Kurdish forces close in on Mosul
Success over ISIS expected to be tough
Iraqi Kurdish forces advanced to within 5 miles of Mosul yesterday in their quest to retake the city from ISIS, and while they likely will succeed in gaining control of the city, it will not be without a spirited fight, a Middle East security expert said.
“They can’t hold onto the city because of the overwhelming force that’s being brought to bear for long. At some point they will probably have to withdraw,” Kamran Bokhari, a senior analyst with Geopolitical Futures and a senior fellow at the Center for Global Policy, told the Herald. “But they want to demonstrate to their people that, ‘We were not a pushover, and it was very difficult. We’re a force to be reckoned with.’ ”
Kurdish forces, known as peshmerga, said in a statement yesterday they cordoned about 38 square miles of terrain and secured a “significant stretch” of highway. The operation included the destruction of eight car bombs, three by U.S.-led coalition aircraft, and the killing of “dozens” of militants.
Iraq announced the start of the long-awaited Mosul offensive last week.
As forces closed in on Iraq’s second-largest city, ISIS staged an attack in a western town hundreds of miles away in an apparent diversionary tactic. Militants stormed into the town of Rutba, unleashing three suicide car bombs that were blown up before hitting their targets, according to the spokesman for the Joint Military Command, Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool.
ISIS carried out a large assault on the northern city of Kirkuk Friday, in which more than 50 militants stormed government compounds and other targets, setting off more than 24 hours of heavy fighting and killing at least 80 people, mainly security forces.
The forces taking part in the Mosul offensive include Iraqi troops, the peshmerga, Sunni tribal fighters and state-sanctioned Shiite militias.
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter has visited both countries in recent days, and was in the Kurdish regional capital, Irbil, yesterday. Carter praised the peshmerga, saying they “fight extremely well,” but also acknowledged that they had suffered casualties.
Many fear the operation could heighten tensions between Iraq’s different communities, which are allied against IS but divided over a host of other issues, including the fate of territories near mostly Sunni Mosul that are claimed by the largely autonomous Kurdish region and the central government.
Bokhari said the ejection of ISIS isn’t likely to end tumult in Mosul.
“I think that we should get used to Mosul shifting hands back and forth over the long haul,” he said.