Iraqi forces still several months away from being ready to mount assault to reclaim Mosul from Islamic State
The US-led coalition and the Iraqis are struggling to protect pockets of territory that have been recaptured from the militants to free up forces.
It will take many more months to prepare Iraq’s still struggling military for a long-anticipated assault on Islamic State’s (IS) biggest stronghold in the country, the city of Mosul, US and Iraqi officials say – and it may not even be possible to retake it this year, despite repeated vows by Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi.
As the US and its allies furiously work to train thousands more troops for the daunting task of retaking Iraq’s second-largest city, IS fighters are launching a diversion campaign of bloody suicide attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere. Their aim is to force Iraq’s overburdened security forces to spread even thinner to protect the capital and other cities rather than prepare a fresh Mosul operation.
IS has stepped up insurgent-style attacks on Baghdad and other towns removed from frontline fighting. Over the past week a double bombing at a market in Baghdad’s Sadr city killed more than 70. The following day a suicide attack at a funeral north of Baghdad killed over 30. And yesterday, IS claimed responsibility for another suicide attack south of Baghdad that killed at least 47.
The forces that are going to conduct that assault into the city, they’re not in place yet
Iraq’s answer to that has been to plan to build a wall around the capital. Meanwhile, the US-led coalition and the Iraqis are struggling to protect pockets of territory that have been recaptured from the militants to free up forces for a Mosul assault.
“The forces that are going to conduct that assault into the city, they’re not in place yet,” said US Army Colonel Christopher Garver, a spokesman for the coalition.
The northern city of Mosul, once home to more than a million people, was the biggest prize captured by IS when it swept over much of Iraq’s north and west in the summer of 2014 and declared a “caliphate” across those lands and the ones it captured in Syria.
While Iraqi forces have clawed back some territory in the past year, retaking Mosul is considered crucial for breaking the jihadists’ back in the country. Estimates of the number of IS fighters in Mosul vary from a few thousand to no more than 10,000, according to the coalition.
The Iraqi military is still struggling to regroup. When Mosul fell to IS, more than a third of the military disintegrated as thousands of soldiers shed their uniforms and dropped their weapons to flee.