{"id":48302,"date":"2015-02-09T16:00:50","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T16:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/u-s-backed_iraqi_forces_face_risky_urban_warfare_in_battle_against_isis\/"},"modified":"2015-02-09T16:00:50","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T16:00:50","slug":"u-s-backed_iraqi_forces_face_risky_urban_warfare_in_battle_against_isis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=48302","title":{"rendered":"(Washington Post)  U.S.-backed Iraqi forces face risky urban warfare in battle against ISIS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Obama administration has touted the modest successes in recent months of Iraqi forces and paramilitary fighters, backed by U.S. air power, as they have fought to wrest towns, villages and parts of Iraq\u2019s rugged countryside from the Islamic State.<\/p>\n<p>Now, the renewed U.S. campaign in Iraq faces a greater challenge as American advisers scramble to prepare Iraqi forces for an offensive to reclaim some of Iraq\u2019s most important cities, which remain under the militant group\u2019s control.<\/p>\n<p>Attempting to take back the city of Mosul, the country\u2019s \u00c2\u00adsecond-largest, as well as Tikrit and Fallujah, will test not only the fighting power of Iraqi forces and the country\u2019s fragile sectarian compact but also President Obama\u2019s indirect strategy for containing the Islamic State.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/national-security\/in-battle-against-islamic-state-iraqi-cities-loom--and-are-treacherous\/2015\/02\/08\/0439cf3e-ad76-11e4-abe8-e1ef60ca26de_story.html\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Obama administration has touted the modest successes in recent months of Iraqi forces and paramilitary fighters, backed by U.S. air power, as they have fought to wrest towns, villages and parts of Iraq\u2019s rugged countryside from the Islamic State.<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=48302\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,50,42,209,143,168,557,426,203,155,148,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics-politics","category-international-news-commentary","category-religion-news-commentary","category-americau-s-a","category-defense-national-security-military","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-iraq","category-islam","category-middle-east","category-other-faiths","category-terrorism","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}