Kurdish General Dies

The Commander of the Golden Division at the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Services (CTS) has died in the Kurdistan Region capital of Erbil due to health complications. Maj. Gen. Fadhil Barwari, the Kurdish commander of the US-trained Golden Division, has passed away due to a heart attack, a source close to his family told Kurdistan 24 on Thursday. His body was transferred to the Department of Forensic Medicine in Erbil. He will then be transferred to his hometown of Duhok for burial.

Born in 1966 in the northern Kurdistan Region city of Duhok, he joined the Peshmerga forces in his late 30s during the resistance against the former Iraqi Ba’ath regime before joining the Iraqi army following the collapse of the dictatorship.

Since 2014, Barwari played a vital role in leading Iraqi forces, particularly in the Golden Division, in the fight against Islamic State (IS) extremists across Iraq.

Brett McGurk, the US Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter IS, described the late Kurdish commander as “a legend.” “General Barwari was a heroic fighter and commander in the campaign against IS to whom the world owes a debt of gratitude.”

Article from Kurdistan 24

British SAS in Iraq, Killing ISIS daily

Although it has been reported that any boots-on-the-ground in the fight against Islamic State extremists are there only for training purposes, that’s not entirely true. For longer range engagements, the highly skilled SAS have been using sniper rifles to ambush their targets at night. In just one month, these tactics have resulted in a body count of over 200 ISIS fighters.

Over the last month, the British SAS has been rolling through on their quad bikes and ambushing ISIS terrorists. According to the Daily Mail: “The missions have taken place on a near daily basis in the past four weeks and the SAS soldiers have expended so much ammunition that regimental quartermasters have been forced to order a full replenishment of stocks of machine-gun rounds and sniper bullets. An SAS source said: ‘Our tactics are putting the fear of God into IS as they don’t know where we’re going to strike next and there’s frankly nothing they can do to stop us.'”

IJReview talked to former Delta Force Operator Dale Comstock about what the SAS involvement means for the fight against ISIS. Comstock said: “The SAS is very similar to our special forces. They have all the experts on a team. When I was in Afghanistan we would take guys who couldn’t even write their name and teach them to shoot, use explosives and turn them into soldiers. I would imagine the SAS is going to find the same kind of guys and create their own small army. I would argue that there are probably other special forces training the natives fighting ISIS. And it’s a possibility that if they are over there, they may be engaged in direct action with the enemy. ISIS is full of untrained thugs. They may have their weapons and know to use them. But ultimately ISIS isn’t a unit of soldiers. They don’t have any foundation to become soldiers."

"We have the best specials forces out there.  We go into villages, build schools, provide medical services and aid. We win hearts and minds. And that’s what separates us from barbarians like ISIS.”

The SAS continues to eliminate up to 8 ISIS terrorists per day. That’s got a lot of people pumped up,.....one Twitter post states "SAS staging Quad Bike Death Squads against ISIS with reports of up to 8 kills a day at minimum. Imagine how cool that would be?" No need to imagine. It’s already happening.

Article from IJReview.