via Reuters.
(Reuters) - Fighting intensified in eastern Ukraine on Saturday as separatist rebels tried to seize more territory before a ceasefire takes effect at midnight, the Ukrainian military said.Wow.
The truce envisages the creation of a neutral "buffer zone" and withdrawal of heavy weapons responsible for many of the 5,000 casualties in a conflict that began almost a year ago and gave rise to the worst crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the Cold War a generation ago.
"Ahead of midnight, rebels are trying to complete tactically important plans to enlarge the territory under their control, primarily in the direction of Debaltseve," spokesman Andriy Lysenko said at a daily televised briefing in Kiev.
Debaltseve, a strategic transport hub northeast of the rebel-controlled stronghold city of Donetsk, has been the focus of some of the fiercest fighting in recent weeks.
Heavy shelling could be heard at a rebel checkpoint 10 km (six miles) from the Debaltseve, a Reuters witness said, reporting outgoing artillery rounds almost every minute.
I thought they would be seeking to "clean up the battlefield"....consolidate positions and basically set the stage for this ceasefire to become permanent. Instead they're seizing ground. I'm beginning to wonder if Ukraine will even be in a position to allow the ceasefire to take place now. If the Seps are successful and they're able to take the transport hub I don't see how they'll be able to let that stand...the conditions for the Seps to establish a new country will have been set, with the force of an agreed upon ceasefire to cement the deal.
I've gone from hopeful to extremely pessimistic. This fight will go on.
Ayn al-Asad Airbase was the second largest US military airbase in Iraq and is located in the largely Sunni western Province of Iraq Al Anbar, currently surrounded by ISIS. About 320 U.S. Marines are training members of the Iraqi 7th Division at the base, which has been struck by mortar fire on at least one previous occasion since December. The Marines there are isolated in a precarious situation.
ReplyDeleteThe recent attack on Feb 13 reportedly didn't affect the Marines, as noted in this IR press release.
The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) supported by Coalition surveillance assets defeated the attack, killing all eight attackers. The ISF have since re-secured their facility. Coalition forces were several kilometers from the attack and at no stage were they under direct threat from this action.ABC News was a bit more graphic.
A U.S. official told ABC News that initial indications are that the ISIS fighters had infiltrated the base wearing Iraqi Army uniforms. The official said the ISIS fighters attacked an Iraqi army headquarters on the base where senior Iraqi leaders were present at the time of the attack. Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and several more were wounded as they repelled the attack inside the base.
updates from Stripes:
ReplyDelete--The latest reports from the field suggest that 20 to 25 insurgents attacked Iraqi army facility at the Al Asad Air Base in Anbar province, Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby told reporters Friday afternoon.
--Officials said that coalition forces were not directly involved in the counterattack. Their contribution was limited to aerial surveillance to assist the Iraqi security forces.
--Kirby emphasized the geography of Al Asad. “It is a big, sprawling facility,” he said. “It's basically a base of many, many bases inside. And at no time were U.S. troops anywhere near the fighting. [They were] at least a couple of miles away. They might've heard shots being fired, but that would've been about it.”
-- The base “has been subjected to ineffective indirect fires … on average several times per week for several months now,” Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren told reporters Thursday. “Thus far, none of the indirect fire attacks that have been launched against it have had any impact at all — no American casualties, no American equipment damaged.”