BAGHDAD: Iraqi security forces lost 2,300 Humvee armored vehicles when the Islamic State terrorist group overran the northern city of Mosul, Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi said.
“In the collapse of Mosul, we lost a lot of weapons,” Abadi said in an interview with Iraqiya state TV.
“We lost 2,300 Humvees in Mosul alone.”
While the exact price of the vehicles varies depending on how they are armored and equipped, it is clearly a hugely expensive loss that has boosted IS’ capabilities.
Last year, the US State Department approved a possible sale to Iraq of 1,000 Humvees with increased armor, machine guns, grenade launchers, other gear and support that was estimated to cost $579 million. Clashes began in Mosul, Iraq’s second city, late on June 9, 2014, and Iraqi forces lost it the following day to IS.
The militants gained ample arms, ammunition and other equipment when multiple Iraqi divisions fell apart in the country’s north, abandoning gear and shedding uniforms in their haste to flee.
IS has used captured Humvees, which were provided to Iraq by the United States, in subsequent fighting, rigging some with explosives for suicide bombings.
Iraqi security forces backed by militias have regained significant ground from IS in Diyala and Salaheddin provinces north of Baghdad.
But that momentum was slashed in mid-May when IS overran Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, west of Baghdad, where Iraqi forces had held out against militants for more than a year.
Iraq ‘lost 2,300 Humvee armored vehicles in Mosul’
Iraq ‘lost 2,300 Humvee armored vehicles in Mosul’
Red Cross transfers 8 Palestinians from Israeli detention to Gaza
- They were taken across the Karm Abu Salem border crossing to Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, where they were reunited with their families
LONDON: The International Committee of the Red Cross transferred eight Palestinians from Israeli detention to the Gaza Strip on Monday.
The organization took them across the Karm Abu Salem border crossing to Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah and helped reunite them with their families.
The Red Cross has been unable to visit Palestinian detainees in Israeli detention centers since October 2023, as a result of which the fate and location of many detainees from Gaza were unknown, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.
The Red Cross said that according to the principles of international humanitarian law, detainees must be treated humanely, held in proper conditions and allowed to have contact with their families.
Israel is holding about 9,245 Palestinian prisoners in jails, including 358 held without charge or trial under administrative detention, according to Jerusalem-based rights group HaMoked.
