Iraqi forces gear up to take back Ramadi

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NEED TO KNOW:

At the end of May, the Islamic State took the Iraqi city of Ramadi. They had already taken the nearby city of Fallujah in January 2014. The terrorist group has spent the last few months trying to gain control of the land between to connect the two cities.

This is all hugely significant. Fallujah is a mere 20 miles from the outskirts of Baghdad. It is 30 miles from the so-called “Green Zone” in Baghdad's center. Controlling this vast territory gives the Islamic State a fertile staging area to plan an attack on the country's capital.

So the Iraqi army is plotting a counter-attack with the help of American military advisers (there are about 3,000 American soldiers deployed as advisers in Iraq right now. Even if they aren't the ones doing the fighting, those advisers are very close to the front lines.) First, they'll target Ramadi, which is about 50 miles from Baghdad. That attack could happen sooner than later.

US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has arrived in Baghdad to meet with Iraqis and discuss the upcoming operation. It's not going to be easy. The Islamic State, which US military officials believe has a force of about 2,000 in Ramadi, is well-armed. The group confiscated multiple stores of weapons during its march toward Baghdad. Many of those weapons were given to Iraq by the United States. The New York Times reports that the Islamic State has busied itself with booby-trapping buildings and roads in Fallujah and Ramadi ahead of any offensive.

The plan now is to take back Ramadi not by “shock and awe” but by a slow, methodical attack. A major concern is that any large-scale counter-attack would result in a huge loss of civilian life and draw the Iraqi forces into a protracted urban battle, similar to the deadly American battle for Ramadi in 2006, during the height of the Iraq War. There are many things, in fact, that happened during the Iraq War that the Americans are now trying not to repeat.

WANT TO KNOW:

In the Gaza Strip, everything is political. Even surfing.

Playing on the beaches of Gaza is dangerous by any measure. They're polluted, first of all. Gaza's wastewater system was damaged during the Israeli offensive in 2014, allowing raw sewage to flow into the sea. There's also the risk of being shot. Fishermen are regularly shot at by the Israeli Navy for venturing too far off shore. And, of course, there were those four young boys who were killed in an Israeli airstrike, also in 2014.

Despite it all, a man named Taha has made a life out of playing in the waters off the coast of the Gaza Strip. He is a surfer, inspired by — if you can believe it — old episodes of "Baywatch." Unable to get surfboards in Gaza, he first tried using doors from his home and refrigerator to catch waves.

Taha's story inspired journalists and others to write about him. Eventually, an American man agreed to send Taha and some of his friends surfboards and wetsuits. But those would take five years to get through the Israeli blockade. It was only after international media pressure and political intervention that the equipment made it to Gaza.

“My dream is to represent my country in foreign countries and prove to the whole world that we are people who love life and there is no difference between us and America or the UK or Israel in education or potential, but we have a lack of capacity because of the Israeli occupation,” Taha told GlobalPost Senior Correspondent Laura Dean. You can read the whole story here.

STRANGE BUT TRUE:

Homelessness has risen in London by 79 percent since 2010. So the local government has to do something, right? Perhaps build more shelters? Or maybe it should address some of the root causes of this terrible trend. Like, maybe reforming some of the laws and corporate loopholes that led to the global economic crisis? Perchance?

Nope. City officials came up with another plan: place steel spikes in public places so that homeless people can't sleep in them. That will prevent people from having to see the homeless people. That's the real problem, after all: the fact that non-homeless people have to know that homelessness exists. Also, the plight of these human beings just mucks up our public spaces, doesn't it. Steel spikes are an elegant solution!

Obviously not everyone thinks that's true. In fact most people think it's a terrible idea. Really, it's almost impossible to imagine how anyone could think it was a good idea. An artist collective calling itself “Better than Spikes” is now drawing attention to the backwardness of it all with a new endeavor. Instead of steel spikes, they are placing mattresses and bookshelves around public spaces in London.

One of the artists explains: “The city is filled with space, yet most people don’t stop to think just how much that space has been built to control them. This kind of hostile architecture is all over. Bus stops have slanted platforms you can perch on but not sit on. Barriers are placed on walkways. It sends a visual message and has a real life impact. You aren't free anymore. You're limited by what and where a planner or corporation says you can go.”