The Battle for Mosul

Trajan

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ISIS's largest city and a city of 1.5m inhabitants

3-5 thousand ISIS fighters

ISIS digging in:

- The group has been working hard this month to dig a 2m x 2m trench along the city’s perimeter and position oil tanks nearby to create a river of fire that would impede advancing troops and hinder aerial surveillance, according to senior Iraq military officers, Mosul residents and local officials based outside the city.

- In addition to the moat, the militants have sealed off central districts of Mosul by stacking cement blast walls on top of each other across main roads, according to photographs taken by residents and seen by Reuters.

- Dozens of trucks were seen earlier this month carrying similar barriers into the airport on the city’s southern outskirts, which could be an entry point for attacking forces, local officials and residents said.

The militants “are using the blast walls to make Mosul airport unfit for planes to land”, said Iraqi Army Colonel Mohammed Adnan al-Taie.

- 30,000 Iraqi troops massing on the outskirts of the city

- Reports of senior ISIS leaders fleeing the city
 

FAH1223

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Going to be an absolute bloodbath...

A lot of innocent folk gon perish...:francis:

Maybe not...

On September 20 I wrote about the likely reason for the willful U.S. bombing attack on a critical Syrian army position in Deir Ezzor:

Two recent attacks against the Syrian Arab Army in east-Syria point to a U.S. plan to eliminate all Syrian government presence east of Palmyra. This would enable the U.S. and its allies to create a "Sunni entity" in east-Syria and west-Iraq which would be a permanent thorn in side of Syria and its allies.

The U.S. plan is to eventually take Raqqa by using Turkish or Kurdish proxies. It also plans to let the Iraqi army retake Mosul in Iraq. The only major city in Islamic State territory left between those two is Deir Ezzor. Should IS be able to take it away from the isolated Syrian army garrison it has at least a decent base to survive. (Conveniently there are also rich oil wells nearby.) No one, but the hampered Syrian state, would have an immediate interest to remove it from there.

There are new signs that this analysis was correct.

Yesterday the Turkish President Erdogan made a remark that points into that direction. As the British journalist Elijah Magnier summarized it:



"Like Jarablus" was an interesting comparison. The Turks and their proxies took Jarablus in center-north Syria from the Islamic State without any fight and without any casualties from fighting. ISIS had moved away from the city before the Turks walked in. There obviously had been a deal made.

That's why I replied this to Magnier's tweet above:



Three hours later this rumor from a well connected Syrian historian and journalist in London answered that question:



Erdogan predicts that his troops and proxy forces will march into Mosul just like they marched into Jarablus: In a peaceful walk, without any fight, into a city free of Jihadis.

The Saudis and the U.S. arranged for that.

The U.S. bombed the most important SAA position in Deir Ezzor so that ISIS, now with the help of its cadres from Mosul, can take over the city. A nice place to keep it holed up in east-Syria until it can further be used in this or that imperial enterprise.

eastsysep2016-s.jpg

bigger

A good plan when your overall aim is to create an obedient mercenary statelet in the center of the Middle East. As the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency wrote in 2012:
https://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-co...12-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf

"THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME."

But this plan requires to fight the Syrian and Russian air-forces which will do their utmost to defend the SAA group and the 100-200,000 ISIS besieged Syrian civilians in Deir Ezzor. The the U.S. and its allies may be willing to do that. A well known British Tory member of parliament already made noise that British fighter jets should be free to shoot down Russian planes in Syria. The U.S. had claimed that British planes took part in the Deir Ezzor ambush.

The defenders of Deir Ezzor lack their own air defenses. The Russian systems at the Syrian west-coast can not reach that far east. The Syrian system are mostly positioned to defend Damascus and other cities from attacks by Israel.

Russia recently talked about delivering 10 new Pantsyr-S1 short-to-medium range air defense systems to Syria. At least two of those should be airlifted to Deir Ezzor as soon as possible.

UPDATE: I was just made aware of a recent speech by Hizbullah leader Nasrallah who smells the same stinking plot:

Sayyed Nasrallah said that the Americans intend to repeat Fallujah plot when they opened a way for ISIL to escape towards eastern Syria before the Iraqi warplanes targeted the terrorists’ convoy, warning that the same deceptive scheme is possible to be carried out in Mosul.
 
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Trajan

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Islamic State crushes rebellion plot in Mosul as army closes in


Islamic State has crushed a rebellion plot in Mosul, led by one of the group's commanders who aimed to switch sides and help deliver the caliphate's Iraqi capital to government forces, residents and Iraqi security officials said.

Islamic State (IS) executed 58 people suspected of taking part in the plot after it was uncovered last week. Residents, who spoke to Reuters from some of the few locations in the city that have phone service, said the plotters were killed by drowning and their bodies were buried in a mass grave in a wasteland on the outskirts of the city.

Among them was a local aide of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who led the plotters, according to matching accounts given by five residents, by Hisham al-Hashimi, an expert on IS affairs that advises the government in Baghdad and by colonel Ahmed al-Taie, from Mosul's Nineveh province Operation Command's military intelligence.

:ohhh:

According to Hashimi, the dissidents were arrested after one of them was caught with a message on his phone mentioning a transfer of weapons. He confessed during interrogation that weapons were being hidden in three locations, to be used in a rebellion to support the Iraqi army when it closes in on Mosul.

IS raided the three houses used to hide the weapons on Oct. 4, Hashimi said.

“Those were Daesh members who turned against the group in Mosul," said Iraqi Counter-terrorism Service spokesman Sabah al-Numani in Baghdad, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State. "This is a clear sign that the terrorist organization has started to lose support not only from the population, but even from its own members.”

Exclusive: Islamic State crushes rebellion plot in Mosul as army closes in
 

Trajan

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wild


really feel for the people stuck there and in Syria

They're caught in between a rock and hard place.

So far, up to 600,000 civilians have fled the coming offensive, and a similar number are believed to still be living in Mosul, the UN says, with up to 60,000 Isis fighters among them.

The weighing up of how best to minimise the many threats to their lives – from Isis, US bombs, minefields or stray bullets – is the main thing on Mosul residents’ minds. It is the main topic of discussion if they think no Isis informants are around.

“Its complicated and almost impossible to get out now, but here people have nothing to talk about except the horrific war that will be launched against the city soon,” said Amina Najib, 45, a mother of nine who decided eventually to stay.

She has seen many wars, and is most worried about the practical challenges of surviving a drawn-out fight for the city. Many families who do not have a relative in Isis are struggling to pay for food after two years of economic stagnation under the group’s control.

“The word ‘war’ does not terrify me: the only difference this time is that we do not have enough money to stockpile supplies at home in case the fighting lasts a long time,” Najib said by phone.

Amina Najib, 45, speaking from Mosul city centre
People here have nothing to talk about except the horrific war that will be launched against the city soon. But in the end we reckoned it was better to stay home than risk getting caught by Isis trying to flee. My son has already had 20 lashes just for using a mobile in the street.

I prepared a room in the house as a shelter with just some wheat to make bread and a few kilos of rice.

Most locals don’t have any cash because the government stopped paying its employees two years ago, and all our savings are wiped out. Pensioners are the lucky ones, they still get their pension via credit card, so our money comes from my cousin who is a retired teacher.

People are worried about what comes after liberation. It is true we want to get rid of Isis but can you trust who will take power after?



Abdul Salam, 25, university student from Mosul, now a refugee in Erbil
In a way war has become part of our life, but Mosul’s locals are quite terrified about this particular battle, because the whole world is coming to fight Isis in our city.

People are digging shelters under their homes to try and hide in during bombing, but if the war lasts a long time there will be looting, because no one has many supplies.

My father decided to leave a month ago, to Turkey via Syria. I followed him with 10 other members of the family two weeks ago. We are all in Erbil now waiting for the liberation to go home, although our house was blown up by Isis after someone tipped them off that we had fled the city.

My sister and many relatives are still in Mosul, they only call us after midnight for fear of being spotted using the phone by Isis militants. They are using loudspeakers in mosques and markets to urge people to join the jihad and defend their city.

I won’t go back to Mosul if Shia militias take the city, we saw what they did in other liberated cities, filling them with rancour and sectarianism.


Abu Ammar, 47, from Mosul, now a refugee
We had run through all our savings and sold lots of our belongings for very little just to cover the daily basics for my six children. Thank God, I owned my house: it would have been a real disaster if I was renting.

My kids hadn’t left the house for weeks, because they were afraid of the US airstrikes, they were bombing residential areas, close to our home. The noise is horrible, windows get broken, the whole house shakes, and people get hysterical.

I only went out if I needed to do some shopping, and tried my best to avoid Isis militants. Mostly we borrowed wheat from a neighbour, because we couldn’t afford to buy it. I’m a government employee and haven’t been paid for two years. The only places that are open in Mosul are petrol stations, and shops with goods from Syria.

I was trying to find a way out for months, a job somewhere to feed the kids, but I was scared to take the route to Erbil because it is planted with mines. I finally agreed to leave with four other families one night, but at the last minute the others dropped out.

They said they had been tipped off that Isis had set up many checkpoints along the way and might capture us. I insisted on going anyway. We walked through the night for more than six hours, with my kids frightened and begging to go back.

We hope the army would put an end to Isis reign of terror. People are mostly hiding at home, afraid of Isis because they don’t have weapons to fight them.


Um Ibrahim, 50, from Mosul

The situation is catastrophic, our life is miserable. If you have money, you can live in Mosul, otherwise, you will die of hunger and worry.

I have six kids but only one is with me, and I have not seen my sons and grandsons for a long time. They left because of Isis’s strict rules about what to wear and how to shave and lack of jobs in Mosul. I can hardly even speak to them, because Isis threaten locals for using mobile phones.

We are terrified but can’t think of fleeing, because I’m here with my husband who is sick and can hardly walk.

My daughter and her five kids are also still here; she could not leave because her husband has been detained by Isis. We thought a lot about fleeing but if we do Isis will take the house.

Its built on rocky ground, and its hard to dig a shelter, so we are going to stay in a room near the stairs. I have bought some wheat, rice, sugar, oil, tea, beans, chickpeas and tomato paste to get through the battle.

I’m scared because Isis bases are close to us, warplanes come to bomb our area from time to time. I have seen more than three wars in Iraq but this one is going to be the worst, with other wars the fighting was not near our house and the security was good.

We are worried that the warplanes would hit the houses round here where Isis militants are hiding now. Isis dug trenches around our district and took some of the houses as bases, and fighters are gathering on a hill behind us. In a way its like an island [of Isis militants].


Abu Bashar, farmer, from Mosul
Life in Mosul is a true hell, the city is full of beggars and widows, people are fed up of the poverty and injustice and you can’t say a word about the situation. Life under Isis is terribly hard.

There was an Isis video of captives who were gathered in an iron cage and then electrocuted. Those men were my cousins, they were killed because they are related to the commander of Mosul military operations.

We are desperately waiting for the army to liberate the city. After Fallujah and Tikrit, people in Mosul were optimistic that they will be liberated soon as well, but nothing happened and people’s savings are dwindling and they have nothing to feed their kids.

I planted vegetables in my farm but could hardly sell anything. I left a month ago because I ran out of money.

Isis are forcing people to vow to fight with them inside the city. Still, a tribal militia of Mosul locals has formed to fight Isis, a few of my relatives have joined to liberate their areas, take revenge for their sons who were killed by Isis and to stand in face of Shia militias if they come into the city with the army.

People are worried about Shia militias, they have already accused Mosul locals of handing the city to Isis. I would prefer the US army to Shia militia because Americans are not sectarian.

:mjcry:
Mosul civilians brace for assault as Iraq forces bid to retake Isis stronghold
 

88m3

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Still stuck with the stories of people swimming for their lives in the recent battle for Fallujah @Trajan

:to:
 

Trajan

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It begins.

Iraq Forces Begin Battle to Dislodge ISIS From Mosul

Iraq forces launched a long-awaited offensive to recapture Mosul, Islamic State’s last major bastion in the country.
In a nationally televised announcement early Monday, local time, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of the push to take back Iraq’s second-largest city.

Residents and Iraqi intelligence officials say there are signs of fraying support for the group within the city and disarray in its ranks. Mass defections, internal rivalries and an increasingly restive local population have contributed to a sense of confidence inside Iraq’s military.

Another Mosul resident said by phone, “All the people I talk to are ready to rebel against them with the first gunshot of the operation.”

He said new defenses set up by fighters in the city appear amateurish. Main streets have been outfitted with concrete blast walls on a platform attached to a rope, with the intention of pulling the rope to drop the walls on incoming military vehicles. “To me this is so funny and stupid,” the resident said.
Wile Coyote shyt :dead:

Iraq Forces Begin Battle to Dislodge ISIS From Mosul
 

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They're caught in between a rock and hard place.



Amina Najib, 45, speaking from Mosul city centre
People here have nothing to talk about except the horrific war that will be launched against the city soon. But in the end we reckoned it was better to stay home than risk getting caught by Isis trying to flee. My son has already had 20 lashes just for using a mobile in the street.

I prepared a room in the house as a shelter with just some wheat to make bread and a few kilos of rice.

Most locals don’t have any cash because the government stopped paying its employees two years ago, and all our savings are wiped out. Pensioners are the lucky ones, they still get their pension via credit card, so our money comes from my cousin who is a retired teacher.

People are worried about what comes after liberation. It is true we want to get rid of Isis but can you trust who will take power after?



Abdul Salam, 25, university student from Mosul, now a refugee in Erbil
In a way war has become part of our life, but Mosul’s locals are quite terrified about this particular battle, because the whole world is coming to fight Isis in our city.

People are digging shelters under their homes to try and hide in during bombing, but if the war lasts a long time there will be looting, because no one has many supplies.

My father decided to leave a month ago, to Turkey via Syria. I followed him with 10 other members of the family two weeks ago. We are all in Erbil now waiting for the liberation to go home, although our house was blown up by Isis after someone tipped them off that we had fled the city.

My sister and many relatives are still in Mosul, they only call us after midnight for fear of being spotted using the phone by Isis militants. They are using loudspeakers in mosques and markets to urge people to join the jihad and defend their city.

I won’t go back to Mosul if Shia militias take the city, we saw what they did in other liberated cities, filling them with rancour and sectarianism.


Abu Ammar, 47, from Mosul, now a refugee
We had run through all our savings and sold lots of our belongings for very little just to cover the daily basics for my six children. Thank God, I owned my house: it would have been a real disaster if I was renting.

My kids hadn’t left the house for weeks, because they were afraid of the US airstrikes, they were bombing residential areas, close to our home. The noise is horrible, windows get broken, the whole house shakes, and people get hysterical.

I only went out if I needed to do some shopping, and tried my best to avoid Isis militants. Mostly we borrowed wheat from a neighbour, because we couldn’t afford to buy it. I’m a government employee and haven’t been paid for two years. The only places that are open in Mosul are petrol stations, and shops with goods from Syria.

I was trying to find a way out for months, a job somewhere to feed the kids, but I was scared to take the route to Erbil because it is planted with mines. I finally agreed to leave with four other families one night, but at the last minute the others dropped out.

They said they had been tipped off that Isis had set up many checkpoints along the way and might capture us. I insisted on going anyway. We walked through the night for more than six hours, with my kids frightened and begging to go back.

We hope the army would put an end to Isis reign of terror. People are mostly hiding at home, afraid of Isis because they don’t have weapons to fight them.


Um Ibrahim, 50, from Mosul

The situation is catastrophic, our life is miserable. If you have money, you can live in Mosul, otherwise, you will die of hunger and worry.

I have six kids but only one is with me, and I have not seen my sons and grandsons for a long time. They left because of Isis’s strict rules about what to wear and how to shave and lack of jobs in Mosul. I can hardly even speak to them, because Isis threaten locals for using mobile phones.

We are terrified but can’t think of fleeing, because I’m here with my husband who is sick and can hardly walk.

My daughter and her five kids are also still here; she could not leave because her husband has been detained by Isis. We thought a lot about fleeing but if we do Isis will take the house.

Its built on rocky ground, and its hard to dig a shelter, so we are going to stay in a room near the stairs. I have bought some wheat, rice, sugar, oil, tea, beans, chickpeas and tomato paste to get through the battle.

I’m scared because Isis bases are close to us, warplanes come to bomb our area from time to time. I have seen more than three wars in Iraq but this one is going to be the worst, with other wars the fighting was not near our house and the security was good.

We are worried that the warplanes would hit the houses round here where Isis militants are hiding now. Isis dug trenches around our district and took some of the houses as bases, and fighters are gathering on a hill behind us. In a way its like an island [of Isis militants].


Abu Bashar, farmer, from Mosul
Life in Mosul is a true hell, the city is full of beggars and widows, people are fed up of the poverty and injustice and you can’t say a word about the situation. Life under Isis is terribly hard.

There was an Isis video of captives who were gathered in an iron cage and then electrocuted. Those men were my cousins, they were killed because they are related to the commander of Mosul military operations.

We are desperately waiting for the army to liberate the city. After Fallujah and Tikrit, people in Mosul were optimistic that they will be liberated soon as well, but nothing happened and people’s savings are dwindling and they have nothing to feed their kids.

I planted vegetables in my farm but could hardly sell anything. I left a month ago because I ran out of money.

Isis are forcing people to vow to fight with them inside the city. Still, a tribal militia of Mosul locals has formed to fight Isis, a few of my relatives have joined to liberate their areas, take revenge for their sons who were killed by Isis and to stand in face of Shia militias if they come into the city with the army.

People are worried about Shia militias, they have already accused Mosul locals of handing the city to Isis. I would prefer the US army to Shia militia because Americans are not sectarian.

:mjcry:
Mosul civilians brace for assault as Iraq forces bid to retake Isis stronghold
:mjcry::mjcry::mjcry:
 
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