Iraq Situation Report: March 15 - 21, 2016
Mar 21, 2016 - Patrick Martin![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20160324000807im_/http://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/styles/square_thumbnail/public/iraq%20SITREP%202016-03-21%20high_0.png?itok=4pp-h5qr)
Supporters of Sadrist Trend leader Muqtada al-Sadr began a large sit-in in front of the entrance to the Green Zone on March 18.
Supporters of Sadrist Trend leader Muqtada al-Sadr began a large sit-in in front of the entrance to the Green Zone on March 18.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely attempting to leverage his gains in the Syrian Civil War to expand Russia’s freedom of action in eastern Ukraine. Russia and the separatists began to escalate operations in eastern Ukraine in mid-February, directly coinciding with the implementation of the Syrian cessation of hostilities agreement on February 27 and subsequent drawdown of Russian forces.
President Vladimir Putin presented Russia’s active military campaign in Syria as complete with the announced withdrawal of the “main part” of the Russian air group beginning March 15. The reported withdrawal of roughly 15 Russian bombers and close-support aircraft, however, represents a drawdown rather than Russia’s extrication from the Syrian Civil War, the intended message behind Putin’s announcement.
International negotiations to reach a political settlement in Syria have resumed, although serious challenges remain to reaching a political settlement. The talks follow two weeks of a “cessation of hostilities” in which the Russian air campaign in Syria decreased notably, though it did not entirely cease. Putin announced that he would withdraw some airframes from Syria on March 15, incentivizing both Assad and the opposition to engage in Geneva.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute conducted an intensive multi-week planning exercise to frame, design, and evaluate potential courses of action that the United States could pursue to destroy the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS) and al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria.
ISIS reportedly withdrew its forces from Hit District, west of Ramadi, ISIS’s rst reported withdrawal from a major urban center in Iraq. Between March 8 and March 14, security forces west of Ramadi have made rapid progress in recapturing villages from ISIS and are reportedly less than seven miles from Hit District’s southern perimeter.