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’
Syrian authorities find remains of five victims of Assad regime
- The remains of the individuals were scattered on open ground near a house in the village of Al-Qashla, near Manbij
LONDON: Syrian authorities completed the recovery of the remains of at least five individuals in eastern Aleppo province, believed to have died due to the brutal practices of the deposed Bashar Assad regime.
The Syrian Civil Defense found the remains of individuals scattered on open ground near a house in the village of Al-Qashla, near Manbij, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency.
They have been surveying and investigating the area since Monday, when the first report of human remains came through, in coordination with the National Authority for the Missing.
Authorities have found multiple mass graves in Syria since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.
Last week, authorities reported that the remains of 14 individuals were found in the Adra industrial area, northeast of Damascus, during excavation for mill foundations in the area.
According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, nearly 177,000 people have been forcibly disappeared in Syria since March 2011.
