{"id":59045,"date":"2015-04-02T09:09:59","date_gmt":"2015-04-02T13:09:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=59045"},"modified":"2015-04-01T16:31:30","modified_gmt":"2015-04-01T20:31:30","slug":"iraq-tikrit-has-been-liberated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=59045","title":{"rendered":"Iraq: Tikrit has been liberated"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2015\/04\/01\/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-idUSKBN0MS3NC20150401\">Reuters<\/a> reports that the Iraqi government is celebrating a &#8220;victory&#8221; over ISIS forces in Tikrit;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>State television showed Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi, accompanied by leaders of the army and police, the provincial governor and Shi&#8217;ite paramilitary leaders, parading through Tikrit and raising an Iraqi flag.<\/p>\n<p>The militants captured the city, about 140 km (90 miles) north of Baghdad, last June as they swept through most of Iraq&#8217;s Sunni Muslim territories, swatting aside a demoralized and disorganized army that has now required an uneasy combination of Iranian and American support to get back on its feet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Well, the Iraqis needed that victory, but I have to admit that I trust very little of the news that comes out of that region these days. However, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2015-03-30\/coalition-forces-kill-is-fighters-soldiers-to-train-local-troops\/6360136\">Australia<\/a> says that coalition forces have killed more than 9000 ISIS jihadis;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It is estimated Islamic State has 31,000 fighters, of whom 18,000 are foreigners.<\/p>\n<p>But Vice Admiral Johnston said the air campaign was taking its toll on numbers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The United States assess that the number of Daesh [IS] fighters killed is approximately 9,500,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While we are not using body count as a measuring stick, it is a warning to those who might be influenced by Islamic extremists that there are deadly consequences if they travel to Iraq or Syria to fight.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.armytimes.com\/story\/military\/pentagon\/2015\/03\/30\/fort-drum-soldiers-iraq-deployment\/70694944\/\">Army Times<\/a>, the 10th Mountain DIvision is contributing another 1250 troops to the fight;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The soldiers from the division&#8217;s 1st Brigade Combat Team will deploy in August or September, said Maj. Josh Jacques, a spokesman for the division.<\/p>\n<p>The Fort Drum, New York-based soldiers are expected to deploy for nine months, and they will replace paratroopers from 3rd BCT, 82nd Airborne Division, who have been in Iraq since January, Jacques said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The brigade just returned from Afghanistan in late 2013, according to the Times. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reuters reports that the Iraqi government is celebrating a &#8220;victory&#8221; over ISIS forces in Tikrit; State &hellip; <a title=\"Iraq: Tikrit has been liberated\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=59045\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Iraq: Tikrit has been liberated<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}