Iraqi and US led coalition forces prepare to push ISIS from Mosul
Mosul July 11:The days of ISIS rule appear numbered. In just over a year, Iraq with the help of US led coalition forces has driven ISIS out of Tikrit, Ramadi and Fallujah.
Now Iraq’s military and the U.S.-led coalition is preparing for what’s expected to be the “mother of all battles” in the war against ISIS in Iraq: The liberation of Mosul
Mosul is Iraq’s second largest city and the largest controlled by the extremist group.
“It is a splendid city, beautifully built,” a famous Muslim geographer once wrote.
“The climate is pleasant, the water healthy. Highly renowned, and of great antiquity, it is possessed of excellent markets and inns, and is inhabited by many personages of account, and learned men.”
The author, Mohamed Al-Maqdisi, writing in the 10th century, was waxing eloquent about the Iraqi city of Mosul.
It has been a while since anyone spoke of Mosul in such pleasant terms.
Recent history — a thin slice of time for a city almost 3,000 years old , recalls it was the site of intense fighting between U.S. troops and Iraqi insurgents, followed by the June 2014 surprise ISIS take over of this and a string of other cities, followed by the near collapse of Iraq’s army.
Iraqi Defense Minister Khalid Al-Ubaidi,confidently declared the leadership in Baghdad has determined that “2016 will be the year of the liberation of Mosul and the rest of Iraq.”
The battle for Mosul will be bloody, costly and protracted is predictable. Equally predictable will be the suffering, yet again, of the civilian population.
In better days Mosul’s population was around two million, but now it’s probably down to 700,000.
The population of Mosul is predominantly Sunni Arab. Almost off of the city’s minorities — Kurds, Christians, Yezidis, Shiite — left when ISIS took over.
