Iraqis gain ground on Islamic State
BAGHDAD – Iraqi forces and pro-government militias have routed Islamic State fighters from two key areas near the city of Tikrit, officials said Sunday, one week after embarking on an ambitious offensive to retake one of the militants’ key strongholds.
Officials hailed the advances as significant progress in the battle to recapture Tikrit. But troops remained stuck outside the city Sunday, underscoring the difficulty of taking on Islamic State militants entrenched in urban areas.
Local television channels aired footage Sunday of pro-government militias entering the village of Abu Ajeel, east of Tikrit. Officials said the militias, recruited by the government to assist in the fight against the Islamic State, also secured the area of Dawr. Images from Dawr, which is south of Tikrit, broadcast on television showed empty streets and tan-colored homes damaged by the fighting.
MH370’s beacon battery long expired
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – The first comprehensive report into the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 revealed Sunday that the battery of the locator beacon for the plane’s data recorder had expired more than a year before the jet vanished on March 8, 2014.
The report came as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the hunt for the plane would not end even if the scouring of the current search area off Australia’s west coast comes up empty.
Apart from the anomaly of the expired battery, the detailed report devoted page after page describing the complete normality of the flight, which disappeared while heading from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, setting off aviation’s biggest mystery.
Families of the 239 people who were on board the plane marked the anniversary of the Boeing 777’s disappearance, vowing to never give up on the desperate search for wreckage and answers to what happened to their loved ones.
Canada, Kurds split on soldier’s death
IRBIL, Iraq – Canadian and Kurdish officials on Sunday offered conflicting accounts of the death of a Canadian soldier in a friendly fighting incident in Iraq, with the Kurds saying he was on the front lines directing airstrikes and Canada’s defense minister saying he had returned to an observation post further back.
The death of Sgt. Andrew Joseph Doiron on Friday marked Canada’s first casualty as part of the U.S.-led coalition’s war on the extremist Islamic State group. Canada is actively debating whether to extend the combat mission, which is due to expire at the end of the month.
Kurdish officials said Sunday that Doiron was killed after he and other Canadian soldiers showed up to the front line unannounced to call in airstrikes.
But Canadian Defense Minister Jason Kenney said the Canadian soldiers had just returned to an observation post well behind the front line when they were mistakenly fired upon by Kurdish fighters.
The Canadian military denied they were in the area to direct airstrikes.
Associated Press, Washington Post
