again closed.