Iraq announces start of operation to retake Mosul from ISIL

by Snow Cat Thu Mar 24, 2016 12:02 pm

Iraq's U.S.-backed military launched operations south of Mosul Thursday in preparation for an eventual assault to drive Islamic State militants from the country's second largest city.

Iraqi officials said the operations to isolate Mosul mark the start of a broad offensive to recapture the city, a key Islamic State stronghold in the heart of northern Iraq. Any offensive to seize the city is still months away.

"The first phase of the Fatah (Conquest) Operation has been launched at dawn to liberate Nineveh, raising the Iraqi flag in several villages," according to a military statement read on state TV. Mosul is in Nineveh province.
Recapturing the city would represent a huge victory for the Iraqi forces, which have been making slow gains against the extremist group's fighters. It took months last year to retake the much smaller city of Ramadi from the militants.
Iraq's forces attacked west from their base in Makhmour toward the town of Qayyarah, which is on the west bank of the Tigris River and straddles a supply line into the city. Iraqi forces have recaptured about a mile of terrain in initial fighting.

Army Col. Steve Warren, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said the coalition was pleased with the progress Iraqi forces have made in the initial operation.
Still, the Iraqi ground operations are preliminary and Iraqi forces are still about 75 miles away from Mosul.

Iraq's military has yet to assemble enough trained forces needed to seize the city, a complex operation that will exceed anything Iraqi forces have accomplished since the country's military collapsed in the face of an Islamic State onslaught two years ago.

Last month, Marine Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testified at a congressional hearing that recapturing Mosul from the militants is still about a year away.

Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, however, said initial operations around Mosul have already begun. "We''re isolating Mosul, even as we speak," Dunford told reporters at a press conference last month.
Iraqi forces have begun assembling several thousand troops in Makhmour, though many more will be needed to drive the militants from Mosul.

The Pentagon has estimated it will require between 8 and 12 Iraqi brigades, more than 20,000 troops, to take the city.

Mosul was captured by the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, in June 2014.

Holding the city has been a major propaganda coup for the Islamic State. With an initial population of around 2 million it is the largest city in ISIL’s self-declared caliphate, or Islamic state.

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