ISIS fighters killed in Iraq, Syria reaches 50000

If Islamic State is defeated in Syria and Iraq, Tehran’s allies would gain control of an arc of territory stretching from Iran itself across the Middle East to Lebanon and the Mediterranean coast. First came the suicide vehicle bombs, and then the hospital was surrounded by hundreds of militants firing bursts of heavy machine gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades.

The US-led multinational coalition that is supporting the government in its fight against IS has also carried out air strikes around al-Qaim. The Iraqi government called it a fabrication. “We need everything”, Salih said.

Iraqi militiawoman Miaad al-Jubbouri talks to Iraqi soldiers during their fight against Islamic State militants, east of Mosul, Iraq December 7, 2016.

A glimpse of what could be in store came in October when IS fighters and suicide bombers, believed to come from sleeper cells, attacked the oil city of Kirkuk, killing at least 80 people. “But once we took over the hospital, the gates of hell opened wide”.

The medics spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to brief the media.

“Because the camp capacity has now more or less reached its limit, we are now planning to use the fact that the front lines have gotten closer to the city to try and build camps much closer to the city so in the event of a mass outflow, these camps would act as buffers”, Geddo said.

Fighting continued on Wednesday in the al-Salam neighbourhood, where the IS militants were said to have been using the five-storey hospital, reported Press TV.

“It was very violent warfare – they used all sorts of weapons, it’s not traditional war”. It is not yet clear whose planes carried out the attack.

The Lions of Tigris militia she joined is one of dozens that have sprung up in recent months to hold ground as Iraqi forces advance towards the Islamic State bastion of Mosul. “The majority of these statements are mere analysis – they are simply not true”, he said.

Those figures could not be confirmed. It showed a picture of a smouldering tank, its turret blown off, next to a crater.

Iraq’s Joint Operations Command said Thursday that Iraqi aircraft struck dozens of mostly foreign fighters from the Islamic State group near the border with Syria the previous day. They have been hitting fierce resistance from Islamic State insurgents who took control of the city two years ago.

“They moved senior leaders from Syria over there early on”, he said, and in November 2015, the US military conducted an airstrike in Libya against Abu Nabil, also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al Zubaydi, an Iraqi national who was a longtime al-Qaida operative and the senior ISIL leader in Libya.