The Battle for Mosul: What You Need to Know

Rasa - Iraqi troops and volunteer forces are yet to fulfill their pledge to liberate the city of Mosul from ISIL. Officials say they will have a victory in a few months.

News ID: 426468

Date: 11 January 2017 - 22:56

RNA - It is slow going as ever, but winning the fight for Mosul for the anti-ISIL side is assured, even though combat is going street to street at a very slow rate, and civilians have very limited options for fleeing the fighting.

But as soon as you read a few reports about this war, you come to realize that there are some key points that need to receive attention:

1- The bridges in the city have been destroyed in US airstrikes. This has meant many fleeing out the way invading forces came in, and led to reports of ISIL shooting at fleeing civilians.

2- For good reasons, pundits accuse the US of having blown up the bridges to “slow the Iraqi advance.” It is silly for the Pentagon to claim the bridges were destroyed early in the offensive to limit ISIL movement back and forth. It’s a lie to say Iraqi forces haven’t gotten to the river in major numbers, meaning there would be no reason to try to slow them down. They are everywhere and the US is slowing them down.

3- The destruction of bridges was also meant to slow down the fleeing civilians, hence increase the number of civilian casualties – and international pressures on the Iraqi government. True, the the Pentagon might have offered “advisers” and attack helicopters for the battle, but for these reasons and more it has rendered the opposite.

4- UN humanitarian officials report several hundred wounded civilians have come out of the area each of the last couple of weeks, overwhelming the makeshift hospitals in controlled outskirts, with more serious cases being sent to Irbil. Most of these people were killed or wounded after being trapped behind the bridges destroyed in US airstrikes.

5- The US has been cultivating, supporting, and assisting ISIL and Al-Qaeda in Iraq for several years now. This is not fake news. ISIL has possible blackmail information on outgoing President Barack Obama and his administration, including arms supply and financial support, as well as collusion between Washington and Riyadh to regime change Syria. The slow going will help Obama dodge any possible backlash on these revelations when he leaves the office, the city is liberated, and Donald Trump is sworn in as the next US president.

6- All of the allegations against Team Obama are substantiated and verified. Various news organizations, international aid agencies and human rights groups have had these documents for years. They chose to publish them because the claims are also confirmed by top US officials. Hillary Clinton and John Kerry have already briefed us about their love affairs with ISIL and Al-Qaeda.

7- The decision by the US government, intelligence officials and regional allies to weaponise ISIL is not very unusual. Their decision to delay liberation of Mosul should never be seen as unusual either. The truth is, they want to prolong the crisis by pitting Muslims against each other in order to protect Israel and justify their military presence in the Middle East.

It’s a fearful prospect. What concerns most of us is what could happen after the liberation of Mosul. The city is one of different ethnic groups and communities. Everyone living there is Iraqi, but they consist of the fractious, mutually mistrustful constituents – Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis and Christians. All the mixed-sectarian bag needs is some shenanigans by Washington to fall into civil war again after ISIL is defeated.

It's here that war-party Washington has made some future investments. The expectation is that binding political agreements won’t be in place after the fighting. If there aren’t clearly articulated limits and responsibilities for each of the security forces, it’s not hard to imagine how Washington would be able to encourage Sunni militias to butt heads with Shiite militias after liberation, and even potentially come to blows with each other for short term gain. All Iraqi constituents should consider themselves warned.

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