Iraq announces 'Phase 2' of Mosul Op against Daesh

The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) began the second phase of their offensive against Daesh militants in Mosul today, pushing into some eastern districts where the battle has been in deadlock for nearly a month.

Thousands of federal police who redeployed from Mosul’s southern outskirts two weeks ago also pushed into a handful of southeastern districts, state television reported.

“This is the second phase of the operation to liberate Mosul conducted by the special forces, the federal police and us on this front,” General Najm Al-Jibouri, a senior army commander, told Reuters in a village just north of Mosul.

Since the offensive to capture Mosul began nine weeks ago, counterterrorism forces have captured only a handful of districts, whilst maintaining a presence in others where they are fighting punishing battles against Daesh.

The ISF entered an “operational refit” earlier this month after sustaining heavy losses in men and materiel, the first significant pause of the campaign.

An officer from an elite Interior Ministry unit said today that it was advancing alongside the Counter Terrorism Service’s (CTS) forces in Mosul’s Intisar district – a district on the eastern edge of the city which was supposed to have already been liberated – where army troops advised by US forces had made little progress.

“Our troops now are advancing. In the first five or ten minutes they took 500 metres. Just now they are starting to shoot,” the officer claimed.

A plume of white smoke, likely from an airstrike, rose from a southeastern district this morning while at the northern front heavy gunfire was audible and a suicide car bomb was disabled by the Iraqi army before reaching its target.

Deeper US engagement as Iraqi forces stumble

 The battle for Mosul involves 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of the Kurdish Peshmerga and Iran-backed and state-sanctioned Shia militias, and is the biggest ground operation in Iraq since the US-led invasion of 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein.

US commanders have said in recent weeks that US military “advisers”, part of an international coalition fighting Daesh, will embed more extensively with Iraqi forces. Some of them were seen behind the frontlines today, watching over the operations.

The coalition bombed the last remaining bridge connecting the eastern and western parts of Mosul late on Monday in a bid to make it more difficult for Daesh to redeploy and resupply its fighters across the Tigris River.

“The enemy is currently isolated [on the eastern] bank of Mosul,” Yahia Rasool, a military spokesman, said on state TV. “In the coming days, Iraqi forces will liberate the entire left bank of Mosul and after that we will tackle the right.”

However, Rasool’s remarks can be seen as being overly optimistic, particularly in light of the fact that the ISF is still fighting in the Intisar and Sumer districts, and are still quite a distance from the river. They have also likely sustained losses of over 5,000 men killed.

The United Nations has previously expressed concern that the destruction of Mosul’s bridges could obstruct the evacuation of civilians. Up to 1.5 million are thought to remain inside.

Mosul, the largest city held by Daesh anywhere across its once vast territorial holdings in Iraq and neighbouring Syria, has been held by the group since its fighters drove the US-trained Iraqi army out in June 2014.

Its fall would probably spell the end for the group’s ambition to rule over millions of people in a self-styled caliphate, but the fighters would likely still mount a traditional insurgency in Iraq, and plot or inspire attacks on the West.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi, who previously pledged to retake Mosul by the end of the year, said this week it would take another three months to rout Daesh in Iraq, all but admitting that he failed in his pledge.