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IRAQ WARS
Keeping cool in combat: in Iraq the iceman cometh
By Ali Choukeir
Tal Abta, Iraq (AFP) Aug 29, 2017


IS evacuation deal sparks Iraqi outrage
Baghdad (AFP) Aug 29, 2017 - Iraqis on Tuesday denounced a deal allowing Islamic State group fighters to evacuate a Syrian-Lebanese frontier region towards the Iraqi border.

Hundreds of jihadists started leaving the area on Monday, heading by bus for Syria's eastern province of Deir Ezzor, which borders Iraq and is the only Syrian province still under IS control.

Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Tuesday the deal was "unacceptable" and an "insult to the Iraqi people".

He said Iraq was fighting the jihadists, not sending them to Syria.

Iraqi forces, who reseized second city Mosul from IS in July after a nine-month battle, are fighting the last pocket of jihadists in the northern province of Nineveh.

Abadi has said Iraqi forces expect to announce victory in the city of Tal Afar within days.

That would see it dislodged from all but a few scattered Iraqi towns -- including several close to the border with Syria's Deir Ezzor.

Iraqi social media users expressed outrage at the evacuation deal, which came a week into a Lebanese army offensive against IS and a joint Syrian army and Hezbollah operation against the group on Syrian territory.

In a video posted on Facebook, activist Stephen Nabil called it an "injustice".

He said it would allow hundreds of jihadists to deploy along an "insecure" border, close to three Iraqi desert towns still under IS control.

"These are not normal people, and we know what a single car (bomb) or one suicide bomber can do in Baghdad," he wrote.

On Monday, an IS-claimed bombing in the Iraqi capital killed 11 people.

Iraqi analyst Hisham al-Hashimi called the evacuation deal "unjust".

"The selfish ally is throwing Daesh from Lebanon into Iraq," he said, using an Arabic acronym for the group.

"They know that Iraqis destroyed their second biggest city (Mosul) so that Daesh fighters would not escape and Iraq's neighbours would not be harmed," he wrote in a Facebook post.

Journalist Salma al-Khafaji said the evacuation could allow a "restructuring and reorganisation of Daesh, throwing them into a new battle against Iraq".

Fighting in 50-degree desert heat is bad enough, but add choking exhaust fumes amid the confines of armoured vehicles, and no wonder the soldiers await their daily ice deliveries.

In Tal Abta south of Tal Afar, where Iraqi forces have been engaged in mopping up operations against diehard jihadists of the Islamic State group, a key force is engaged in a vital mission.

Men in T-shirts or military camouflage busy themselves around a special truck amid the constant drone of generators.

At the back of the truck, hosepipe in hand, one member of the team fills eight huge rectangular moulds that are then lowered into an enormous cistern for refrigeration.

The cistern itself holds water that has been salted to accelerate the freezing process as it circulates at high speed.

Salt helps absorb the heat of the water in the moulds which slowly solidifies into ice in an endothermic reaction over five to six hours.

The huge blocks of ice are then trucked to the front line and the thirsty fighters.

Hamid Sallal set up his mobile plant to supply ice to the men of the Hashed al-Shaabi's Ali al-Akbar brigade.

The Hashed is a military coalition of mainly Shiite fighters that was created to help in the Iraqi forces' offensive aimed at eradicating the extremist Sunni IS from the country.

It was established in 2014 following a call by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani -- the highest Shiite authority in Iraq -- to counter a sweeping jihadist breakthrough.

- The water boiled -

Everywhere it has fought, the Hashed has been supplied daily by hundreds of vehicles loaded with equipment and food prepared by families in southern Iraq's Shiite holy cities.

"We built this plant by ourselves, with our own hands," says Sallal, dressed in impeccable military fatigues.

He and his men began by taking drinking water to fighters engaged in the long and murderous anti-IS campaign to retake Iraq's second city Mosul, which fell in early July.

But that was before the full searing heat of summer descended on the desert.

When the drinking water began to boil, it was time for a rethink.

"We really needed ice, but it's very expensive," Sallal tells AFP.

New men joined the team and they started making their own.

Every day they supply 288 blocks of ice to the front to cover the brigade's potable water needs.

And every day that means they require 13,000 litres (3,450 gallons) of water to make the ice. It is brought in both by tanker and in bottles.

One member of Sallal's team is a 33-year-old ministry civil servant who took time off to fight as a member of the Hashed.

Ziad Abdel Wahid was wounded, but later rejoined the fight in a different role as an ice-maker.

"By doing this, on the logistics side, I can stay near the front," he says.

Twice a day, at dawn and sunset, he loads pick-up trucks with ice for the trip north to Al-Ayadiah, the last remaining active front line near Tal Afar.

It's exhausting work supplying the brigade.

"They need water and ice if they're to fight and advance," chips in his comrade Aref Ahmed, camouflage cap screwed firmly on to his head.

IRAQ WARS
Iraqi forces poised for victory over IS in Tal Afar
Tal Afar, Iraq (AFP) Aug 27, 2017
Iraqi forces backed by local militia and a US-led coalition were poised Sunday to drive the Islamic State group from the city of Tal Afar, dealing another blow to the jihadists. Just a week after authorities announced an offensive to push the jihadists from one of their last major urban strongholds in Iraq, the Joint Operations Command said Iraqi forces held all 29 districts of the city and ... read more

Related Links
Iraq: The first technology war of the 21st century


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