Remember, the war in Iraq is over and ISIS has been “contained.”
From The Daily Mail: Hundreds of Iraqi families have been forced to flee their homes in Iraq as government forces tightened their siege on ISIS forces in the city of Hit. ISIS forces trapped inside the city appear to be preparing to fight until the city is destroyed after holding the city in Anbar province since early October 2014.
The city is of strategic importance to ISIS due to its close proximity to the Euphrates River and the nearby Ain al-Asad air base.
Following the recent fall of Ramadi in Iraq and the hastily abandonment of Palmyra in Syria, ISIS’s territory has suffered significant losses in the past months. Hit’s main prison was captured by Iraqi forces, leading to 1,500 prisoners being released from the underground labyrinth of cells.
Since the Iraqi government forces and Shia paramilitary groups began their offensive on Hit, residents have been trying to flee the city out of fear of a massacre. ISIS left little of the city of Ramadi standing when they were forced out and it is likely they will dig in at Hit due to its vital importance for protecting Fallujah.
The news comes as ISIS mounted a deadly gas attack against Syrian troops at a besieged eastern airbase, state news agency SANA said, the latest report of the jihadists’ use of chemical weapons. SANA did not say precisely how many soldiers had been killed in the attack on the government-controlled airbase outside the divided eastern city of Deir Ezzor. ‘Daesh (ISIS) terrorists attacked Deir Ezzor military airport with rockets carrying mustard gas, causing some people to suffocate,’ it reported late Monday.
It is the latest in a string of suspected mustard gas attacks by the jihadists in Syria and neighbouring Iraq. Last month a suspected ISIS gas attack on the Iraqi town of Taza, south of Kirkuk, killed three children and wounded some 1,500 people, with injuries ranging from burns to rashes and respiratory problems.
While the chemical agents allegedly used by ISIS so far have been among their least effective weapons, the psychological impact on civilians is considerable. A total of 25,000 people fled their homes in and around Taza last month, fearing another attack.
ISIS has been battling to capture Deir Ezzor airbase since 2014. It provides the only supply route other than air drops to the government-held sector of the city, where more than 200,000 civilians are living under IS siege.
An ISIS bombardment of two government-held districts of the city also killed seven civilians yesterday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Two suicide bombers also blew themselves up in the village of Jafra near the airbase, the Britain-based monitoring group said.
Deir Ezzor province is vital for the jihadists because it lies between their de facto Syrian and Iraqi capitals Raqa and Mosul.
In recent weeks, ISIS has faced intense pressure in Syria at the hands of both the Russian-backed army and US-backed Kurdish-led rebels.
An offensive by the army pushed the jihadists out of the ancient city of Palmyra late last month, opening up the possibility of a strike across the desert to relieve the siege of Deir Ezzor.
DCG