U.S.-backed Kurds battle to retake Iraq’s largest dam [seize control of eastern side of dam]

Al Arabiya News ^ | Saturday, 16 August 2014

[GonzoII]

By Staff writer | Al Arabiya News
Saturday, 16 August 2014

Kurdish troops backed by U.S. warplanes launched a bid Saturday to recapture Mosul dam, Iraq’s largest, from militants, a senior Kurdish military official said.

“Kurdish peshmerga, with U.S. air support, have seized control of the eastern side of the dam” complex, Major General Abdelrahman Korini told AFP.

“We killed several members of Daash. We are still advancing and in the coming hours should announce welcome news,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant group.

Witnesses said the air strikes started early in the morning and reported that fighting was ongoing in the afternoon.

Peshmerga forces lost control of the dam on Aug. 7 as ISIS fighters were sweeping the region, conquering one village after another and seizing other key infrastructure such as oil wells.

The dam on the Tigris river, on the southern shores of Mosul lake about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the city, provides electricity to much of the region and is crucial to irrigation in vast farming areas in Nineveh province.

A 2007 letter to the premier, Nouri al-Maliki, sent by then U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker and the former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, David Petraeus, warned of the consequences of a disaster at the dam, which was assessed to have serious structural weaknesses.

“A catastrophic failure of Mosul dam would result in flooding along the Tigris river all the way to Baghdad,” the letter warned.

However, according to CNN the mission, which was planned in advance, will carry on with both Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces joining on the ground.

CNN citing the Kurdish news agency Rudaw said the joint military operation between the U.S. and Iraq began with U.S. fighter jets carrying out strikes on the seized area.

Meanwhile, residents near Iraq’s Mosul dam said the area was being hit by airstrikes, according to the Associated Press.

ISIS fighters, who had already been running large swathes of neighboring Syria, launched a blistering offensive on June 9 that saw them capture Mosul, Iraq’s second city, and move into much of the country’s Sunni heartland.

In a related story, ISIS militants carried out a “massacre” in the northern Iraq village of Kocho, killing dozens of people, most of them members of the Yazidi religious minority.

Please click link: At least 80 killed in northern Iraq ‘massacre’

[GonzoII]

“We killed several members of Daash. We are still advancing and in the coming hours should announce welcome news,”

[3Fingas]

Go Kurds. They are like the Northern Alliance was in Afghanistan.

[bray]

Of course there are no special forces working with them.

Pray America wakes up

[givemELL]

Best they start repairing the dam and resuming daily structural maintenance. Dam is built on gypsum and it erodes daily with a continual threat of collapse inherently present:

http://www.danielpipes.org/5107/saddams-damn-dam-ie-the-mosul-dam

[Ouchthatonehurt]

Well there might be a couple “planners’, you know, community organizers for man-caused foreign contingency areas.

[alloysteel]

The Lakota Sioux were probably the finest light cavalry the world has ever seen. Armed with nothing more than repeating carbines, mounted on mustang ponies, they could hold off and send into retreat much better armed and equipped US Cavalry troops, even battled-hardened Civil War veterans.

In one of the most famous routs in the history of Indian Wars on the frontier, the Battle of Little Bighorn, the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes combined to wipe out, to the last man, the advance of General George Armstrong Custer, who made the mistake of thinking his command could engage and defeat what they thought was a much smaller force.

In many ways, the Kurds are as much as fierce fighters as the Lakota Sioux Indians, and they are highly motivated.

This time, the US military should back the right side.

[Lurker]

“Of course there are no special forces working with them.”

And if there are they aren’t wearing boots.

[bray]

Well the king can’t have troops in Iraq or he would be lying to his minions.

[Dog]

Of course there are no special forces working with them

They're there....we may not see them or hear of them in reports.

[RedMDer]

FReepers, Let's go!
Everyone needs to donate!
All contributions are for the current quarter expenses.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks GonzoII. Thanks go out to other FReepers for additional ‘fo about the Mosul dam:

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

> In order to bolster Saddam Hussein’s regime during the Iran-Iraq War and promote Saddam’s Arabization efforts in Northern Iraq, the construction of the Mosul Dam was important. Construction on the Mosul Dam began in 1980 by a German-Italian consortium that was led by Hochtief Aktiengesellschaft. Because the dam was constructed on a foundation of soluble gypsum, the engineers installed a grouting gallery that would allow continuous grouting of the dam’s foundation in order to promote stability... The earthen embankment dam is located on top of gypsum, a soft mineral which dissolves in contact with water. Continuous maintenance is required to plug, or “grout” new leaks with a liquefied slurry of cement and other additives.[8] More than 50,000 tonnes (49,000 long tons; 55,000 short tons) of material have been injected into the dam since leaks began forming shortly after the reservoir was filled in 1986, and 24 machines currently continuously pump grout into the dam base. A September 2006 report by the United States Army Corps of Engineers noted, “In terms of internal erosion potential of the foundation, Mosul Dam is the most dangerous dam in the world.” The report further outlined a worst-case scenario, in which a sudden collapse of the dam would flood Mosul under 65 feet (20 m) of water and Baghdad, a city of 7 million, to 15 feet (5 m), with an estimated death toll of 500,000.

IOW, it’s a win-win situation for the rest of the world.

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3191229/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3191229/posts?page=74#74

[AnAmericanAbroad]

Built on gypsum?

Wasn’t there some major catastrophe regarding a dam - I can’t recall now if it was in Italy, or perhaps I’m thinking of the St. Francis Dam disaster - where the dam was built on gypsum, causing a massive failure? Lots - and I mean A LOT - of people were killed as a result.

I can’t remember now, but I read about it when I was a kid.

[crosslink]

This is from an interview with the commander Mahmoud Sangawi of the Kurd fighters. If Obama is forcing them to fight with Iraq forces this may not end well.

Rudaw: Do you consider the Iraqi Army an invader?

Mahmoud Sangawi: I can never mention the term “disputed territories” to describe the areas that are not under the control of Kurdistan Region, I call them the invaded areas of Kurdistan.

Rudaw: If they are an invader army, why would the Peshmerga forces in this area coordinate with them?

Mahmoud Sangawi: We have a common enemy; otherwise there is no difference between ISIS and Maliki.

Rudaw: It is said that, because of PUK’s relations with Iran, it is reluctant to make a decision whether to fight ISIS or not. Is that true?

Mahmoud Sangawi: Don’t you see that we are in fighting with ISIS, which is a terrorist group. Regardless of our relations with Maliki, we have been in fighting with ISIS. ISIS is a collection of Islamic forces that we used to fight in the Sharazur area.

Rudaw: How are PUK’s relations with Maliki now?

Mahmoud Sangawi: We don’t have good relations now. During the commemoration of the assassination of Baqir Hakim, Barham Salih went to Baghdad and met Maliki. Whether we see them or not, they keep lying.

Rudaw: Do you think Maliki lies?

Mahmoud Sangawi: Yes he lies, after ISIS he will fight us.

Rudaw: Recently, the world media have been talking about the division of Iraq after this war into three countries. Do you think this will happen?

Mahmoud Sangawi: I don’t know if it is going to happen now, but eventually it must happen. The future of Iraq is three federal regions for Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites. A central government and another Saddam are never acceptable.

Rudaw: The Kurdistan Region presidency has announced that Peshmerga forces will not attack unless they are attacked. As a military commander in this area, do you think ISIS will attack Kurdistan?

[chiefqc]

Wait until mac daddy reads about this in the news paper. He is to busy now enjoying his escape from the world tax payer paid vacation and golfing to be sidelined by the murders, rapes and beheadings.

[arthurus]

If the IS guys don’t blow the dam while they still have access to it , it is likely because they haven’t figured out how to do it. The results would be spectacular if they did it and would bring them more hordes of eager recruits.

[arthurus]

I am sure the events in Iraq and Syria make him chuckle with a side of chagrin that he is forced to help infidels and apostates fight against True Followers of the Prophet and avoid their just rewards.

[trebb]

Of course there are no special forces working with them. Pray America wakes up

With the ROE the special forces would likely be saddled with, it's probably for the best - the Kurds can wage war w/o us sobbing that they're being too brutal.