After ‘Historic Victory,’ a Flag Was Raised on a Hill in Key Syrian Border Town

that’s reason enough to volunteer right there....

Leo: I like the way you think re “to hit Raqqa with a small nuke”. Would certainly get rid of a problem and ISIS’s headquarters.

Maybe we can sing “Rockin’ the Raqqa” (re “Rockin’ the Casbah”) or an even older song (and one of my favorites), Bobby Day’s “Rockin’ Robin”, i.e, “Rockin’ Raqqa”.

Then again, John Lee Hooker had it right too, in his “Boom, Boom, Boom!”

Or, as the Persh Merga said to ISIS at Kobani, “Hit the Road Jack, and Don’t Come Back No More, No More, Hit the Rock Jack, and Don’t Come Back No More!”

Toby Keith was more direct to Sadam Hussein, “we’ll put a boot up your ass”, and did. The last time we were allowed to win anything.

Obama’s favorite songs have the word “YELLOW” in them, as in “Mellow Yellow” and retreating down the “Yellow Brick Road”.

We should paint a Yellow Streak right down the middle of the White House to show the world what Obama really stands for.

I’d call him a “surrender monkey” but I don’t want to insult monkeys who will fight for territory and to protect their women from aggressors.

Hummm! “Surrender Monkey” and “Yellow Bananas” re Obama. I think I’m on to something. Now what could that be?

BeauBo: If we see B-52’s moving into a forward position, the it will mean we will start destroying ISIS’s outer defense walls around Mosul. But again, Obama is such a coward that he would be yelling “collateral damage” and call the attacks off.

I hate commies in the White House.

We need to start making ‘examples’

Start with Raqqah .....green glass where a town used to stand.

Then tell the Iranians they are next unless they surrender all their nuke facilities immediately .

Stop screwing around

We (Iraqis, Kurds and Iranians) won’t need B-52’s to get into Mosul.

ISIS is trying to dig trenches around the city (A famous tactic used by Muhammed to defend Medina), but such trenches would be a typical obstacle for Combat Engineers, with their armored bulldozers, rather than B-52’s. They will get some trenches and fighting positions developed by Summer, but we will be watching what they build. They don’t have the capability to build any kind of showstopper great wall - just hinderances that could marginally slow things or increase casualties.

No Government wants to level its own cities, and neither do the Iraqis. ISIS is a small minority in the city, even if the majority Sunni population was initially glad to see them (after a few years of Shia rule giving them the shaft). ISIS has less support from the population now, and most will likely be non-combatants.

Unless ISIS can muster a major mobilization of new fighters, it will be more like a big cordon and search operation - only blowing things up when they are firing from there, or intel pinpoints them. The main effort will be urban warfare and countering guerrillas and terrorists after occupying the city.

We’ll see how things shape up as the buildup develops - will the population rally to support ISIS, or jam the phones calling in their positions? Will ISIS reinforce or withdraw? No doubt they will deploy a bunch of suicide bombers in any case, but to really hold a big city will require sustained mid to high intensity combat. Supplying that much ammo and taking hundreds of casualties a day will test them as never before.

A lot will depend on how things are going elsewhere. If ISIS is getting coordinated major attacks on several fronts, it might abandon Mosul. If that is their only big threat at that time though, they could focus a big effort in Mosul.

And there is the possibility that the whole thing could settle into a protracted Sectarian Sunni/Shia human rights violation contest.

However it goes, I am still calling it the “Summer of Death”.

“If my wife goes through with her plan to divorce me, I think I will join up with them.”

That thought is sheer misogynistic madness!

Respect the power of Wymon!

Send her instead.

Is that girl with her hand on the muzzle of her gun the famous warrioratrix “Holy Hand”?

The Allawites started out with more guns, but there is an advantage of having more people like the Sunnis because when someone dies, someone else can just pick up the gun and continue the fight.

The Allawites will run out of people before Sunnis run out of guns.

Hurrah!

“The Allawites will run out of people before Sunnis run out of guns”

That is the way that it has been going. If Iran had not jumped in and brought HizbAllah with them, the Allawites would be further down that road by now.

The Allawite community will suffer under ISIS rule - at a minimum economic oppression, at the worst, genocide.

The “Arab Spring” and the war in Syria is already the largest refugee event since WWII. If the jihadis take over, a lot of Alawites will have to flee, taking a big chunk of Syria’s technical and managerial elite with them.

Re ISIS defenses around Mosul. My son and part of his Engineering unit accompanied Kuwaiti engineers when they crossed into Iraq and broke through sand berms and tank ditches (which were filled in with berm sand). However, this was only after the Iraqi border towers had been totally wiped out so that there would be no warnings given to Iraqi artillery/tanks etc.

These were middle level berms not the big ones like the Moroccans put up to (and did) stop POLISARIO vehicle forces from raiding Army camps (which they had done very successfully until the berms went up).

Berms and trenches in front of an enemy’s position will cost you lives that you don’t want to lose. B-52’s can obliterate massive berms and trenches in a single run without losing any good guys on the ground.

If you’ve got ‘em, use ‘em.

House to house urban fighting against a fanatical force is very costly in lives, as American and Iraqi forces found out in Fallujah I and II. I would have preferred to level small areas to wipe out snipers and bunker/houses concentrations as a demonstration to those who were left as to what was coming down the pike unless they fled or surrendered.

What I would like to know is how many ISIS troops are actually occupying Mosul (a figure I’ve never seen) and how many Sunnis are actually helping them (a figure that can only be a guessestimate).

Also, has ISIS cut off escape routes for the civilian population, thus making them hostages in their own homes?

And if ISIS does flee, how, through what road routes out of the city, and to where? If we know that, we can leave them a way out and then blast the hell out of them in the open.

A few will fight to the death so it is our duty to kill them, dead.

Standoff tactics keep your casualties down while whittling down the forces of a surrounded/entrenched enemy. A good commander doesn’t sacrifice his men in frontal attacks if there are other viable alternatives available.

Kudos to your son for serving.

The combat engineers were a major force in both the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the the Desert Storm invasion. A friend of mine led a tank company into Iraq during Desert Storm, and spoke very highly of their Engineers, who breached obstacles in minutes, and buried a significant percentage of the enemy right into their positions, allowing quick breakthroughs and securing their rear as the moved to follow-on objectives. In some cases, the tanks did not even have to halt their forward movement.

In both of those cases, enemy defenses had been defeated in detail by airpower, before the assault.

I am not opposed to the use of B-52’s, or any other weapon system, I’m just saying that they are less suited to the Mosul operation (campaign, maybe), for a few reasons.

1. A dense urban environment loaded with civilians would likely produce an excess of collateral damage - not a downside for many of the cheering section here, but a big concern for commanders and their JAGs. If there are some defenses outside the city in the open, then sure, why not? Those suckers are sitting ducks. In the city, its safer for the boss’ career to let the Iraqis do the demolitions/war crimes.

2. The attack will take place under the Obama administration. They will be less likely to allow significant B-52 strikes in the city, if at all.

3. The Iraqi Gov’t should, and likely will, strongly oppose excessive damage to the city before the assault, hoping for a quick victory, and fearing the later political recriminations from locals We already see that, with the Kurds restricting rocket fire into the city.. If the attack becomes a protracted meat grinder, all bets are off though.

4. Even if we bomb a trench line, we would still need the Engineers to level a route through the debris, and clear remaining mines for vehicles to get through. A heavy armored combat earthmover could probably breach their defenses almost as quick as clear bomb damage.

5. At some critical urban chokepoints, excessive bomb damage could impede you more than the enemy obstacles (like the earlier post on Stalingrad mentioned).

6. I doubt that ISIS will be near as effective in building defenses as the Ba’ath Party was. Their strength is small unit infantry tactics, against people who are unwilling or unable to mount a good fight. No more tanks for them since airstrikes started, and little ability to use indirect artillery, much less large scale engineering.

7. They have a lot of frontage to cover around a big city, with stretched resources. What defenses they prepare could often be by-passed.

8. Hopefully, it won’t be American troops on the assault, but rather a big bunch Shia militiamen in flip-flops with AKs, led by Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen. They can throw bodies at the problem. The Kurds are a different story, but their leadership conserves their troops, unlike the current Iranian proclivity.

So B-52’s shaking them awake three nights before the assault to get them ready to run would be fine, but outside of town, with precision strikes in town.

Your proposal of leaving a door open for retreat, along a long, open “Highway of Death” kill zone, would be ideal. As you mentioned though, the civilian population will likely be fleeing as well.

Highway 1 to the West, and through Tal Afar, is the main (and only significant) route of retreat for ISIS from Mosul. If that route is blocked, the local jihadis will probably hide their guns and go back to their day jobs, while the foreigners get bayoneted.