Quote:Sunni Militants Advance Toward Large Iraqi Dam
ISIS Fighters Approach Haditha Dam, North of Baghdad

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security officials said Wednesday that fighters with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria were advancing on the Haditha Dam, the second-largest in Iraq, raising the possibility of catastrophic damage and flooding.

Worries about the dam came as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki appeared to reject entreaties by Western leaders, including a personal visit by Secretary of State John Kerry, to help defuse the crisis by forming a new government with more equitable power-sharing among rival groups.

The ISIS militants advancing on the dam on the Euphrates River, about 120 miles northwest of Baghdad, were coming from the north, the northeast and the northwest. The fighters had already reached Burwana, on the eastern side of Haditha, and government forces were fighting to halt their advance, security officials said.

Alarmed that the insurgents would reach the dam, army officers told employees to stay inside and to be prepared to open the dam’s floodgates if ordered to do so, one employee said.
.
.
.
This would not be the first time that the Iraqi government and ISIS have engaged in dam warfare. In April, when ISIS fighters seized the Falluja Dam, they opened it, flooding fields of crops all the way south to the city of Najaf. The water at one point washed east as well, almost reaching Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad.

Linky

(06-25-2014 01:26 PM)JMUDunk Wrote:  Indeed. Let's send John Kerry. Nothing inspires people to action like listening to a deflated football with eyes drone on at you.

(06-25-2014 01:26 PM)JMUDunk Wrote:  Indeed. Let's send John Kerry. Nothing inspires people to action like listening to a deflated football with eyes drone on at you.