27 July 2015

In Ramadi today, security forces have completed their control over the city's southern front, having announced that they have liberated all of Ramadi University's buildings and have reached the demarcation line of the Ta'meem district. Meanwhile, heavy equipment and reinforcements have been deployed in the city's southern sector. Security forces have also killed three would-be suicide bombers driving three explosives-rigged vehicles attempting to approach the Anbar University campus. All three vehicles were destroyed.

Security forces also launched a military operation east of Ramadi and into the areas leading to the southern sector.

In fierce clashes in Khalidiya, north of Ramadi, security forces have killed at least 35 ISIL gunmen.

Families are still making their way out of Ramadi, using access routes that have been cleared by security forces, especially from the southern and eastern sectors of the city. Meanwhile, intelligence reports indicate that ISIL gunmen are fleeing from within Ramadi toward Hit township.

In Fallujah, security forces have thwarted an ISIL attack on the Tharthar barrage area in southernmost Fallujah. Hundreds of families are still leaving the fully-surrounded city, but there are reports that the gunmen have resorted to using more than 4,000 families as human shields within the city.

Security forces are still closing in on Garma's town center and are now within about 3 kilometers from their goal.

The Jazeera and Badiya forces in western Anbar have announced that they have killed at least 17 ISIL gunmen, including 3 snipers, in the Baghdadi township when they attempted an attack on a military barracks in southwestern Baghdadi.

18 June 2015

An Anbar Operations source has announced that security forces have today succeeded in overrunning the center of Garma and have established control over broad portions of the center that is regarded as being one of the last of ISIL’s strongholds.

Meanwhile the Anbar Police Command has denied reports that an Iraqi Army helicopter has been shot down.

In Fallujah, clashes and mortar fire have intensified between the security forces along the city’s perimeter and the ISIL gunmen holding the city. The General Hospital reported today that 7 residents, including 2 children and one woman have been killed and 9 wounded by the random bombardment exchanges. 

In Ramadi, strict security measures and precautions are in place amid the military preparations in the city’s suburbs. Iraqi gun ships have again carried out air strikes in a number of Ramadi’s districts, including Hawz and Al-Andalus.

Elsewhere in Anbar, the commanding officer of the Jazeera and Badiya Operations, Nasser Al-Ghannam, has asked the Defense Ministry to relieve him of his command, apparently in response to ‘frivolous’ actions at the Ministry.

Security forces and Iraqi air support have thwarted ISIL attempts to gain control of the Baghdadi and Haditha areas. 

On this first day of Ramadan, hundreds of migrant families are still stalled at the Bzaybiz Bridge crossing and in Amiriyat al-Fallujah, where they are experiencing severe hardships coinciding with the rise in temperatures and the lack of foodstuffs and other humanitarian needs.

21 June 2014

In the western Anbar towns that have recently been relatively calm, yesterday a mortar round fell in the vicinity of Col. Majeed Al-Fahdawi, the commander of the Iraqi army's 28th Border Guards Brigade, killing him on the spot and wounding 4 of his entourage. Meanwhile, since last night, army units have withdrawn, enabling the gunmen to seize the border crossing at Al-Qa'im on the Syrian border. On the Syrian side, the Deir el-Zor area of the border is also under the control of ISIL gunmen.
Also yesterday, other border villages along the Iraqi-Syrian border were also seized by the gunmen.
A security source has said that the Al-Qa'im region has been the scene of fierce clashes that have left at least 34 Iraqi army personnel killed, allowing the gunmen to take control of the region.

The western townships of Rawa and Ana are also now controlled by gunmen who, after a few brief clashes forced the withdrawal of the army units toward the souther desert regions. Security sources are reporting that the Jazeera and Badiya Operations Command, at the juncture between Anbar and Nineveh Governorates, is besieged by the gunmen.

In Ana township, one of the calmest in Anbar, everyone was surprised by the withdrawal of army, police, and security units. There were some burglaries, but local tribesmen and civil leaders came out and took over all the government and public offices in the area. The security situation is still confused and citizens are still afraid in the face of the speedy takeover by the gunmen of the previously quiet western regions. Many residents of Al-Qa'im have been making their way to what are perceived as safer areas in Anbar, but they are finding that events on the ground are deteriorating faster than they can move.

In Ramadi, clashes are continuing after gunmen seized the countryside areas that have been calm so far.

In Saqlawiya, 30 km outside Fallujah, intermittent clashes were followed by explosions and aerial bombardment of parts of the township.

In Fallujah today, aerial strikes have targeted various districts, and there have been clashes along the main highway and on into the southern and southwestern sectors of the city. Residents are still on the move, fearing the outcome of the clashes and military operations and the shelling. Five residents, comprising one family - a man, two women and two children -, were killed when their car was hit in an aerial attack.