US: campaign to snatch Mosul from ISIS begins

The chief of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition on Saturday announced plans to seize Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul from ISIS, which has been held by the militants since June 2014.

The operation’s current strategy is to cut the main road connecting Mosul to the ISIS-stronghold city of Raqqa in Syria, the coalition’s US special envoy Brett McGurk said at a press conference in the capital Baghdad.

The ground operation will see the participation of both the Iraqi Army forces and Peshmerga, the Kurdish forces from the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan to the north.

The announcement comes despite Iraq’s defense minister saying that the battle to retake Mosul was scheduled later this year.

ISIS militants captured Mosul in a shock 2014 offenses after the Iraqi army fled the city.

The Iraqi Army deserting Mosul has led to the rise of the Shiite-dominated volunteer forces called the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU). The units were formed after a religious edict by the influential spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shiite majority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, calling on Iraqis to fight ISIS.

The PMU have been effective in snatching from ISIS areas such as Tikrit, the hometown of late President Saddam Hussein. However, the units have been accused of exacting brutal on Sunnis after retaking territory from the militants.
  [alarabiya.net]
5/3/16
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