U.S. soldiers gather in the town of Gwer, northern Iraq August 31, 2016. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari /File Photo
The U.S.-led war on Islamic State has depleted the group's funds,
leadership and foreign fighters, but the biggest battle yet is expected later
this year in Iraq's northern city of Mosul, where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared
his "caliphate" two years ago.
The jihadist insurgents have lost more than half the territory they
seized in Iraq and nearly as much in neighboring Syria, but still manage to
control their twin capitals of Mosul and Raqqa, symbols of the state they
sought to build at the heart of the Middle East.
Military and humanitarian preparations are now in full swing to retake
Mosul, the largest city under the ultra-hardline group's control. American
troops are establishing a logistics hub to the south, while the United Nations
warns of the world's most complex humanitarian operation this year.
Iraq's recapture over the summer of Qayyara airbase and surrounding areas
along the Tigris river 60 km (nearly 40 miles) south of Mosul have set the
stage for a big push on the city, which commanders say could start by late
October.
Whether Islamic State makes a final stand in Mosul or slips away to fight
another day remains in question, but Baghdad expects a fierce battle and the
international coalition backing it is preparing for one.
The densely populated river valley may hold obstacles for the military,
though Islamic State appears to be putting up relatively little resistance,
possibly to conserve fighters for a showdown in Mosul where their forces are
estimated at between 3,000 and 9,000.
Hardcore fighters have likely slipped out already through the desert and
into Syria, while many top leaders and foreign fighters have been killed in
targeted air strikes, according to Major General Najm al-Jabouri, the Mosul
operation's commander.
He told Reuters that victory by year's end would be easy, in keeping with
pledges by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
"We will go to Mosul, they will go to Tel Afar. We will go to Tel
Afar, they will go to Baaj," said Jabouri, referring to IS-controlled
districts 70 km (44 miles) and 140 km (87 miles)west of Mosul, respectively,
which can be used to reach Syria.
"We will go to Baaj, maybe. It depends on the situation in Syria.
They can get to Syria but the situation there is not like before. It is not a
safe haven for them now."
TURNING TIDE
Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart, Director of the U.S. Defense
Intelligence Agency, said on Thursday he expected the Mosul operation could
unfold in the next two or three months but that it would be long and difficult.
"Urban warfighting is not easy and this is a large city that has had
at least two years to prepare to defend its position ... It's going to be a
multi-dimensional fight," Stewart said at a national security summit in
Washington.
The war against jihadist insurgents in the Middle East has ebbed and
flowed but there is a palpable sense in the region that the tide has turned
against Islamic State.
In the past year and a half, the group has lost swathes of territory and
strategic outposts. In Iraq it was driven out of Tikrit and Sinjar in the
north, the oil refinery town of Baiji, and finally Ramadi and Falluja in
western Anbar province, the heart of the insurgency following the U.S.-led
invasion in 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein.
In northern Syria, U.S.-allied Kurdish militia of the People's Protection
Units (YPG) have taken vital territory and border crossings below the frontier
with Turkey after capturing Kobani and later taking Tel Abyad, a key supply
line for the jihadist capital Raqqa further south. The YPG has expanded its territory
west of the Euphrates, seizing Manbij last month.
Meanwhile Turkey, backing Syrian rebels, this month cleared Islamic State
from its southern border by seizing some 20 villages while Libyan government
forces are close to flushing IS insurgents from holdouts in Sirte.
Amid those territorial losses, Islamic State has claimed credit for a
surge in global attacks this year beyond its main Middle East theater. European
countries remain on alert for additional strikes based on undisclosed
information.
Nonetheless, the U.S. military has said Iraq is on track to retake Mosul
later this year. Over the past two weeks, convoys of sophisticated engineering
vehicles have been seen approaching Qayyara airbase, which Islamic State
wrecked before withdrawing in July.
Repairing it to help supply the 20,000 to 30,000 Iraqi troops expected to
be used in the campaign could take another two months. Until then, forces
trained by the U.S.-led coalition are amassing further afield.
Mosul fell to Islamic State in June 2014 when Iraqi security forces,
riddled with corruption and sectarianism despite billions of dollars in U.S.
aid, dropped their weapons and fled from the insurgents.
KURDISH AND SHI'ITE FORCES
Kurdish peshmerga forces, entrenched east, north and northwest of Mosul
since 2014, will help tighten the noose around the city but might not enter
central districts to avoid aggravating political sensitivities.
After retaking 11 villages southeast of Mosul last month, they are now
eyeing eastern Christian and Shabak villages long abandoned by minority
communities the group seeks to eliminate.
The peshmerga's role is complicated by tensions with the central
government, which claims territory the Kurds have taken from IS and effectively
annexed to their autonomous region. The Kurds say Baghdad is not forthcoming
about its military strategy for Mosul or its plans to manage it after the
battle.
"If we do not prepare the politics of it, we may not succeed in the
military plan or we may succeed in the military plan but lose the political
plan and that would be disastrous," Falah Mustafa Bakir, the head of
Kurdistan's Foreign Relations Department, told Reuters last week.
The participation of the Hashid Shaabi, a government umbrella for mostly
Shi'ite militias, is also unresolved. Powerful commanders have pledged to take
part, despite fears among Mosul's Sunni leaders and residents of rights abuses.
Prime Minister Abadi said this week the demands of the battle would dictate
the disposition of forces but that no decision had been made to bar the Hashid.
Confrontation that inflames sectarian tensions between Shi'ite-led
government forces and the Sunni jihadists of Islamic State risks turning Mosul
into a "bloodbath", according to a Western diplomat in Baghdad.
HUMANITARIAN CRISIS
The Mosul operation has also triggered large-scale humanitarian planning,
with the U.N. predicting up to one million people could flee the city in all
directions.
The Kurds expect half of those leaving will head toward their territory,
which already struggles to accommodate more than one million displaced people.
Regional authorities, fearing a new wave will exacerbate demographic and
security concerns, aim to settle new arrivals in camps outside of main cities.
In the best-case scenario, though, there is only enough land and funding
for about 450,000 people, according to a senior U.N. official, raising the
prospect of housing others in unused buildings or abandoned villages.
"If there is mass displacement, there could be shantytowns in the
disputed border areas because the plan for camps doesn't accommodate them
all," said Tom Robinson, director of Rise Foundation, which analyses
Iraq's humanitarian crisis.
Aid workers say the authorities are limiting the construction of new
camps to discourage displacement. In fact, the military is urging residents to
shelter in place as it advances, but that will only be feasible if fighting
doesn't lay waste to homes and infrastructure as it has before.
Jabouri, the top Iraqi commander, dismissed concerns that such a scheme
jeopardises civilians' safety, saying: "What does it mean if some areas
receive mortars? That's not the end of the world. We are in Iraq, not in
Switzerland."
(Additional reporting by Yara Bayoumy in Washington; Writing by Stephen
Kalin; Editing by Samia Nakhoul, Janet McBride and James Dalgleish)
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