"Who dares wins."

"Iraqi government forces retook four villages on Sunday near a mountain ridge overlooking Islamic State supply lines, security officials said, in a campaign which has struggled to make advances against the Sunni Islamist insurgents.

Iraqi security forces backed by Shi'ite militias gained some momentum on Saturday in their bid to loosen the grip of Islamic State, which controls large swathes of territory in the north and west of the country.

After months of fighting they drove Islamic State militants out of Jurf al-Sakhar, just south of Baghdad, while Kurdish fighters regained control over the town of Zumar in the north.

Sunni insurgents have been moving fighters, weapons and supplies from western Iraq through secret desert tunnels to Jurf al-Sakhar, Iraqi officials have said."  Reuters

------------------------

"Secret desert tunnels?"  They built those?  Wow!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/25/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-idUSKCN0IE0I820141025

******************

"SAS and American special forces are working with Kurdish fighters on the Iraqi   front lines as part of a major offensive to push Isil jihadists back and   relieve pressure on the besieged Syria town of Kobane, senior Kurdish   military officers have disclosed. 

The Kurdish forces launched attacks just before dawn on three fronts - Rabia,   on the Syrian border, Zummar, a town near Mosul Dam, and a number of   villages near Daquq, south of Kirkuk. 

SAS and American special forces were working along these battle zones as   observers on the front lines as well as training Kurdish troops. Brig. Gen.   Hikmet also said that discussions were under way to give them a dedicated   base near the Kurdish city of Dohuk. 

"The [US and UK] special forces have been so effective for us,"   Brig-Gen Helgurd Hikmet told the Telegraph. "Their special forces don't  take any part in the fighting. They are only taking a role in training and   teaching, and also as observers. As observers they go to the front line, but   don't do any fighting.""  Telegraph

--------------------------

 Yes!  Yes!  De Oppresso Liber  pl 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11131948/British-special-forces-join-fighters-on-Isil-front-line.html 

 

Comments

[The beaver]

"SAS and American special forces were working along these battle zones as observers on the front lines as well as training Kurdish troops"

Now it makes sense to me as to why some faces were blurred on a TV segment on the BBC last week when a journo was travelling with some Kurdish PM and reporting on their training with arms provided by the west.

[The beaver]

In addition we have this piece :
"The first US service member has died in the third US-Iraq war, although not in combat, the Department of Defense says"

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/25/first-us-death-announced-since-isis-offensive-started-in-iraq

"Neal was a mortarman with the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment. He was part of the special Marine air-ground task force that deployed to Iraq around September, according to the 1 Marine Expeditionary Force public affairs office. He had barely been in the Marines a year, having enlisted on July 22, 2013."

[John Minnerath]

What we used to do.

[turcopolier]

JM et al

Amen pl

[Amir]

Were you really flabbergasted by the technical genius of IS and it's "desert tunnels" or were you sarcastic about that statement?

[sceptic]

All

More help coming from the Australians.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/19/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-australia-idUSKCN0I80L520141019

[Fred]

Col.,

"Secret tunnels"? How the long and deep are they; and how long were they in building them?

[dilbert dogbert]

Secret Tunnels? Is that where Saddam put his NBC?

[robt willmann]

Amir,
I think Col. Lang was being sarcastic.

[makosog]

Maybe out of topic, Col., but how could Turkey designate PKK as a terrorist org. when Turkey and the PKK has an ongoing peace negotiation?

[Cosmoskitten]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat

The Iranians started this tunnel movement about 3 thousand years ago, obviously as a part of their long term plan to aquire nuclear weapons.

[Poul]

A little frontline reporting from north of Karbala.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/26/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-executions-idUSKBN0IF0W120141026

[turcopolier]

Cosmoskitten

This was in Iraq and built evidently by IS. pl

[Matthew]

Col: What kind of SF numbers would you need for effective advisory force?

My only concern is the larger the number, the greater the chance that IS could capture one of our guys, or one of the British.

[turcopolier]

Matthew

Maybe a hundred. pl

[oth]

The scale of these "tunnel" bombs is pretty amazing to me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZnyumeP0Rk

One would hope approaches to the Green Zone are protected by seismic sensors? How covertly can this type of activity be carried out in a modern city?

[confusedponderer]

Sappers!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_%28military%29

We in the west only have somewhat forgotten about military mining because of our preoccupation with faster moving mobile warfare. It is still with us, and it ought not to be considered new.

Only an idiot would call the efforts of the British tunneling companies in WW-I 'mass murder tunnels', given that they blew up the better part of the 3rd Royal Bavarian Division - more than 10.000 men - in their Messines operation.

Hamas uses tunnels? What's new about digging in, except that the Izzies can't deal like adults with the fact that their enemies are learning from failure eventually? And all the Izzies can come up with is to call these 'terror tunnels'?

The Vietnamese moved underground in reaction to US superior sensors and superior firepower. That is precisely what Hezbollah and Hamas have been doing inn reaction to Israeli sensors and firepower. Sucessfully. The Izzies in their mindless pursuit of absolute military dominance must be stark raving mad about that fact.

Likewise, an offensive mine is just a consequent application of the same skills. The Turks almost breached then walls of Vienna that way. It had worked well for them many times before.

Apparently, the battle for cities like Aleppo takes long enough for such slow tactics to be considered effective.