ISIS Final Days : Mosul and Raqqa attack imminent

[BruceVC]

/?http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/13/middleeast/iraq-inside-mosul-paton-walsh/index.html

 

Finally, various forces are about to attack and reclaim Mosul from ISIS

 

This is long overdue but this is the beginning of the end of ISIS  as far as its caliphate is concerned 

 

Once Mosul is taken then the focus is on Raqqa. I wonder how brutal and deadly this Mosul campaign will be?

[Guard Dog]

There is nothing more f----d up than having to shed blood over the same ground more than once. In this case it's been several times. If they are ad demoralized as the papers say it should be a short fight. They will be hit from two directions by the Iraqi army & Kurd militias. Let's hope they don't fight each other after. 

[Darkpriest]

don't worry, an accidental US strike or Turk shelling of Kurds will disrupt the offensive

[Volourn]

I love how Bruce is *literally* (*wink*) salivating over  how brutal and deadly something will be when we all know it likely means innocent people will die (no, not ISIS, but there are going to be innocent casualties) so this isn't something to  get excited over. Grim determination should be the order of the day.

[Zoraptor]

don't worry, an accidental US strike or Turk shelling of Kurds will disrupt the offensive

 

Vast majority of the Kurds in that area are Barzani's tame and bought KDP rather than the anti Turk PKK. Turkey might asterisk it up anyway though, they've thoroughly antagonised the central Iraqi government by stationing troops on their territory without permissions so much so that there's almost as much talk of fighting the neo Ottomans as ISIS, and they are semi seriously considering bringing PKK fighters in (separatists, so no friend to Baghdad) just to further mess with the Turks.

[BruceVC]

I love how Bruce is *literally* (*wink*) salivating over  how brutal and deadly something will be when we all know it likely means innocent people will die (no, not ISIS, but there are going to be innocent casualties) so this isn't something to  get excited over. Grim determination should be the order of the day.

volo I always forget how much you care about Iraq Muslims, its something I really admire about you...your consistency and sincerity on these types of events 

[HoonDing]

Don't worry, Bruce, the mighiest of the fedaykin are already safely ensconced in every Yuroppan capital.

[Malcador]

I love how Bruce is *literally* (*wink*) salivating over how brutal and deadly something will be when we all know it likely means innocent people will die (no, not ISIS, but there are going to be innocent casualties) so this isn't something to get excited over. Grim determination should be the order of the day.

Death is the servant of the righteous

[Zoraptor]

Looks like Aleppo city is going to be captured before either Raqqa or Mosul. The rebels have already lost >70% of their former territory and there are apparently Green Buses- used for evacuating militants under truce agreements- entering the remaining rebel controlled areas of the city now. Only likely holdouts are Al Nusra, and if 8-15k rebels cannot hold it's unlikely 800-1.5k will be able to. Not what was predicted as it was supposed to be Stalingrad; albeit that was always a stupid comparison given even half of Aleppo is bigger than Stalingrad and the most generous estimate of rebel numbers in total, everywhere, is roughly the number of german troops in Stalingrad alone.

 

(As it happens, Turkey managed to asterisk up the Raqqa attack more than Mosul at this point, since the Syrian Kurds are now busy trying to make sure the Turkish rebel proxies + actual Turkish army don't take al Bab as a priority over Raqqa. Indeed, Erdogan has managed to get the government and kurds into a pretty unlikely and almost official alliance, which is quite an unintentional achievement)

Edited December 6, 2016 by Zoraptor

[Lexx]

Don't worry, even if ISIS is defeated, there will be a new enemy. This war still won't be over in years.

 

I am not even sure if people want this war to be over. Well, except for the civilians living there.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Lexx

[GhostofAnakin]

Don't worry, even if ISIS is defeated, there will be a new enemy.

 

That's inevitable when essentially you're fighting against an ideal, rather than a specific group of people.  And that's what makes "defeating" any of these terrorist organizations near impossible.

[HoonDing]

"Don't worry, even if ISIS is defeated, there will be a new enemy."

 

We've been losing to China since 1950. But not anymore, i can tell you that.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Mosul and Raqqa aren't anywhere near falling yet. The problem is not ISIS, its the competing interests of anti-ISIS forces. For any of them ISIS is a better alternative than their competitors grabbing victory. That's what has been keeping ISIS as a territory holding organization alive for a while now.

 

Kurds can't fight and hold Sunni inhabited areas, nor do they want to. Turkey doesn't want them winning or consolidating. The Iraqi army is garbage, with the special forces having to pull double duty for everyone, which they cannot do for an indefinite length of time because they weren't designed for it. Shia popular militias also can't take Sunni towns for political reasons. 

In short, the force that has to win is incapable of it, and those that can win either don't want to apply themselves fully or can't for various reasons.

Edited December 8, 2016 by Drowsy Emperor

[Zoraptor]

Kurds can't fight and hold Sunni inhabited areas, nor do they want to. Turkey doesn't want them winning or consolidating. The Iraqi army is garbage, with the special forces having to pull double duty for everyone, which they cannot do for an indefinite length of time because they weren't designed for it. Shia popular militias also can't take Sunni towns for political reasons. 

In short, the force that has to win is incapable of it, and those that can win either don't want to apply themselves fully or can't for various reasons.

 

Those particular Kurds are actively supported by Turkey, who even support them in their land grabs and seemingly in their desire for independence; so long as it's independence from Iraq rather than Turkey. They're also themselves predominantly Sunni, their primary beef is an ethnic one not a religious one. Hardly a popular thing to say, but they made sure to disarm the Yezidi militia before running away to Irbil when ISIS attacked and they are certainly not averse to some active ethnic cleansing as well, mostly against arabs but also including other minorities; even Turks, albeit they're shia turks who Erdy doesn't give a manure about. They're more than happy to take majority arab areas that have oil, then claim the arabs are all pro ISIS or were artificially transplanted and stick them into 'displacement camps' while their homes are bulldozed. KDP are a definitively crappy bunch, corrupt, ethnic cleansers in bed with Erdogan for weapons and support (he gets oil, and oil that can be resold since the Kurds aren't supposed to be exporting independently) they're just the west's pretty crappy bunch instead of Iran's like the PUK or a bunch of anarcho commies like the PKK.

 

Shia PMUs will quite happily take sunni towns, indeed they're the ones who stopped up the escape route ISIS in Mosul were meant to take to Syria through the- pretty extremist and perhaps most ISIS friendly city except Fallujah- city of Tal Afar. They just don't get any US/ 'coalition' air support and get lots of bleating from Al Jazeera, especially AJArabic, about graffiti and 'ethnic' cleansing. Complaints that oddly enough don't get reported on about the Kurds nearly as much.

[Zoraptor]

Looks like Aleppo is fully back under government control. Pretty quick in the end, about the same amount of time as Manbij or Fallujah (2008) once the siege was established and despite even the rebel held areas being bigger than both those cities combined. Their biggest win of the Civil War since 2013 at least.

 

The government did manage to lose Palmyra to ISIS, though it's strategically irrelevant unless they want to get to the Euphrates and pretty hard to hold unless they were willing to commit lots of troops. ISIS supposedly committed about 4000 troops to taking it so 10 times as many as they captured Ramadi or Mosul with. On the other hand the T4 (Tiyas) airbase a few km up the road is extremely important (if of limited functionality at present due to ongoing runway upgrades), if ISIS can take that it would be a major win.

[Hildegard]

Funny how a lot of civilians getting out of Aleppo are saying that was in fact the rebels who were denying them exit out of the city, denying them food and supplies, and basically using them as leverage. 

[Zoraptor]

To be fair, that is exactly what you would expect those fleeing to say if their well being depends on pleasing the government, as it is what the government would want them to say and means that they didn't actually support the rebels so should be just left alone after fleeing. I have very little doubt personally that many east Aleppo residents were forcibly held, but such statements have to be taken with a grain of salt. As do wholly unsourced (well, there are some pictures provided but they're clearly of bodies that have been recovered, not massacred as there's too little blood in situ and some are decomposing while others are, uh, fresh) accusations of 'massacres' and 'genocide' from the other side, of course. Parroted acritically by the non 'fake news' media, of course, who will then be baffled by why nobody believes them later.

 

Looks like ISIS has knocked out 2-3 Turkish Leopard 2 tanks in Al Bab as well. 2 seem pretty definite (video evidence) and one has been admitted to by the Turks which seems to be a separate incident. It's fairly significant because they are Turkey's best tanks and they don't have anything better protected.

[Lexx]

Ive watched some of these "people of aleppo" videos, but i dunno. This kind of stuff seems super easy to fake, so basically nobody can tell how genue they really are. Especially the ones only showing the face and a blank wall behind them. Always reminds me of that one movie where they fake a war in some country with producing fake videos and news.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Looks like ISIS has knocked out 2-3 Turkish Leopard 2 tanks in Al Bab as well. 2 seem pretty definite (video evidence) and one has been admitted to by the Turks which seems to be a separate incident. It's fairly significant because they are Turkey's best tanks and they don't have anything better protected.

Cornets captured from the Syrians? I doubt they have a whole lot of them.

[HoonDing]

ISIS will magically disappear as soon as Obama is out of the White House.

[Zoraptor]

 

Looks like ISIS has knocked out 2-3 Turkish Leopard 2 tanks in Al Bab as well. 2 seem pretty definite (video evidence) and one has been admitted to by the Turks which seems to be a separate incident. It's fairly significant because they are Turkey's best tanks and they don't have anything better protected.

Cornets captured from the Syrians? I doubt they have a whole lot of them.

 

 

Consensus seems to be Konkurs or even Fagot rather than Kornet- so soviet era rather than more modern like the Kornet. I don't think there's any video of the launcher so no proof either way. They seem to be short enough on ATGMs that they're rationed and they don't 'waste' them on soft targets, but they do seem to be able to produce them when needed against armour.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Hard to believe Soviet stuff would work on L2, but I might be mistaken.

[Zoraptor]

They weren't frontal hits, so armour would be considerably less. There's some variance in sources for how much armour Turkey's Leo2's have, but it seems that a Konkurs could just penetrate their Leo2A4 even from the front- so practically, probably not- and both Konkurs and Fagot (plus Toophan which ISIS may have some of) could from the side/ rear. Kornet (and TOW2) could destroy them from a front angle, and so could even some recoilless rifles/ RPGs.

 

The Leopards are certainly a lot more protected than the Pattons that are the alternative though, especially when it comes to crew survivability if they are hit.

[Malcador]

Ive watched some of these "people of aleppo" videos, but i dunno. This kind of stuff seems super easy to fake, so basically nobody can tell how genue they really are. Especially the ones only showing the face and a blank wall behind them. Always reminds me of that one movie where they fake a war in some country with producing fake videos and news.

Yep, it's been on the news here a little too strong with the tales of human suffering, etc.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Surprisingly convenient how ISIS goes all out on Palmyra on the road to Homs just when the government is about to mop up Aleppo. 

 

Militarily its sound, but it benefits the "rebels" much more than IS at the moment.