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With American-backed ground forces poised to recapture Mosul in Iraq and Raqqah in Syria, Islamic States de facto capitals, U.S. commanders are confident they soon will vanquish the militant group from its self-declared caliphate after three years of fighting.

But the White House has yet to define strategy for the next step in the struggle to restore stability in the region, including key decisions about safe zones, reconstruction, nascent governance, easing sectarian tensions and commitment of U.S. troops.

Nor has the Trump administration set policy for how it will confront forces from Iran and Russia, the two outside powers that arguably gained the most in the bitter conflict and that now are hoping to collect the spoils and expand their influence.

Iran, in particular, is pushing to secure a land corridor from its western border across Iraq and Syria and up to Lebanon, where it supports Hezbollah militants, giving it a far larger foothold in the turbulent region.

Right now everyone is positioned for routing Islamic State without having the rules of the road, said Michael Yaffe, a former State Department envoy for the Middle East who is now vice president of the Middle East and Africa center at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Thats a dangerous situation.

The risk of a broader confrontation was clear in recent weeks when a U.S. F/A-18 shot down a Syrian fighter jet for the first time in the multi-sided six-year war, provoking an angry response from Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashar Assad.

U.S. warplanes also destroyed two Iranian-made drone aircraft, although its not clear who was flying them. The Pentagon said all the attacks were in self-defense as the aircraft approached or fired on American forces or U.S.-backed Syrian fighters.

What I worry about is the muddled mess scenario, said Ilan Goldenberg, a former senior State Department official who now heads the Middle East program at the nonpartisan Center for a New American Security. When you start shooting down planes and running into each other, it quickly goes up the escalation ladder.

The clashes occurred in eastern Syria, where Russian-backed Syrian and Iranian forces are pushing against U.S. special operations forces and U.S.-backed Syrian opposition fighters trying to break Islamic States hold on the Euphrates River valley south of Raqqah and into Iraq.

Except for a few towns, Islamic State still controls the remote area, and U.S. officials fear the militants could regroup there and plan future attacks. Many of the groups leaders and operatives have taken shelter in Dair Alzour province.

As a candidate, President Trump promised to announce in his first month in office a new strategy for defeating Islamic State. As president, he has promised for more than a month to hold a news conference to discuss the effort.

He has yet to do either. But an intense debate is underway among the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House over the way forward. At least in public, Defense Secretary James N. Mattis and national security advisor H.R. McMaster have signaled different priorities.

The Pentagon argues that it only aims to defeat Islamic State and has no intention of being pulled into a conflict with Iran. Mattis, who is wary of what he calls mission creep, has advocated de-confliction zones that would essentially divvy up Syria and keep competing forces apart.

We just refuse to get drawn in to a fight there in the Syria civil war, he told reporters Monday on a visit to Europe for North Atlantic Treaty Organization meetings.

Mattis acknowledged that military planning and operations have grown more difficult in eastern Syria because of the close proximity of Syrian, Iranian and Russian forces on one side, and U.S. troops and American-backed militias on the other.

Youve got to really play this thing very carefully, and the closer we get, the more complex it gets, he said.

Two days later, McMaster offered a different perspective. He called the war against Islamic State one part of a much broader campaign aimed at blocking transnational terrorist groups from taking root.

Speaking at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank, he argued that Iran is a disruptive force and suggested U.S. policy in the post-Islamic State era will focus increasingly on isolating Tehran and preventing it from expanding its influence.

He gave few specifics beyond pulling back the curtain on Tehrans purported malign deeds, including support for Houthi rebels in Yemen and Shiite militias in Iraq, as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Iran is feeding this cycle of sectarian conflict to keep the Arab world perpetually weak, McMaster said. He estimated that 80% of Assads effective fighters in Syria were Iranian proxies.

Russia is fighting in Syria to prop up Assad, a key ally in the region, and to maintain its only foreign naval base, which is on the Syrian coast. Irans goals are more ambitious as Tehran tries to build a Shiite crescent of nations that would extend from the Arabian Sea, across Iraq and into Syria and out to the Mediterranean.

The situation in Syria could not be more complex, McMaster said.

Hawks in the White House are eager to block or rein in Iran, while the State Department and the Pentagon are trying to apply the brakes to avoid a direct confrontation, one official involved in the debate said.

Diplomats and some at the Pentagon warn that fighting Iran in Syria could prove futile or disastrous. They also warn of blowback in Iraq, where U.S. diplomats and soldiers are working in a delicate balance with local Shiite leaders to contain Iranian influence.

Is eastern Syria where the Trump administration wants to draw the line on Iran? asked Robert S. Ford, who left Syria in 2014 as the last U.S. ambassador there. The question for the administration is how to confront Iran in eastern Syria, and is that the right place?

Equally unclear is whether the White House will back Assad, whose hold on power now seems all but assured. Unlike the Obama administration, Trump has not called on the Syrian autocrat to hand power to a transition government or made a major diplomatic effort to persuade warring parties into negotiations.

I've seen no evidence that theyve given much thought to how you would bring the Syria conflict to resolution and how you would achieve a durable ceasefire, said Ford, now a fellow at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank.

Unlike in Iraq, the State Department has no government partner in Syria to help remove mines, restore electricity and otherwise help the stricken country recover after a war that has leveled ancient cities and left an estimated 400,000 dead so far.

Current and former U.S. officials say a strategy is needed to maintain peace among rival tribal leaders, to promote reform, to stamp out radical ideology even just to pay police and get schools and hospitals working again.

The next Syria may look a lot like the emerging Iraq, where diplomats are forced to accept a de facto partition of the country along sectarian and tribal lines, while Islamic State reverts to a violent insurgency rather than a quasi-state.

Syria will continue to exist as one country on a map, said Derek Chollet, a former senior Pentagon official who is now an expert on security and defense policy at the German Marshall Fund. But it is hard to imagine it being governed from Damascus.

The growing concern about the next step comes as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces appear within days of ejecting the last few hundred Islamic State fighters from their redoubt in the crowded warren of Mosuls Old City.

On Thursday, Iraqi troops retook the iconic Nuri mosque, which militants destroyed last month and where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Baghdadi proclaimed the caliphate, or religious empire, three years ago.

In Syria, a U.S.-backed alliance of Syrian Kurds and Arab militias has steadily closed in on Raqqah, encircling the city after heavy fighting. Much of Islamic States leadership already has fled east, U.S. officials say.

While the battle wont end once Mosul and Raqqah fall, the White House must decide whether to continue to arm and protect its proxy forces as Syria and Iran seek to consolidate their gains.

U.S. commanders say thousands of American troops should stay in Iraq to bolster the Iraqi army, which collapsed and fled when the militants first arrived on pickup trucks in 2014, three years after President Obama withdrew most U.S. troops from the country.

A tougher challenge lies in Syria, where the U.S. military has not been invited by the government and has no large fixed bases. The Pentagon has deployed hundreds of special operations forces and conventional troops to support the Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of Kurdish and Arab rebel groups that oppose Assad.

If the U.S. military pulls out, it could give a green light to Assad and Irans forces to turn their firepower on the U.S.-backed militias, potentially a nightmare scenario.

Pressure is growing on Capitol Hill for the White House to articulate a longer-term strategy for when the Islamic State threat has been neutralized.

In a surprise vote Thursday, the House Armed Services Committee approved an amendment from Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) that would repeal a 2001 authorization for use of military force, or AUMF, that three administrations have used as the basis for continued military action in the region.

A small cadre of lawmakers has argued for years that U.S. involvement now goes beyond what was authorized in the post-9/11 AUMF. Until now, leaders in both parties showed little appetite to sunset the measure or amend it for the current war.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), a former Air Force pilot in Iraq and Afghanistan, said any post-Islamic State strategy must go beyond military calculations. He was critical of a White House proposal to slash funding for the State Department and international development.

We have to understand that its not just about winning todays war on terror, he said at an event hosted by the Heritage Foundation. Its about winning the next-generational war on terror.

tracy.wilkinson@latimes.com

Twitter: @TracyKWilkinson

william.hennigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @wjhenn

michael.memoli@latimes.com

Twitter: @mikememoli

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'The closer we get, the more complex it gets.' White House struggles on strategy as Islamic State nears defeat in ... - Los Angeles Times

Erik De Castro/Reuters Iraqi counter-terrorism forces near the ruins of the Grand al-Nuri Mosque, Mosul, June 29, 2017

As an eight-month battle to retake Mosul from ISIS is coming to an end in the labyrinthine alleyways of the Old City, a parallel battle to defeat its fighters in the Syrian town of Raqqa is gathering force. But further battles await: downstream along the Euphrates in Deir al-Zour, in the vast desert that spans the IraqSyria border, and in a large chunk of territory west of the Iraqi city of Kirkuk. To members of the US-led coalition and to Western audiences, this has been a necessary military campaign, directed at a jihadist group whose brutal methods and ambition to carry out attacks in western capitals pose an intolerable threat.

To local people, the picture is decidedly different. ISISs military defeat, which Western officials believe will come sometime later this year or early next, will hardly put an end to the conflicts that gave rise to the group. For much of the battle against ISIS has taken place in a region that has been fought over ever since oil was found in Kirkuk in the 1930s. The deeper conflicts herebetween Arabs and Kurds, between Shia and Sunni, between neighboring powers such as Iran and Turkey, and among the Kurds themselveswill only escalate as the victors, fortified by weapons supplies and military training provided by foreign governments, engage in a mad scramble for the spoils.

When ISIS conquered Iraqs predominantly Sunni Arab areas three years ago, it faced off with Kurdish forces along a frontline that ran through the middle of what one might call the borderlands between Arab Iraq, with Baghdad as its capital, and Kurdish Iraq, which is governed from Erbil in the north. Kurdish leaders claim that significant parts of these so-called disputed territories are Kurdistani, by which they mean that even if the local population is not majority-Kurdish, it nevertheless should be incorporated into the Kurdish regionand thus into a desired future Kurdish state. Many local Arabs, on the other hand, insist that these areas are inalienably Iraqi and must remain under Baghdads authority.

The problem of the disputed territories was recognized in the post-2003 Iraqi constitution, which laid out a plan for resolving their status. That never came to pass. Then, ISISs arrival provided Kurdish leaders with what they thought was an opportunity to settle the matter in their favor, having gained considerable territory in the fight against the jihadist group. But this has only inflamed tensions further.

Kurdish leaders rightly see ISIS as the result of an ideological marriage between Arab chauvinists and Islamist radicals, both equally intolerant of the ethnic and religious other, with the religious strand currently dominant. But many Kurds fail to appreciate that among Sunni Arabs in northern Iraq, ISIS also draws on anger over Kurdish actions in the disputed territories, especially around Mosul and in Kirkuk. With the central government weak, many of these local Arabs appear to accept the protection of just about any political group that will keep the Kurds away, even if that group is ISIS.

It is important to remember that ISIS began in Iraq and that the majority of its leadership and followers are Iraqi (even if it was founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian); it has been able to attract foreign elements mainly because of its willingness to fight the Syrian regime and its pledge to establish a caliphate. ISISs military defeat may take care of the foreign component, but surviving Iraqi followers, deeply enmeshed in the local population through family and tribal ties, will pose a long-term challenge, including in the disputed territories.

*

These territories have a richly diverse population that, in addition to Arabs and Kurds, also includes Turkmen, Chaldean and Assyrian Christians, Yazidis, and even smaller groups. The region also happens to be rich in oil. It stretches from the Iranian border in the south to the Syrian border in the north, skirting the Kurdish mountains. This used to be a strategic trade route, protected by garrison towns that Ottoman rulers settled with soldiers and artisans from Central Asia, who came to be referred to as Turkmen. At its center sit the province and city of Kirkuk. The regime of Saddam Hussein targeted these areas for demographic engineering: it forced or otherwise induced many local Kurds to move to the Kurdish region, and it settled Arabs from other parts of Iraq in Kirkuk and around the oil fields. The US invasion reversed this. The Kurdish parties and associated militias took control of large parts of the disputed territories, including Kirkuk, and started providing incentives for displaced Kurds to return; they settled other Kurds in these areas as well, and drove out Arab residents brought by the previous regime. Ever since, there have been high tensions but a fragile peace. That may soon be ending.

Three recent events foreshadow the battle to come. The first was the announcement in early June by Masoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdish region, that he intends to stage a referendum on Kurdish independence on September 25. This would not be the first such exercise; an earlier one took place twelve years ago. And just like that one, this referendum will have mainly symbolic valuethe UN mission in Iraq has refused any part in it because it has no backing from the Iraqi government. But the announcement also had a dimension so inflammatory it could ignite civil war: Barzani made clear that the referendum should be held not just within the boundaries of the Kurdish region, but also in those parts of the disputed territories with Kurdishbut not exclusively Kurdishpopulations currently under Kurdish militia control. In other words, this is an undisguised unilateral attempt to annex these areas to what he hopes will become an independent Kurdish state. As one of his advisors told me at the outset of the Mosul campaign last year, War has its own logic, but we should try to shape it.

The second event was the decision by Najmaldin Karim, the governor of Kirkuk, to make the Kurdish regions flag an official symbol of the province. The Kurdish parties local headquarters had long hoisted the flag there; non-Kurds, who have come to grudgingly accept Kurdish domination, put up with it. But in March, the governor, a Kurd, decided to put a motion before the provincial council to permit the flag to be flown from government buildings alongside the Iraqi one. Since the Kurdish parties hold a majority on the council, a boycott by Arab and Turkmen council members amounted to little more than a token show of dissent. And so the flag was raised on several government buildings, and predictably angry protests broke out. Even some Kurdish politicians called it an unnecessary provocation.

Opponents argued that the flag incident showed Barzanis intent to annex Kirkuk, and warned that this would start a civil war. Karim argued that flying the flag would appease Kurdish nationalists and prevent them from attempting to annex Kirkuk to the Kurdish region. However, the most persuasive analysis I heard was that Karim meant to precipitate a small crisis in order to get Baghdad to focus on the Kurds demands for independence. If this was his motive, he succeeded, but at the cost of greater turmoil in Kirkuk.

The third event was the push to the Iraq-Syria border by Iran-backed Shia militias, part of the so-called Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization), in late May. The Hashd were established in 2014 to counter the ISIS onslaught in Iraq, but are in fact a reincarnation of irregular armed groups that first stepped into the security vacuum created when the US Coalition Provisional Authority dismantled the Iraqi army in 2003. Their purpose then was to protect Shia Islamist parties, which came to power soon after. The collapse of the Shia-dominated army in Mosul and elsewhere in June 2014 gave the militias renewed legitimacy: their task was now to protect the country from ISIS.

These militias arrival at the Syrian border, an area with no Shia population, was without precedent and appeared to be part of an effort inspired by Iran to connect the Iraqi and Syrian battlefields, intertwine the two countries political fates, and possibly create a continuous land route between Iran and Lebanon. Their military feat means that if Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods (Jerusalem) force, wanted to travel from Tehran to Beirut, he could now do so by car, driving through territory that, while not necessarily hospitable, is controlled by either Iranian proxies or allies, or by groups with which hecould strike a tactical deal (all the while snapping selfies, as he often does).

The militias advance also means that these primarily Sunni Arab areas of Iraq are now controlled by forces that report to the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, which takes a dim view of Kurdish claims to Kirkuk and other disputed territories. Hashd commanders have expressed confidence that their presence in the disputed territories and their official status as state agents will ensure that these areas remain under Iraqi control. Already they have pushed back against the presence of Kurdish fighters in several places, occasionally deploying local Sunni fighters as their auxiliaries.

From conversations with scores of officials and civilians in Kirkuk and other disputed territories over the past fifteen years, I know that most local Arabs and Turkmen will never accept secession from Iraq under Kurdish rule. Many would prefer that Kirkuk become a stand-alone region whose population would benefit directly from its oil wealth rather than seeing revenues vanish into Baghdads or Erbils coffersboth capitals notorious for deeply-entrenched corruption.

Opponents of Barzanis Kurdish referendum can be expected to respond in several ways between now and September: their political representatives will appeal to Iraqs supreme court to declare the exercise illegal in the disputed territories, areas that remain formally under Baghdads jurisdiction; they will also ask the central government to try to prevent the referendum from taking place. If these efforts fail, many Arabs and Turkmen are likely to boycott the vote, and some may resort to violence. A local politician told me when I visited Kirkuk at the end of May, We will never give Kirkuk to the Kurds, and will fight for it if we must.

*

Despite the Kurds position of strength in the campaign against ISIS, they may find their aspirations for independence frustrated once again. The odds against successboth internal and externalremain formidable. Barzani may be the president of the Kurdish region, but he has twice overstayed his legal term and is seen by his Kurdish opponents as leader of only part of the region, namely that which is controlled by his Kurdistan Democratic Party. In Suleimaniya province, Barzani and his KDP have no traction; it is run jointly through an uneasy relationship between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (previously led by the former president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, now incapacitated), which holds military power, and a reform-minded group called Gorran that split off from the PUK and which has majority political support.

Unaffiliated activists agreed that Barzani is so unpopular in Suleimaniya that while many Kurds there support the notion of independence, they would reject it under Barzanis leadership. Importantly, Shorsh Haji, a Gorran official, said that Barzani has to include Kirkuk in the referendum, lest he be seen as forfeiting the Kurds claim to it, but that practically he cannot include it because Baghdad wont allow it. In the end, he said, the Kurds cannot impose a solution for Kirkuk and other disputed territories; the matter can be resolved only through negotiations with Baghdad.

Baghdad may currently be weak, but it has powerful allies that also want to prevent Kurdish independence. Iran is dead-set against it, and has already declared its opposition to the referendum. Turkey also opposes Kurdish independence but is content to let Iran undermine it through threats and intimidation, at which it has proven particularly adept in the past. Iran is also using Shia militias to force Sunni Arabs to seek shelter in Kirkuk, thereby affecting the ethnic balance. Both Iran (which supports the PUK) and Turkey (which backs the KDP) are experts at exploiting intra-Kurdish divisions, and will conspire against a drive for Kurdish independence that could only further incite their own Kurdish populations.

For all his provocation, Karim, the Kirkuk governor, is also on record as opposing, at least for now, Kirkuks accession to the Kurdish region. He told me that he supports a stand-alone region for an interim period, to be followed by a separate referendum that he expects will be favored, not only by Kurdish inhabitants, but also by considerable numbers of Arabs and Turkmen. The reason they would do so, he said, is that they would by then have seen the economic and security benefits of Kurdish rule. This is a questionable argument. Kirkuk has been under Kurdish rule almost since the US army supported it in 2003, and non-Kurds seem to feel that this situation does not benefit them. Security tends to be good for Kurdish residents; non-Kurds who criticize the Kurdish parties experience harassment and intimidation. Two Arab council members have been assassinated in the past four yearstheir political allies say by the Kurds; the Kurds say by ISIS. (The Kurdish parties, which are in charge of local government, security, intelligence, and the police, have yet to produce evidence pointing to the murderers.)

The complaints go further. To ensure compliance, the Kurdish parties in Kirkuk extend favors to non-Kurdish politicians; every transaction is quid pro quo, and the Kurds can set the terms. Longtime Arab residents of Kirkuk who own property and hold a public-sector job are subject to deportation from the province if they are found to have ID indicating they once resided elsewhere. They, and internally displaced persons, can prevent forced migration if they go to one of the Kurdish partiesnot the local governmentand declare their political loyalty (to be proven, say, at the time of the referendum) in exchange for a much-prized ID card allowing them to stay. None of this resembles the brutal tactics of the former regime, but Saddams enforcers also used these types of inducements in order to change Kirkuks demographic (for example by forcing Turkmen to declare themselves to be Arabs on their ID cards lest they be treated as Kurds) before they resorted to outright violence.

*

It might be fair to ask whether Arabs and Kurds can continue to live together within the same borders. The Kurds experience with gassing and mass killings by the Saddam regime in the 1980s and Baghdads democratic failings since 2003 have convinced many that it is. This is true especially for the Barzani wing of the Kurdish national movement and was best expressed to me last September by Barzanis nephew, Sirwan Barzani, who has been commander of Kurdish forces south of Mosul: We need to partition this country. Whats the benefit of this famous union of Iraq? There hasnt been a single day in the last hundred years when civilians werent killed. Its a bad marriage.The boundaries of the Kurdish region are very clear. After we have our independence referendum, those who dont want to stay here can go to [the side of] the terrorists.

Already there have been instances of the Kurds themselves uprooting local populations to consolidate their power. In their battles against ISIS, Kurdish forces have destroyed Arab villages in order to ensure the local population, displaced elsewhere in Iraq, will not soon hazard a return. (See reports by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.) The small Arab town of Multaqa in Kirkuk province was leveled in March 2015 by a Kurdish force led by a zealous commander, ostensibly out of military necessity in the fight against ISIS. The fighting is over, but its residents have not been permitted to return because of the towns proximity to the frontline; it is also situated near the main Kirkuk oil field, however, which the Kurds control and claim as part of Kurdistan.

One can see why Kurdish leaders would want to keep potentially hostile Arabs away from a strategic asset such as oil, especially since they tend to view Arabs as potential ISIS sympathizers. Yet a population has been forcibly removed from its lands. Can one expect them to relinquish their legitimate claims to their property, or not to seek revenge when political fortunes turn?

To prevent such a retributive cycle, a new Kurdish policy is needed. But this will require the leadership to understand the problem of Arab radicalism somewhat differently. Kurdish leaders analysis of ISIS contains a fundamental flaw. They correctly see the group as essentially Iraqi, contrary to much Western thinking, which gives outsize emphasis to the foreign fighters in its ranks. As Prime Minister Nechervan Barzani put it to me, What is Daesh? Daesh is the result of wrong policies. To him, Iraq offers an abject lesson of how losers can become dangerous if the victors fail to treat them with respect and dignity. As a result, he said, Daesh was established in this country. It is an Iraqi organization. But the Kurds fail to see how their own actions have also led some in the local Arab population to support ISIS.

A better approach would be for Kurdish leaders to relinquish areas outside the Kurdish region they have taken from ISIS and start negotiations with Baghdad, with the UNs help, over the disputed territories on a district-by-district basis (an effort the UN tried to initiate nine years ago). The negotiations should include the all-important question of oil: who owns it, who obtains the revenues. These are complicated matters, but not unresolvable. The Kurds have the advantage, and they can use their allies in Washington and other western capitals to ensure that negotiations take place and produce a compromise that secures their core interests. Finally, President Masoud Barzani should postpone the independence referendum until these matters are settled, or at least until he has managed to resolve the Kurds own internal discord.

The Trump administration has demonstrated scant interest in what happens in Iraq and Syria after ISIS has been defeated on the battlefield. The US administration reportedly told Kurdish leaders earlier this year that it opposes holding the referendum at this time, in view of the continuing fight against ISIS and Iraqi elections next year. But Barzanis determination to go forward, and the growing tensions among local populations in Kirkuk, around Mosul, and in other parts of the disputed territories wont go away. Consider the words of Lt.-General Vincent Stewart, head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency who discussed the question of Kurdish independence during a Senate testimony in May:

Resolving the Kirkuk oil field, the revenues associated with the oil fields, resolving the ownership of the city of Kirkuk will be significant political challenges for the Iraqi government. Failure to address those challenges, coming up with a political solution, will ultimately result in conflict among all of the parties to resolve this and going back to what could devolve into civil strife in Iraq.Kurdish independence is on a trajectory where it is probably not if but when. And it will complicate the situation unless theres an agreement in Baghdad, an agreement that all of the parties can live with.

The Kurds dont need to stage a referendum to confirm what they already know: that they wish to have their own country. Far more urgent is to settle with Baghdad the unavoidable question of what the boundary will be between the Kurdish entitywhatever its formal statusand the rest of Iraq, and how the natural resources in the disputed territories should be shared or divided. By pressing for a referendum at all costs before reaching an agreement with Baghdad, the Kurds risk losing their current territorial gainsand their position of strength. For they may be challenged not only by a resurgent ISIS, whose remnants have already disappeared into the population and remain a potent force, feeding on deep Arab resentment over Kurdish land and oil grabs, but also by a central government that enjoys the support of neighboring states on the Kurdish question and is emboldened by its forces victory in Mosul.

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Iraq: The Battle to Come | by Joost Hiltermann | NYR Daily | The ... - The New York Review of Books

The ravaged Great Mosque of al-Nuri, as seen through rubble in the Old City of Mosul on Thursday. Iraqi forces say they've recaptured the landmark, where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the group's "caliphate" in 2014. Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

The ravaged Great Mosque of al-Nuri, as seen through rubble in the Old City of Mosul on Thursday. Iraqi forces say they've recaptured the landmark, where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the group's "caliphate" in 2014.

Nearly three years to the day after the leader of ISIS declared the "caliphate" of Iraq and Syria from the pulpit of Mosul's Great Mosque of al-Nuri, the historic structure is back in Iraqi hands.

A military spokesman announced Thursday that Iraqi troops successfully stormed the centuries-old religious landmark, reclaiming the ruins of a building destroyed by ISIS militants last week.

"Their fictitious state has fallen," Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool told state TV, according to Reuters.

The moment marks a major symbolic victory for an Iraqi military that watched in 2014 as ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ushered in a new, bloody era in the country, which was reeling from the Islamic State's territorial gains.

Since then, the Iraqi military has steadily pushed ISIS back, shrinking the territory it holds. Over the past eight months the military has clawed its way deeper into the country's second-largest city, which for years has served as one of the pillars of the Islamic State's territorial claims.

The battle for Mosul has reached what Iraqi authorities believe is the final push, as door-to-door fighting consumes the narrow, densely packed streets of the Old City the last area of Mosul to be occupied by ISIS fighters.

"We will keep following Daesh until we kill and capture the last member in Iraq," Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a statement, referring to ISIS by its acronym in Arabic.

Still, a complete victory remains unfinished for Iraqi troops, which are getting air and logistical support from a U.S.-led coalition. Reuters reports that ISIS militants control less than 1 percent of the city at this point, but reclaiming that area of the city could be difficult because of its layout.

At the same time, an uncertain fate awaits the residents who have been displaced from the city. "Many difficult months lie ahead for the more than 1 million people that were forced to flee their homes, as well as those that remained in Mosul, and survived ISIS brutality and the fight to retake the city," Wendy Taeuber, Iraq country director for the International Rescue Committee, said in a statement.

"Despite the declaration, ISIS still controls some areas in the Old City of Mosul and ongoing fighting will continue to threaten the lives of civilians," she said.

Beyond the battle and even outside Mosul's city limits, another challenge remains, according to West Point's Combating Terrorism Center. The organization released a study Thursday on ISIS' "self-reported military activities in 16 cities" in Iraq and Syria and it cautions that many of the factors that led to the extremist group's rise persist in those two countries.

"This report is not intended to diminish the gains being won on the battlefield by mostly local forces, supported by a variety of external actors," the research center says.

"What this report suggests is that pushing the Islamic State out as the formal governing party in a territory is not a sufficient development when it comes to ending the group's ability to enact violence against individuals in Iraq and Syria," the report adds.

Despite the conclusive connotations of the term "liberation," the center says ISIS has demonstrated its "intention and capability to carry out attacks" in liberated cities.

Indeed, as NPR's Alison Meuse reports, the group's propaganda has undergone a marked shift in tone.

"The idea behind this messaging is two things," Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, a research fellow at the Middle East Forum, tells Alison. "One is, 'We'll still remain,' and the second one [is] encouraging people to keep up the fight."

Read more:
Iraq Reclaims Historic Mosul Mosque, Saying ISIS 'Caliphate' Has Fallen - NPR

MOSUL, IRAQ

Outside the generals office, Raith al-Shababi, an Iraqi Special Forces fighter, flips through Facebook on his phone.

This is my brother, he said, showing a reporter a picture of a young man in a white dress shirt, posing with a serious, thoughtful face.

Daesh, al-Shababi explained, holding his finger up to his head like a gun. Boom, boom. Islamic State militants killed his brother at the age of 21.

Waiting for the generals to escort them on a victory tour of Mosuls Old City, al-Shababi says Mosul has not been completely captured, but the end is near.

But the losses endured over eight months of fighting, three years of IS rule in Mosul and more than a decade of constant extremist attacks, he observes, make the coming milestone more sad than celebratory.

Weve won, but look around you, said Col. Saaed Badeer Katam, of the Special Forces Najaf Battalion. Everything is destroyed.

Even the al-Nuri Mosque, the victory tours destination, is in ruins, with its iconic minaret chopped down and prayer space destroyed. Abu-Bakar al-Baghdadi declared himself Caliph of IS in 2014 in this mosque. Three years later IS destroyed it, apparently just to lessen Iraqs triumph in Mosul.

Living in the battle zone, Col. Katam says he isnt bothered that the declared victory precede the end of the fighting. As he speaks, airstrikes pound IS targets, and militants lob mortars and snap off sniper fire. Soldiers battle house to house, and families continue to flee the fighting.

Katam explodes IEDs that litter the re-captured streets of Old Mosul, hidden in debris and even in childrens toys. Buildings in the area are crushed and abandoned, and militants corpses rot in the streets. Under the piles of rubble are the remains of families killed when houses collapsed in airstrikes, sometimes burying them alive.

I lost 25 of my friends in the fight for Mosul, said Kaisar, 28, an Iraqi Special Forces fighter. When asked if he is happy about the victory, he replies, Im just tired. I want to go home.

Coming battles

For Iraqi fighters, going home will be a break, but not the end of the war. Militants continue hiding out in Iraqi-controlled territory, poised to strike again. IS still holds large parts of Iraq, including parts of Anbar province, Hawija and the strategic city of Tal Afar, according to Col. Katam.

Operations will continue until IS is finished, he noted.

Tal Afar has been surrounded by Popular Mobilization Units, or Hashd Shaaby fighters, since last year, though an advance to retake the city itself has not yet begun.

And the terrain around Tal Afar is so rough that it is impossible to completely secure, added Katam. Militants fleeing other areas will finally retreat to the city if they can.

The last place we fight will be Tal Afar, he said. And there, they will fight to the death.

Hidden militants

Sleeper cells in Iraqi-controlled Mosul already are conducting attacks. Last week three suicide bombers targeted eastern Mosul, killing and maiming people in a market.

Early this week, 40 to 50 militants believed to be hiding out in an abandoned industrial zone overran two neighborhoods of western Mosul in an apparent attempt to distract Iraqi forces from their battle in Old Mosul.

They thought Iraqi forces would leave Old Mosul so some other militants could escape, said Sergeant Mahmoud Mohammad of the Iraqi Armys 9th division. But they failed.

Special Forces and Iraqi Army soldiers killed all of the battling militants, he said, showing us bloodstains on the floor of one house. The blood is still sticky, and two bullet shells are on the floor. Mohammad thinks it was an IS double execution.

Returning neighbors say there was pandemonium when IS showed up in an area controlled by Iraq since mid-April. Families were separated as everyone ran when they saw the bushy beards and traditional clothes. They dont know if anyone was killed.

Soldiers and civilians agree, however, that more sleeper cells are hiding out all over Mosul and that attacks are far from over.

Of course we are always afraid, said Mohammad, a 31-year-old father of seven who lives in Tenek, one of the areas briefly overrun by IS early this week. But where else are we going to go?

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As Mosul Battle Ends, Iraq Forces Brace for Future - Voice of America

Drew Brooks Military editor @DrewBrooks

The 18th Airborne Corps is expected to return to Fort Bragg in September, ending a year-long mission at the helm of the fight against the Islamic State.

By that time, Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend is certain the city of Mosul, Iraq, will be liberated from ISIS. He believes Raqqa, Syria, too, may be freed or well on its way to liberation.

ISIS is close to defeat, Townsend told The Fayetteville Observer from Baghdad on Monday.

But Townsend, the commanding general of the 18th Airborne Corps, Fort Bragg and Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, said he hopes the U.S.-led coalition has a role in Iraq long after ISIS is driven from that country, working with Iraqi forces to ensure they are trained and capable of facing the nation's threats.

That would be a big difference from several years ago. U.S. troops left Iraq in 2011 and did not return until 2014.

In that time, the Iraqi government was nearly overwhelmed by ISIS fighters who were on the doorstep of Baghdad itself.

Weve seen that movie before, Townsend said. My thought is to try something different.

The general said its in the best interests of the government of Iraq, the U.S. and other coalition partners to keep a residual force in the country.

That lasting force, if one is ultimately approved, may or may not involve Fort Bragg soldiers.

With a little less than three months left in their mission in Iraq, the 18th Airborne Corps soldiers can be proud of their support, Townsend said.

Tens of thousands of square kilometers of territory have been wrested from ISIS control, and hundreds of thousands of people have been liberated, he said.

Now, Fort Bragg soldiers are helping train the troops who will be sent to replace them from Fort Hood, Texas.

Once home, Townsend said, the 18th Airborne Corps will turn its attention to its next fight, wherever that may be.

No moss ever grows on the 18th Airborne Corps. It doesnt sit at home very long, he said.

Townsend said the international coalition is committed to making Iraqi forces successful.

This is the worlds fight against a brutal ideology that has to be defeated, that has to be destroyed," he said.

The general saw ISIS' impact up close last month, when he was visiting troops near the front lines of the battle to free Mosul on the same day ISIS fighters destroyed the famed al-Nuri Mosque.

Townsend said he recalled looking out over the mosque and its famous leaning minaret a few hours before the 12th century landmark was reduced to rubble.

The destruction of the mosque was the latest priceless site to be ravaged by ISIS fighters, who are growing desperate as their territory in Iraq and Syria quickly dwindles.

Theyve blown up mosque after mosque, church after church, Townsend told the Observer. They have destroyed history and archaeology and artifacts.

The al-Nuri Mosque joins a list of historical sites destroyed by ISIS that includes the nearly 3,000-year-old ruins of the city of Nimrud, the tomb of Yunus commonly known to Christians as the Biblical figure Jonah and the sanctuary of St. Elijahs Monastery and cultural artifacts that include the remains of some of the most important archaeological sites in the Middle East.

The latest destruction, Townsend said, came as ISIS continues to lose its grip on its largest population centers.

Right now, the coalition and our partner forces in Iraq and Syria are attacking the twin capitals of ISIS Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, he said. Theyre under pressure now.

The group now controls less than two square kilometers of the city, the general said. And a full defeat was expected any day.

Townsend said Iraqi forces are clearly in the lead in the fight against ISIS.

That brings its own set of challenges, one of which is the pace of operations.

Working by, with and through partner forces means the coalition is not in charge of the timetable for attacks against ISIS, Townsend said.

When your partners are doing the fighting, they ultimately make the decisions about what theyre going to do and when theyre going to do it, he said.

Those decisions are not always as fast as the U.S. Army prefers to operate.

But this is a different kind of fight, Townsend said, with partner forces in the lead and making most of the sacrifices.

The Iraqi army has lost more than 1,000 soldiers and had about 5,000 wounded since mid-October, he said. On the U.S. side, two soldiers have been killed in that same time frame.

While Iraqi forces are in the lead of those efforts, theres no denying the contributions of Fort Bragg troops, who number in the thousands in Iraq and include parts of the 82nd Airborne Division, 44th Medical Brigade, 1st Special Forces Command and 528th Sustainment Brigade.

Townsend said it would be difficult to name every Fort Bragg unit with an ongoing mission in the fight against ISIS.

Suffice it to say, Fort Bragg troops are very well represented here, Townsend said. Im proud to serve alongside of them.

Military editor Drew Brooks can be reached at dbrooks@fayobserver.com or 486-3567.

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