ISIS kills two Iraqi generals in Anbar province. Wall Street Journal.

The military funeral for the two Generals killed by ISIS. Wall Street Journal. 

ISIS has killed two senior generals in Anbar province with IED's. Wall Street Journal. Iraqi state television confirmed that Major General Abdul Rahmam Abu-Ragheef and Brigadier General Safeen Abdul Majeed were killed during a suicide attack by ISIS. Ragheef was the deputy operations chief for the Anbar province while Majeed was in command of a division stationed in Anbar. ISIS took credit for the attack and claimed it was in revenge for the death of one of their senior officers. Anbar province is a key theater in the war against ISIS and Iraq has been trying to take back the key city of Ramadi. However, ISIS judicious use of IEDs and car bombs have blunted the offensive.  ISIS often targets senior commanders as an effort to damage enemy morale.

My Comment:

It's always news when a general dies in combat. It doesn't happen often and when it does it usually means someone screwed up. For the most part, soldiers over the rank of captain don't die in battle, at least in modern warfare. To have not one but two generals die in one attack, well, it shows that the Iraqi military has some rather large security holes. 

ISIS should not have been able to drive up to the military headquarters like they did. Someone screwed up and screwed up bad. Were there no sentries looking out for suspicious vehicles? Or were the sentries posted just incompetent? Most disturbingly, were the sentries paid off to look the other way? Something happened here and I am guessing that heads will roll when the investigation is complete. 

Attacking senior officers is a decent strategy for ISIS to use. Killing the people in charge is usually a good thing when you are trying to win a war. If the generals were at all competent it will be hard for Iraq to replace them, especially considering how few competent generals Iraq has. Many of the old school regime holdovers went over to the other side and are actively working for ISIS. Iraq is in the process of training people and many of the lower ranking officers are gaining experience but there is little talent at the top. Every loss Iraq takes in this area is a setback.

It's not like we don't do the same thing to them though. High ranking members of ISIS have always been a priority target. We can't really complain about them trying to do the same thing to the Iraqi's that we do to them. You can complain about them using suicide attacks, but considering how effective they have been it's not surprising that ISIS is doing so. 

This will probably be a morale hit for the Iraqi troops on the ground. For one, if the generals were respected leaders there is always the worry that they will be replaced by less effective commanders. Second, it shows that anyone is vulnerable. If ISIS can get to generals, what chance does a private have? After all, ISIS has been incredibly effective at killing everyone regardless of rank. What's the point of fighting if you can't even depend on your leaders? Since Iraq already has leadership problems, these attacks will have even more of an impact. 

As for the battle in Anbar, it doesn't seem like much is happening. Iraqi forces managed to take some of the area around Ramadi, but their offensive has stalled out. That probably has as much to do with the weather then anything else. Summer is a bad time to fight in Iraq, and I fully expect the battle to heat up as the temperatures cool off. Once the battle restarts in earnest, Iraqi forces will try to retake the city, but I just don't see them doing it in a timely matter. ISIS has booby trapped the area and have been extremely effective with these car bombing tactics. Indeed, they may use the same tactics they used to take the city to break the siege and start to take territory again.  

That's another downside to losing these two generals. They were the ones in charge of this battle, and with their deaths one wonders if their replacements will be able to keep up. It's not easy to run a battle under the best of circumstances, but to be thrown into this predicament a month or two before the battle heats up again? It's not a situation I would want to be in. Add in the stress caused by the fact that by taking the position, there is a good chance that you could share the same fate as your predecessors.