Canada plays role in ISIL’s last stand

THE FALL OF MOSUL DOES NOT MEAN THAT DAESH ... IS DEFEATED.

ISIL’s savage occupation of western Iraq — which has involved brutal executions and the sexual enslavement of women — may finally be about to end.

With Canadian spy planes identifying targets for coalition jets and assault helicopters and more than 22,000 Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Shia paramilitary troops massing around Mosul with their coalition special forces advisers, the long-anticipated ground push to expel ISIL from its biggest and last Iraqi toehold is only days away.

The critical phase of the campaign to liberate Mosul from ISIL’s draconian version of Sharia law began a couple of days ago with a fresh wave of coalition airstrikes and American and French artillery and rocket attacks designed to “soften up” enemy positions in Iraq’s second-largest city. This bombardment is to be followed by the slow encirclement of Mosul by infantry and armoured units.

Their operations, which likely will still be taking place on the eve of the U.S. presidential election, are to involve attacks by Iraqi forces from the east and south and southwest of Mosul across a broad, dusty plain that is intersected by the Tigris River.

At the same time, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters closely advised by Canadian Special Forces commandos are to sweep down onto the Mosul Plain from their redoubt at Bashiqa, on a steep hillside about 10 kilometres north of the city.

However, until now, there is no sign that the Iraqi government will sanction the Kurds’ participation in the main battle for Mosul or any sign that Ottawa will allow Canadian troops to be part of it if the Kurds go so far forward.

After ISIL is evicted from Iraq, another highly emotive question will immediately arise that could soon lead to further conflict. That is, how the Iraqis, Kurds and local tribal leaders will try to divide the spoils and mark off their areas of influence and control.

Perhaps the most obvious sign that the highly complex battle to destroy ISIL’s Iraqi wing is imminent was the launch this week of an information warfare blitz by the U.S. that has highlighted what have been described as recent military successes. Although the conduit these days is social media, the content published on the “Information Operations” website by the Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) is eerily similar to that which preceded the wars against Saddam Hussein launched by Bush the Elder back in 1991 and Bush the Younger in 2003.

To defend themselves, ISIL fighters have been erecting concrete barriers known as T-Walls in Mosul, according to a “social media roll-up” that appeared Tuesday on the CJTF website. An ISIL radio station in Mosul had been destroyed, the website said, helpfully adding in English and Arabic that a new radio station controlled by the Iraqi government was about to begin broadcasting.

More unusually, a Canadian — Brig.-Gen. Dave Anderson, who directs coalition training of Iraqi forces — talked to journalists at the Pentagon Wednesday about how “the fall of Mosul does not mean that Daesh (the Arabic acronym for ISIL) is defeated, by any stretch of the imagination.”

While Anderson was certain that ISIL would be evicted from Mosul, he predicted that some of its surviving fighters were likely to insinuate themselves among the local population in order to prepare further terrorist attacks.

“So it’s definitely not over” after Mosul, Anderson said via video link from Baghdad. “If anything, it’s gonna be more difficult.”

Mosul, 350 kilometres northwest of Baghdad, was lost 27 months ago when the Iraqi army fled in disgrace after barely firing a shot at ISIL fighters attacking from the west. Because of serious questions about the Iraqis’ willingness to fight and the need to replace a staggering amount of military gear abandoned to ISIL, it has taken until now for coalition trainers and advisers to get Iraqi forces ready for a counter-assault.

Among the possible scenarios that may be seen before the end of the year is a lastditch suicide stand by ISIL fighters in the heart of Mosul to try to lure opposing forces into street-by-street urban warfare in buildings that have been laced with booby traps.

Another possibility is that some of the religious zealots responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis since 2014 will flee west across the desert towards Syria to link up with ISIL fighters there.

Others could move on from Syria to Europe in small groups to carry out high-profile bombings and abductions, or to the Maghreb or French West Africa to cause mayhem there.

Aid organizations have already warned that yet another humanitarian crisis is pending for a region that has had several decades of them. As many as 700,000 people are thought to still be trapped in the city because ISIL often kills those who try to escape.

The best end to the insanity of ISIL will be if it collapses quickly. That remains a possibility, because ISIL is seriously overmatched militarily in western Iraq.

But there are no certainties when confronting extremists who regard death as martyrdom and martyrdom as victory.