Posted on 03/24/2016 6:56:25 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
ISIS may face its most serious military challenge — a squeeze on two fronts in the coming weeks from the east and the west. After almost two years of controlling the city of Mosul in Nineveh province, ISIS faces a grim prospect of encirclement and destruction if the combined Iraq-US offensive launched today succeeds in its initial missions. So far, as the Associated Press reports, the liberators have the momentum:
The Iraqi military backed by U.S.-led coalition aircraft on Thursday launched a long-awaited operation to recapture the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State militants, a military spokesman said.
In the push, Iraqi forces retook several villages on the outskirts of the town of Makhmour, east of Mosul, early in the morning on Thursday and hoisted the Iraqi flag there, according to the spokesman for the Joint Military Command, Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool.
It was not immediately clear how long such a complex and taxing offensive would take. Only recently, Iraqi and U.S. officials refrained to give a specific time on when the Mosul operation could begin, saying it would take many months to prepare Iraq’s still struggling military for the long-anticipated task of retaking the key city.
Now we know why the US has 5,000 troops in Iraq, although we still haven’t gotten any good answers as to why we didn’t put them there two years ago, or leave them in place five years ago. Marines have apparently been softening up these ISIS positions for weeks with artillery support in advance of this operation. It’s hardly been a secret that the next major operation had to wrest Mosul back from ISIS, but it has been a long time coming — and it might be a long time still. The AP notes that sources in both the Iraqi and US military aren’t sure that Mosul can be taken within this year — promising a long, bloody, and house-to-house battle of the kind the US conducted in Fallujah and Ramadi years ago.
On ISIS’ western front, Bashar al-Assad’s forces have recovered enough during the cease-fire of its civil war to enter Palmyra, which fell last year in what was considered “a strategic disaster” for the anti-ISIS coalition:
Syrian government forces have entered the ancient town of Palmyra seized by Islamic State (IS) militants last year, state TV has said.
However, a monitoring group said the fighting was still outside the city, Reuters news agency reports.
Officials launched an offensive to retake the city earlier this month, backed by Russian air strikes.
The Syrians claim to have captured the hotel district in western Palmyra. That has not yet been confirmed independently, but the two actions will tax ISIS’ capabilities. It might have them thinking twice about their war against Europe, especially as fighters become more scarce on both fronts. That is precisely why a forward strategy is necessary to defeat terror networks, and why a ground war is necessary to kill off a terror network that holds significant territory. At the very least, it forces terrorists to pit their strength against military units prepared to fight, rather than civilians in cities far from battlefields unprepared for attacks.
The recapture of both cities will be a welcome development in the war against ISIS, but neither city will ever be the same. The ancient ruins of Palmyra, of such archeological and historical import, have been destroyed forever. In Mosul, an ancient Assyrian Christian culture has been demolished after two millennia of existence, and it seems unlikely that it will return to its previous status even after liberation. We have allowed ISIS to commit genocides and destroy our shared cultural heritage, and that will be a stain on the West for millennia to come.
It begins... This is the big one to get rid of ISIS in Iraq. I believe the only other major city besides Mosul that they control in Iraq is Fallujah. If MOSUL falls, they will have to fall back into Syria as their main supply routes into Iraq will all be cut off. However, I have read a number of American Generals whose frank assessments were that this cannot be done this year. That the Iraqis are overly optimistic in trying to take Mosul this year.
National embarrassment. We took Mosul in 2004. No real estate is as expensive as the land you pay for twice...in blood. Bastards running this country!
Congress needs to be decimated. 10% of congress should be randomly assigned as infantry PFCs here.
And 5000? You can bet they don’t have organic armor and all the toys. Doing it on the cheap with a smallish force, and with spec ops. That’s not enough to take and hold.
“However, I have read a number of American Generals whose frank assessments were that this cannot be done this year”
I read that too. It’s disgraceful. Normandy, smashing the Wehrmacht and standing in the Wolfs Lair. 11 months flat.
Now it takes almost that long to take Mosul, maybe, from a band of undisciplined amateurs.
Hint: 5,000 troops don’t come with journalists like 50,000 troops do.
Still, its more of this “finesse” BS instead of crushing power. Smart bombs, tiny forces, and deft little strategic moves all have one critical failing.
The defeated never get the message that they were defeated. Their hearts aren’t broken, and they aren’t left in devastation. They are left thinking they were simply tricked or outsmarted.
This crap will never end and we will be in the middle east 15 years from now until they get the Germany and Japan treatment.
“...although we still haven’t gotten any good answers as to why we didn’t put them there two years ago, or leave them in place five years ago”
You gotta be Fkn kidding me! Only A Dem won’t admit and an MSM-captive isn’t aware that the Dem Congress cut Iraq’s Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funds beginning in 2007. No money, no troops.
And they still haven’t funded counter-ISIS Ops. It’s all being done within existing budgets, on a shoe string. I can’t tell you the amount of times I heard the local Colonel yelling into the phone “there is NO MONEY” during my stint in Baghdad last year. Everyone needed something. No one had funds.
Disgusting. All the counter-ISIS talk is political show. They’ve not allocated funds.
Back in World War II, you just leveled the entire town. Nothing living. Have not seen that since Grozny. Although some of this may have occurred in Syria recently.
They being Congress. The 2007 Dem-controlled Congress. They cut Iraq’s OCO funding thereby necessitating withdrawal.
The Democrats turned on Iraq in a craven pursuit of political power and money.
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