Mosul means peace, progress and religious freedoms

On the road to liberation

By Daniel Paquet,                                                                                                  dpaquet1871@gmail.com

“Dabiq has been central to the group’s identity.  The Islamic State’s online magazine is called Dabiq, and its news agency, Amaq, is named after the surrounding area. And many Islamic State opponents seized on the village’s fall and the recalibration of the group’s messaging as proof that its grand visions were falling apart. (…)

But some analysts cautioned that the shift in language could be just the latest example of the group’s pragmatic flexibility, propaganda savvy and staying power. (…)

With the recapture of Dabiq and other recent indications that the group is weakening or retreating, a constellation of forces involved in Syria (for instance, -Ed.) – including the United States, Russia, Iran, Turkey, the Syrian government, Syrian rebels and Kurdish militias – are jockeying for dominance.  (…)

Whoever seizes what is now Islamic State territory will control the border between Iraq and Syria, as well as fault lines between Kurdish groups seeking autonomy and populations that oppose them.  For instance, the seizing of Dabiq and other towns by Turkish-backed Syrian rebels has sharpened tensions with Kurdish militias.  The Kurds wanted to take the area form the Islamic State to unite two separate Kurdish enclaves; blocking them was a main aim of the Turks, who consider the Syrian Kurds allies of a Kurdish insurgency on Turkish soil. (…)

Meanwhile, the Syrian government – on state news media and in conversations with several foreign diplomats – has accused the United States of targeting Syrian soldiers with airstrikes to open routes for Islamic State fighters to escape into Syria from Mosul. (…)

Iran, the Syrian government’s closest ally, has more reason to oust the Islamic State from Sunni areas straddling the border between Syria and Iraq, a country where Iran is deeply enmeshed and influential.”[1]

“Residents began returning on Wednesday to the village of Sheikh  Amir on the road to Mosul, recaptured overnight by advancing Kurdish fighters  early days of the biggest advance that has been launched against the Islamic State. (…)

(After) three days into the assault on Mosul, U.S. - backed government and Kurdish forces are steadily recovering outlying territory before the big push into the city itself, expected to be the biggest battle in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. (…)

Mosul, the last major stronghold of Islamic State fighters in Iraq, is five times the size of any other city the militant group (sic) has held.  Recapturing it would be a decisive blow to its self-declared caliphate. (…)

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday (18 of October) it would be a difficult fight but Islamic State ‘will be defeated in Mosul.’  He hopes to bolster his legacy by seizing back as much territory as he can from Islamic State before he leaves office in January.  A total of 20 villages were taken from the militants cast, south and southeast of Mosul by early Tuesday, according to statements from the two forces.  In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters on Tuesday that civilians were being used as human shields.”[2]

The peshmerga and Shia militias such as the Iranian backed Hashd al Shaabi (stopped) short of entering Mosul itself, which is mostly Sunni.  This would allow the Iraqi army’s counter-terrorism force, federal police and local tribal fighters to conduct the house-to-house fighting in the city, with the aim of minimizing sectarian conflict in the aftermath of the battle against Isis. (…)

The US had a total of 5,000 troops in Iraq, many serving as advisers to the 12 Iraqi brigades that have been specifically trained for the battle of Mosul. (…)

(Furthermore), addressing his troops at Khazer, east of Mosul, the president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, Masoud Barzani, said: ‘This is the first time the peshmerga and Iraqi forces have worked together against  Daesh (Isis) … we hope this will become a concrete foundation for our future relations with Baghdad.  The liberation of Mosul is not an end to terror and terrorism but this was a good lesson so in the future we will resolve our differences through understanding and working together.  We reassure the people of Mosul that both the peshmerga and the Iraqi army will do everything not to cause any loss to the people and no revenge killing will take place.’ (…)

Lt Gen Stephen Townsend, the commander of US military operations against Isis, said in a statement:  ‘But to be clear, the thousands of ground combat forces who will liberate Mosul are all Iraqis.’  The United Nations  high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) warned that as many as 100,0000 Iraqis could flee to Syria and Turkey to escape the battle for Mosul, and the organization  appealed for an additional $61m to provide tents, camps, winter items and stoves for displaced people inside Iraq and new refugees needing shelter in the two neighbouring countries.”[3]

“The Iraqi military’s operation to retake the northern city of Mosul after more than two years of Islamic State occupation could require months, even with American help. (…)

Three other important Iraqi cities recaptured from the Islamic State  - Ramadi, Tikrit and Faluja – were left in varying degrees of devastation.  Here is a look at what happened to each:

Ramadi

Lise Grande, the top United Nations humanitarian aid coordinator in Iraq, said that about 300,000 people had returned to Ramadi, but that basic services had not been fully restored. (…) 

Officials at the United State Department Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, which has overseen American efforts to help decontaminate Iraq of explosives, said the priority in Ramadi has been to clear explosive remnants of war, known as ERW, from schools, hospitals and critical facilities like water treatment plants.  ‘To clear Ramadi of every piece of ERW, you’re talking about a years  long effort, hundreds of millions of dollars,  well beyond what we  have,’ said Jerry  Guilbert, the office’s deputy director for programs.

Tikrit

Most of the roughly 150,000 residents who had fled returned within a few months.  The first returnees, however, found a city basically no services.  Shiite militiamen had looted parts of Tikrit, the main hospital was destroyed and unexploded ordnance lurked in areas that had been ravaged by combat.

Falluja

The Iraq effort to retake Falluja left it less devastated than Ramadi.  Even so, weeks of indiscriminate shelling by Shiite militias, as well as fierce fighting in the final weeks of the assault, left sections of the city in rubble.  Before Iraqi forces proclaimed victory in June, officials estimated that 90,000 civilians were in Falluja; the city’s population at its height was close to 300,000.  Ms Grande said more than 70,000 had returned.  Once recaptured, Mosul could pose a far more complicated rebuilding challenge, given than it is so much bigger that other Islamic State conquests and was much more diverse, with Christian, Kurdish and Shiite minorities.  ‘The big difference between Mosul and the cities of Ramadi and Falluja is the size of the city,’ Ms. Grande said.”[4]

“Can Isis survive after the evident defeat of the caliphate?  Optimists believe the obvious failure of the Isis project to restore the lost power of the world’s Muslims will fatally undermine the group’s appeal to potential recruits.  They point out territorial losses mean no tax, oil or other revenue streams, and no space for training, resting or preparing elaborate and effective propaganda. (…)

The pessimists point out that Isis, in previous incarnations, survived from about 2007 to 2014 in Iraq without ever controlling significant amounts of territory, and eventually emerged to conduct the single most effective Islamic extremist military campaign see anywhere in the world for  many decades.  They predict a long-running campaign mixing terrorism and insurgency lasting for many years.  (…)

The truth is no one knows.  The only thing we can be sure of for the moment is that, much as the capture of Mosul by Isis in 2014 dramatically changed the entire landscape of Islamic militancy, so too will its loss.”[5]

 

Archives:   La Vie Réelle,                                                                          www.laviereelle.blogspot.com

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[1] Samaan, Maher (reporting from Paris), Saad, Hwaida (from Beirut), After loss of Syrian village, ISIS tweaks a prophecy, The New York Times, International Edition, Thursday, October 20, 2016, page 6

[2] Dehghanpisheh, Babak, Road to Mosul rigged with tunnels and bombs, The Globe and Mail, Thursday, October 20, 2016, pageA4

[3] Chulov Martin and Hawramy, Fazel (near Mosul); Borger, Julian and Wintour Patrick, Forces converge in battle for Mosul, The Guardian Weekly, 21.1016, page 5

[4] Arango, Tim; Gladstone, Rick, Harder job may be rebuilding Mosul, The New York Times, International Edition, Thursday, October 20, 2016, page 6

[5] Burke, Jason, Analysis: if the Mosul offensive is a success, what could this mean for Isis?, The Guardian Weekly, London, 21.10.16, page 5