Iraqis winning ISIL fight with help

US officials emphasise Mosul offensive being led by better-trained local forces

BAGHDAD // In a low, windowless building outside the sprawling US embassy compound in the Iraq capital, senior military officials from 19 nations work together in the war against ISIL.

The front wall of the dreary office space is covered by monitors that provide live video from the drones and warplanes circling large parts of Iraq.

As Iraqi security forces and Kurdish peshmerga units close in on Mosul, US military officials offered a glimpse of the combined joint operations centre on Wednesday to highlight how coalition intelligence and air power are helping the Iraqis purge ISIL from their country.

US officials stressed that the war is being led by the Iraqis.

“It’s their fight. We are supporting them,” said US Brig Gen Rick Uribe, who must approve every air strike in Iraq. “They are coming up with the ideas, and we are helping them refine their ideas.” Two years ago, much of the Iraqi army had collapsed in disarray. Troops dumped weapons and equipment as ISIL swept through the country, murdering as they went.

But since the US pulled together a coalition with 60-plus members to help fight the militants, each success has brought confidence to the Iraqi forces.

In the past year, Iraqi troops recaptured Fallujah, a city 50 kilometres west of Baghdad that had been outside government control for more than two and a half years, and Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province. “Our mission right now and our planning is good. Everything is going like what we [were] planning for it,” Iraqi defence ministry spokesman Brig Gen Tahseen Ibrahim said.

While Iraqi military and police are better equipped and trained than they were two years ago, more than 10,000 coalition air strikes have hit ISIL.

Inside the joint operations centre, a screen showed a man sprinting across a muddy field, pausing by a palm tree then stopping a moment later, apparently to dig something from the dirt before taking off again.

It was unclear what he was doing, or whether anyone in the room would later deem him a legitimate target for a Hellfire missile or coalition bomb.

While air superiority and technology has helped turn the tide for the Iraqi military, training units from the United States, Britain, Italy and other nations have been key on the ground.

Iraqi ground forces are now better drilled in combat skills and discipline.

In northern Iraq, the Pentagon has provided peshmerga forces the munitions they need to fight ISIL.

This tactic of keeping American personnel largely away from the fighting and waging the war by air has garnered broad criticism at home, with hawks in Washington bemoaning an early lack of results and a US public fretting about a perceived growing threat from ISIL. On Tuesday, Lt Gen Stephen Townsend, who heads the coalition effort supporting and training Iraqi security forces and Kurdish peshmerga, said ISIL in Mosul faced defeat.

“[The militants are] living on borrowed time and their clock is running out. The Iraqi security forces are going to take Mosul back, period.”