ISIS Final Days : Mosul and Raqqa attack imminent

[Zoraptor]

It probably had more to do with bad weather and thus limited air support being available and the Russian sapper team and their supporting troops finishing their job and withdrawing a few days before the attack started. ISIS is opportunist, and can pick their place to attack in a situation like Palmyra where a large area has to be defended by relatively few troops so can get local numerical superiority every time. Palmyra is also far more useful to ISIS than the government since it's a road junction and they controlled most of the roads into it already; it's only really useful to the government as propaganda or if they wanted to try and get to their besieged troops in Deir Ez Zor (which they don't, at present, as that involves 100km of utterly undefendable desert road through ISIS territory). If ISIS really committed 4000 troops to the attack there was no practical way they weren't going to take it, the government simply can't have similar numbers of troops in the dozen or so vulnerable spots on their front line with ISIS.

 

Some of those involved in the attack may well have come from Iraq though, via the road that was deliberately left open from Mosul until the shia militia stopped it. While that was a deliberate US policy to funnel ISIS towards Syria it's also a perfectly legitimate strategy to minimise fighting in Mosul as well. It definitely wasn't an attack to try and derail the Aleppo offensive, Palmyra just plain isn't important enough and Aleppo was to most purposes finished already; if they wanted to do that an attack on the Kanasar/ Ithiriya road would have happened instead as it's the only route into Aleppo controlled by the government.

[Zoraptor]

14 Turkish soldiers were killed in Al Bab yesterday, doubling the total killed since they entered Syria- possibly including another Leopard 2 loss as well which would make 5 in total (3 confirmed). Since Al Bab is a moderate sized town small city (~50k) it puts the difficulties of taking Mosul into perspective and makes the SDF taking Manbij (~150k) and the Syrians recapturing East Aleppo (~1 million) in about the same time Turkey and allies have been trying to take Al Bab into perspective.

[Zoraptor]

Turkish losses are up to 16 from yesterday now, and they had 2 Leo2's (slight/ potential NSFW warning for link, I can't see any bodies present but could be missing one) captured too, though supposedly they were destroyed later by airstrikes. The additional knocked out Leo2 from yesterday is confirmed now as well, side hit from a Metis- probably- or maybe even a Malyutka. So that's likely seven, six confirmed, Leo2's lost out of 35 that are known to have been committed. They're not absolutely top of the line models, but then ISIS doesn't have much in the way of top line ATGMs either.

 

Doesn't compare that well to the T90 experience from the government side where one has been captured in an unusable state and one probably damaged beyond repair- another survived a direct hit from a TOW to the front turret, gun was likely unusable after though.

[Wrath of Dagon]

May be they have Russian personnel manning the T90's?

 

Edit: According to wikipedia T-90 also has ATGM jamming, so may be that's working pretty well.

Edited December 22, 2016 by Wrath of Dagon

[Malcador]

Oby is missing some good material, it seems

[Zoraptor]

The heart went out of Oby when Wals and Monte stopped being around so much. Not much point trolling westlings when nobody is responding.

 

May be they have Russian personnel manning the T90's?

Edit: According to wikipedia T-90 also has ATGM jamming, so may be that's working pretty well.

 

The Russians are training T90 crews which seems to make a huge difference compared to bog standard T55/62/72 usage but the captured and hit T90s were both manned by a militia (possibly either bought by or being tested for Iran) and the other ones in use seem to be by Tiger Force which are elite units, but Syrian elite units. I doubt Russians are crewing any of them outside of any guarding their bases.

 

The Shtora jamming system is pretty old and shouldn't work against certain atgms including TOW- the T90 that was hit had Shtora but was hit full on by the TOW- it also has practical limitations as to how long it can operate continuously especially in a desert type situation. That T90 was likely saved by its Kontakt-5 ERA (theoretically effective against tandem warheads like TOW2) instead as well as being hit on the front turret rather than lower on the hull. There's a pic of it after recovery showing some of the damage. You can tell the Russians were pretty pleased with its performance since the video of the hit even got uploaded to RT.

[Malcador]

How would you jam a TOW, isn't that wire guided ?

[Zoraptor]

It's general countermeasures against TOW, usually, rather than jamming per se. eg Shtora cannot jam standard TOW but it can (theoretically) automatically throw smoke to put off the operator's aim, if the launch is detected. You can also try things that are more akin to what is thought of as jamming, like spoof the guidance flare the operator uses to see the missile in flight to confuse them, but it's usually operator confusion/ suppression or a moving/ dodging target that causes a miss rather than a direct jamming effect on the guidance mechanism.

 

You can attack the guidance wires as well, though not really in a jamming sense. In the Yom Kippur War Israeli fixed tank positions were sometimes protected with wire mesh or barbed wire so as to snag/ break/ disrupt the signal along Malyutka control wires, but that was a very limited counter for specific situations, and was more than 40 years ago as well.

[Zoraptor]

Update: Two months later and Turkey still hasn't taken Al Bab. They haven't even taken nearby Bzaah or Qabasin either, which are far smaller. They've now lost 70+ soldiers (plus estimates of well over a thousand sponsored rebels dead/ wounded) and have been stuck at the same point for nearing 3 months. But they're going to somehow take Raqqa real soon now, which is 3 times the size, 100+km away and has both the Kurds and government considerably closer- and they'd have to go through the Kurds/ government to get there as well. Erdogan really does live in a parallel universe. On the positive side there haven't been any more pictures of tanks getting knocked out for a month or so, and they've now apparently killed more than the estimated total number of ISIS soldiers in the entirety of Aleppo governate.

 

And since alternative facts are all the rage at the moment, apparently ISIS took the city of Deir Ez Zor at some point. It seems the government troops in the city remain unaware of this fact though.

[BruceVC]

Update: Two months later and Turkey still hasn't taken Al Bab. They haven't even taken nearby Bzaah or Qabasin either, which are far smaller. They've now lost 70+ soldiers (plus estimates of well over a thousand sponsored rebels dead/ wounded) and have been stuck at the same point for nearing 3 months. But they're going to somehow take Raqqa real soon now, which is 3 times the size, 100+km away and has both the Kurds and government considerably closer- and they'd have to go through the Kurds/ government to get there as well. Erdogan really does live in a parallel universe. On the positive side there haven't been any more pictures of tanks getting knocked out for a month or so, and they've now apparently killed more than the estimated total number of ISIS soldiers in the entirety of Aleppo governate.

 

And since alternative facts are all the rage at the moment, apparently ISIS took the city of Deir Ez Zor at some point. It seems the government troops in the city remain unaware of this fact though.

But there is a valid and positive update  around this protracted military engagement

 

Eastern Mosul has been taken ....now the Iraqi coalition is about to attack and defeat ISIS in Western Mosul

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/world/middleeast/iraq-starts-offensive-to-retake-western-mosul-from-isis.html?_r=0

 

 

But geez this is taking a long time.....Raqqa is going to be much harder than Mosul and I am very hesitant to guess how long that campaign will take

 

ISIS is no pushover, there forces in Iraq and Syria are entrenched and there are real hardcore fighters in their ranks so I suppose  the length of the military campaign is inevitable 

[Zoraptor]

Turks/ rebels captured Al Bab a day or so ago, though it seems that ISIS retreated more than anything- probably to defend the far more important Raqqa from the SDF (Kurds+allies). What Turkey does next will be interesting, since it will probably determine whether Raqqa falls in the next six months or gets a reprieve while the SDF fight Turkey instead. Erdogan has a referendum to win in his quest to make himself emperor, so he has to balance the nationalist/ religious agenda against the negatives lots of body bags could result in, plus whether it's worth annoying the US significantly (probably a vote winner in itself, though most of the people who like that idea already vote for him anyway).

Edited February 25, 2017 by Zoraptor

[BruceVC]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/14/last-isis-fighters-in-raqqa-seek-deal-to-leave-former-capital-in-syria

 

I had to revive this thread because now I can say the " Caliphate " of ISIS  is finally at an end, there are more or less 500 extremists left in Raqqa...and then the fake Caliphate that straddled two sovereign countries will be at an end 

[Fiach]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/14/last-isis-fighters-in-raqqa-seek-deal-to-leave-former-capital-in-syria

 

I had to revive this thread because now I can say the " Caliphate " of ISIS  is finally at an end, there are more or less 500 extremists left in Raqqa...and then the fake Caliphate that straddled two sovereign countries will be at an end 

Finished fairly quickly when everybody actually committed to it, great news though!

[Zoraptor]

There have been a few hundred jihadi left and Raqqa has been about to be captured in the final assault for well over a month now. The transfer deal they've done would usually be the end of things (and despite the coalition complaining about transfer deals vociferously it's at least the 3rd the SDF have done with ISIS) but there will inevitably be plenty of fighters who will prefer to die for their 'capital' rather than run off to Abukamal to die in a couple of months time. ISIS is almost completely irrelevant at this point anyway, all it has done for the last six months is lose territory at an increasing rate to everyone; the big question is who gets what from them and if the government and SDF in Syria are going to end up fighting instead of broadly tolerating each other.

 

Most significant Syria/ Iraq development of the past month was Kirkuk being taken by the Iraqi government over literally the last day only. It was inevitable that the Kurds couldn't hold Kirkuk since it's on a big plain with few natural defences- and the peshmerga are nowhere near as competent as their media reputation makes them out to be- but I think everyone thought they would at least try. Instead they routed instantly amid accusations of betrayal and basically no fighting besides some very minor skirmishes. Makes the independence referendum look exceptionally dumb in retrospect.

[Katphood]

the big question is who gets what from them and if the government and SDF in Syria are going to end up fighting instead of broadly tolerating each other.

They probably tolerate each other somehow. I don't see this world heading into a major global conflict, that would be to convenient. Instead we see small skirmishes here and there, and those are mostly there to feed the media and the unemployed. All these things happening in the middle-east don't have a major impact right now, but with Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan being completely devastated beyond repair, I wonder where these countries will stand in 50 years time.

[Zoraptor]

Looks more or less official that Raqqa is fully captured now. That probably means that the foreign fighters did leave in the transfer deal as well as the locals, and over especially french objections. Lots of rebuilding needed anyway, Raqqa wasn't a huge city but it looks like a moonscape. Rather less comment on that than there was when it was Aleppo.

 

 

the big question is who gets what from them and if the government and SDF in Syria are going to end up fighting instead of broadly tolerating each other.

They probably tolerate each other somehow.

 

 

Probably. Plenty of people on both sides who'd be spoiling for a fight though, and plenty of flashpoints for them to get excited over- oil, roads to Iraq, enclaves, Raqqa, Tabqa and its dam. Plus Turkey isn't at all keen on the SDF. Depends a lot on what the US does once ISIS is finished and also on how democratic the Syrian Democratic Forces actually are plus how flexible the government will be. Even just taking the 'arab' out of Syrian Arab Republic would probably go a long way as a goodwill gesture.

[Zoraptor]

And ISIS is now down to one decent sized town (Abukamal), and that will likely go today or tomorrow; every other town they have is pretty small with populations in the thousands. Both their last big holdings went yesterday, Al Qaim (~100k pop) in Iraq in less than a day and Deir Ez Zor in Syria- ~250k pop, about the same size as Raqqa- which went from about 40% ISIS held to 0 over three days so it's looking like utter collapse and it's unlikely they will have any significant holdings at all by next week let alone 2018. Presumably there will be some sort of insurgency to come, but as a conventional fighting force holding territory they're finished, and in Syria at least they lack the sort of deep connections to the population that have kept the Taleban alive in Afghanistan. Indeed, there have been a lot of ISIS defections to (ironically, given the rhetoric they produced) the US backed SDF much as the FSA rebels defected opportunistically to ISIS in 2014 previous*. Bit of a different story in Iraq, where it depends a lot on how well Abadi handles the sunni/ shia divide and where ISIS was a lot more of a home grown phenomenon.

 

*and some tribes were literally forced to cooperate with ISIS, plenty of massacres against anyone who resisted them

Edited November 3, 2017 by Zoraptor

[HoonDing]

Poland took back Lviv?

[BruceVC]

And ISIS is now down to one decent sized town (Abukamal), and that will likely go today or tomorrow; every other town they have is pretty small with populations in the thousands. Both their last big holdings went yesterday, Al Qaim (~100k pop) in Iraq in less than a day and Deir Ez Zor in Syria- ~250k pop, about the same size as Raqqa- which went from about 40% ISIS held to 0 over three days so it's looking like utter collapse and it's unlikely they will have any significant holdings at all by next week let alone 2018. Presumably there will be some sort of insurgency to come, but as a conventional fighting force holding territory they're finished, and in Syria at least they lack the sort of deep connections to the population that have kept the Taleban alive in Afghanistan. Indeed, there have been a lot of ISIS defections to (ironically, given the rhetoric they produced) the US backed SDF much as the FSA rebels defected opportunistically to ISIS in 2014 previous*. Bit of a different story in Iraq, where it depends a lot on how well Abadi handles the sunni/ shia divide and where ISIS was a lot more of a home grown phenomenon.

 

*and some tribes were literally forced to cooperate with ISIS, plenty of massacres against anyone who resisted them

What I found interesting is how long Mosul took to subdue, a year or so and then Raqqa and other ISIS controlled areas less than 6 months. I suppose ISIS would have used most of there military resources at  Mosul so once they were defeated that was the backbone of there defense 

 

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-37702442

[Zoraptor]

The main reason Mosul took so long is simply its size. It's a 2 million+ city and has a big river running through its middle. It's a focus point that has to be attacked and that plays into ISIS' defensive strengths- IEDs, snipers, suicide attacks. Mosul was a pure majority of their population so losing it further crippled their economy and manpower. They cannot replace losses as they have no money and no access to ideological recruits, plus their aura is gone and they're constantly losing population centres rather than gaining them. Much of their remaining holdings were desert, and river valleys with lots of small to medium towns surrounded by desert- and desert tends to strongly favour whoever is attacking as they can pick and choose their targets while the defender has to defend their entire perimeter. All of the SDF, Syrians and Iraqis have systematically chopped the ISIS holdings into bite sized chunks by outflanking their defences, then the surrounded groups are killed or captured and the whole thing repeated; and there's no way for ISIS to stop it.

 

Their ultimate problem is that when they defend in Raqqa or Deir Ez Zor or Mosul they lose. They might cause casualties and delay things, but they lose and the defenders die (or switch sides), and that makes defending what remains progressively more difficult. Then again, the alternative is what happened at Al Qaim, losing a 150k city with probably half their remaining population with barely a shot fired. Result is probably them going back to insurgency, and probably in Iraq rather than Syria.

[Zoraptor]

Looks more or less official that Raqqa is fully captured now. That probably means that the foreign fighters did leave in the transfer deal as well as the locals

 

Yep, despite all the protestations that ISIS should be "destroyed on the battlefield" rather than bused off elsewhere (per the spokesman of Operation Inherent Resolve Letting ISIS Get Away Repeatedly; said the one time someone else allowed an ISIS withdrawal) fricking 3750 ISIS members and family were allowed to leave Raqqa in a 8km (!) long convoy, mirroring prior coalition backed happenings in Manbij, Tabqa, and the escape corridor from Mosul. And yes, the Raqqa deal included foreign fighters, plus weapons. All explicitly denied at the time-  the local ISIS people were supposedly to be taken to Tabqa Prison rather than bused off to ISIS territory and that never happened.

 

And of course a bunch of ex ISIS joined the western backed SDF. The SDF campaign in Deir Ez Zor was even lead by an ex ISIS guy, up until it became publicly known he was ex ISIS when he was quietly removed for 'corruption'. Which he definitely was, indeed his brother was executed by ISIS for corruption- that was why he left them rather than any ideological qualms- but if everyone else knew he was corrupt beforehand then there's no way the SDF didn't, nor the reasons for him leaving ISIS.

Edited November 13, 2017 by Zoraptor

[BruceVC]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/iraqi-pm-declares-end-war-against-iraq-004417661.html

 

Iraq has been officially "cleared " of ISIS  according to the Iraqi government and the Iraqi authorities are in control of the Syria/Iraqi border again

 

 

This is good news I suppose but ISIS is an ideology so they will still exist in organised  and nebulous structures throughout the world, like Libya and Syria 

Edited December 11, 2017 by BruceVC