The Syria Analysis Thread

Fitz Friday 16 Dec 2016

Is the Battle for Mosul Doomed?

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Daniel L. Davis
December 14, 2016

Since the battle to retake Mosul began in mid-October, Iraqi and coalition spokesmen have touted the significant number of villages retaken around the periphery of Mosul by the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), and the fact that they reportedly recaptured Mosul’s al-Salam hospital, barely a mile from the Tigris. Yet an examination of the battlefield reveals that from the perspective of ISIS, it could be argued that the fight is going better than expected. Such a belief is not without substance.

Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi claimed last week that he was very pleased with his troops’ progress. “We have seen the whole organization collapsing in terms of standing in the face of our own armed forces,” he said, adding that the “success of liberating a huge area indicates that Daesh does not have the gut” to stand and fight. Yet the number of villages and square kilometers of land retaken tells only part of the story, and may be deceptive by itself.

Mosul is a city with a population close to two million. ISIS is alleged to have begun the battle with no more than ten thousand fighters. Unless they are militarily inept—which doesn’t appear to be the case—they never planned to even attempt to hold the entire city from the coalition, so the rapid capture of scores of villages should not surprise anyone. The only plan that ever made any sense from a military perspective was to conduct a fighting withdrawal to a prearranged and secure position deep within Mosul.

Using this scheme, they would slowly collapse the extended security zone around Mosul, which they had established over the preceding two years, exacting as high of a casualty rate as possible on the attackers. ISIS would fight the ISF but not become decisively engaged, enabling its fighters to effectively withdraw to the next sequential line of defense. They would continue this collapsing process until they arrived at the designated no-penetration line—or die-in-place line—which appears to be on the eastern side of the Tigris. An analysis of their current behavior indicates they will eventually cede the western half of the city and make their stand on the eastern side.

This final line likely represents a very small portion of eastern Mosul, which the ISIS leadership believes is the most defensible, and they have no doubt established elaborate tunnel systems both within individual buildings, floors and rooms, and underground between strong points. If the defenders have resolved to fight to the death, they’ll contest each street, each house and possibly every room within strategic buildings. The intent will be to exact as high a death and wounded toll as possible on the attackers to sap their strength and domestic support.

ISIS may well calculate that the ISF’s will to fight is insufficient to press the bloody fight to a conclusion, or that the unnatural coalition assembled against them can’t survive if the fighting drags on months into 2017. There is at least an outside chance that if ISIS holds out some distance into next year, its stature in the world will grow for having held out against impossible odds, and it’ll gain new converts and recruits. Despite the coalition having overwhelming advantages, the outcome of this fight is still not a given.

The ISF, Sunni militias, Kurdish peshmerga, Popular Mobilization Units and Western military assistance are together profoundly stronger than ISIS. The coalition is equipped with mortars, heavy artillery, missiles, satellite intelligence systems, tanks and fighter aircraft. Moreover, Baghdad’s allies have a virtually unlimited logistics system to supply them with manpower, medical treatment facilities stocked with qualified doctors and medicine, and all the weapons and ammunition they could want.

ISIS has virtually none of those assets. Yet it has the pointed advantage of knowing the terrain better than any attacker, it has prepared elaborate defensive positions for months, and it appears to have the will to make any sacrifice necessary in defense of its cause. Now in the seventh week, current indicators seem to suggest that it may be ISIS, not the coalition, that has the upper hand.

Almost absent from Western reporting, a report from the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq on December 1 revealed that the Iraqi forces had sustained an alarming number of casualties against ISIS for the month of November. The report, authored by UN envoy Jan Kubis, noted that almost two thousand Iraqi troops had been killed, 450 wounded and 926 civilians had lost their lives. “The casualty figures are staggering,” Kubis said .

If this report is correct, it should be a cause of concern for Baghdad. If the ISF has suffered this many casualties already, what is to be expected when the truly hard part of the fighting ensues? How long will the Iraqi public support government efforts if the fighting bogs down? If the ISF proves incapable of pressing the battle to victory, might the pressure to send in Shiite Popular Mobilization Units increase? The implications for the Abadi government are troubling.

Yet the situation is equally troubling for Washington. What will the incoming Trump administration do if the fight bogs down into an Aleppo-style stalemate? If the PMU enters the fight against ISIS in Mosul, and clashes occur between Shiite and Sunni militia members, whose side will the U.S. military take? In September I warned of the danger that a civil war could break out after ISIS was driven out of Mosul, but such threats may emerge during the battle if the coalition doesn’t quickly quash ISIS.

The United States has deepened its involvement in this multi-headed conflict in Iraq and Syria, and it is getting increasingly difficult to conceive of any sort of positive outcome. Donald Trump was in a celebratory mood on Election Day after the results were announced. He may be less so on Inauguration Day, when he inherits the wars in Iraq and Syria. Unless circumstances turn around quickly, he may have some excruciatingly difficult decisions to make shortly after he takes the reins.

Daniel L. Davis is a retired U.S. Army colonel who served multiple tours in Afghanistan. He is a senior fellow with Defense Priorities. Follow him on Twitter @DanielLDavis1 .

Image : U.S. soldiers fire an M777 A2 Howitzer in support of Iraqi security forces during the Mosul offensive. DVIDSHUB/Public domain

Derrick Friday 16 Dec 2016

Wow, I never even considered the fallout if Mosul makes the Iraqi population go the Vietnam route and want out of the fighting.

Shia militias would be a great ISIS recruiting tool.

Oz Identitarian Wednesday 21 Dec 2016

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/18/the-fall-of-aleppo-is-a-huge-gift-to-isis.html

Local Daimyo Wednesday 21 Dec 2016

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/embed/iJcfz_q4268

This is video of recent clashes in northern Burma between the Kachin State Army rebels and the Burmese Army. I'm posting this as an illustration of the differences in culture and professionalism between these guys and Syrians. These guys have far less resources than either side in the Syrian conflict yet they show significantly better weapons handling, proficiency in basics of infantry skills, use of comms etc. Despite the fact that they can only draw upon the resources of some Burmese mountain communities these rebels have a clear chain of command, standardized uniforms and professional demeanor (not screaming every time they squeeze off a few rounds), things Syrians were never able to figure out

Stars Down To Earth Thursday 22 Dec 2016

Southeast Asians have usually been tidy fighters, but yes, it's obvious how they're able to do far more than the Syrians with far less resources and foreign backup. The contrast between war vids from Ukraine and Syria is also striking.

Another thing I noticed is that most Syrians are shit at handling weapons. Even if everybody and his uncle Ahmud owns an AK, they use them all wrong - holding them away from their bodies, rather than against their shoulder to take the recoil. Both sides are mostly daft dune-coons who can't wage war, the difference is that Jihadists aren't afraid of dying.

It really is amazing that the Alawites are fighting a war for their survival and still can't hold an assault rifle properly.

Niccolo and Donkey Friday 23 Dec 2016

British policy has made situation in Syria worse, says former British Ambassador to Syria

British policy on Syria has been “wrong every step of the way” and made the situation worse, a former UK ambassador to the country has claimed.

Peter Ford, who was the ambassador in Damascus from 2003 to 2006 and has been a persistent critic of UK policy in Syria, said Bashar al-Assad’s government should be given “a little credit” for the “relatively peaceful” end to the siege in Aleppo .

He said there was now a Christmas tree in the city’s central square, which there would not have been “if the other side had won”.

Ford, who has been accused of being an apologist for the Syrian regime, said the UK government faced a choice between two evils and Assad, rather than a jihadi opposition, was the lesser of the two.

He has always claimed the moderate opposition is very small, and the dominant extreme elements are unreconstructed jihadis bent on destroying the west.

The UK Foreign Office view is that only 200 or 300 of the fighters in Aleppo were loyal to al-Nusra, the al-Qaida franchise in Syria. It claims pluralists dominate in the High Negotiations Committee, the umbrella body that has led negotiations with the UN in Geneva.

Ford also opposed UK bombing of Islamic State in Syria, and at one stage, giving evidence to the defence select committee, argued that Assad would win because “repression works”.

The former diplomat said the UK’s policy on Syria had been mistaken from the start. He said the then prime minister, David Cameron, should either have been prepared to commit British forces on the battlefield or refrained from “encouraging the opposition to mount a doomed campaign which has only led to hundreds of thousands of civilians being killed”.

“We have made the situation worse,” he said. “It was eminently foreseeable to anyone who was not intoxicated with wishful thinking. The British Foreign Office, to which I used to belong, I’m sorry to say has got Syria wrong every step of the way.

“They told us at the beginning that Assad’s demise was imminent. They told us he would be gone by Christmas – they didn’t tell us which Christmas, so they could still be proven correct – but then they told us that the opposition was dominated by these so-called moderates. That proved not to be the case.

“Now they are telling us another big lie, that Assad can’t control the rest of the country. Well, I’ve got news for them. He is well on the way to doing so.”

Ford – who has served the Foreign Office throughout the Middle East – said Assad’s forces would need first to consolidate their hold on Aleppo and defend against possible counterattacks. He said they were likely to attack East Ghouta in rural Damascus first before turning to Idlib, the rebels’ last remaining urban stronghold.

“However, this is a time to welcome the fact that there is now a Christmas tree in the central square of Aleppo – there wouldn’t be any Christmas tree if the other side had won,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Ford – a critic of most western military interventions in the Middle East – said aerial attacks similar to those conducted by the Russian and Syrian air force were under way in Mosul in Iraq and in Yemen without the west raising concerns.

“I think we are very selective in our indignation about the Aleppo campaign. Similar bombing is going on in Mosul and in Yemen and we give the people there a pass. We don’t talk about atrocities, we don’t talk about war crimes, although they are indisputably being committed in both those theatres. We don’t talk about genocide, holocaust.

“We will be lucky if those campaigns end with the green buses. There were no green buses in Gaza. There were no green buses after the Nato bombing in Yugoslavia. I think we need to give the [Syrian] government a little bit of credit for what has been a relatively peaceful end to this terrible period.”

Pressed on the regime’s attacks on hospitals, Ford said: “It was also a war crime to use hospitals as command centres, which is what the jihadis did. It was also a war crime to use schools to store ammunition, which is what the jihadis did.”

Ford in the past has suggested opposition forces were responsible for the deadly attack on a UN humanitarian convoy in October, but a UN panel of inquiry has said the attack was conducted from the air, and only Syrian and Russian air forces were operating in the area. The UN panel said it could not judge if the attack, which led to the deaths of 10 humanitarians, was a mistake or deliberate.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “The UK continues to believe in a Syrian-led political settlement. A political solution and transition away from Assad is the only way to end the suffering of the Syrian people. The Assad regime has the blood of hundreds of thousands on its hands. There is no way it can unite and bring stability to Syria.

“The UK has pledged more than £2.3bn to support those affected by the Syrian conflict and sought to reduce the suffering with every diplomatic lever at our command.”

TradPost9000 Friday 23 Dec 2016

So recently the Turkish Forces in & near Al Bab have recently lost Leopard 2s to ISIS. They look like they were abandoned, instead of destroyed.

TradPost9000 Friday 23 Dec 2016

Also captured, at least 1 IFV (ACV-15 from what I can tell) and various gear/weaponry:

TradPost9000 Friday 23 Dec 2016

Cont'd

Niccolo and Donkey Saturday 24 Dec 2016

Fitz TradPost9000

Some maps to bring everyone up to date.

The Syria Analysis Thread

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