The Islamic state

[CrabbedOne]

On Musings On iraq Mosul Campaign Day 75, Dec 30, 2016

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The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times both had a pieces on the difficult job the security forces have screening people for Islamic State members and sympathizers. AP talked with a man from IS occupied west Mosul who was caught in east Mosul. The ISF thought he was an IS member and beat him to try to get him to confess. Other people complained that the government forces were not letting them return to liberated areas. The Los Angeles Times on the other hand observed the courts that have been set up to process people. Everyone claimed that they were innocent, but if a person testified against someone they were automatically sent to a criminal court. The judges hear dozens and dozens of cases each day. This is a very difficult process that can take a long time. There are some abuses going on, and some IS members are being missed, but it is necessary.
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Early in the siege some Pesh were working on the assumption that about a third of Mosul IDPs might be pro-IS. They were reported to be taking a week to handle each fighting age male trying to gain entry to KRG IDP camps. And that's before they get passed on to a court. At the current rate of displacement that would involve tens of thousands of people.

When East Aleppo fell about a third of the displaced accompanied the fighters fleeing to Idlib. This option would have reduced the load on the hard pressed Mukhabarat. The Syrian goons also eased things by rapidly press ganging military aged IDP males and sent them to distant SAA fronts like Deir.

Neither the impressively repressive Syrian gulag machine nor the smaller but also fairly brutal apparatus of the Iraqi state's have the capacity to deal with such numbers of suspects through the usual processes. Saddam or Stalin would have resorted to mass graves or permanent exile here.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On War Is Boring The Battle for Jalawla Never Ends

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Aug. 24, 2014
Polad Talabani is the director of the elite Kurdish Counter Terrorist Group. The CTG technically comes under PUK control, but is a Kurdish Regional Government asset with personnel all over the region. British and American commandos helped to set up the CTG.

Talabani tells War is Boring that taking a city like Jalawla should be easy. He says CTG and PKK fighters working together cleared Makhmur in just an hour and a half. It’s holding a city that’s hard.

He says he finds the collapse of the KDP Peshmerga force in Khanaqin to be strange. According to Talabani, Islamic State includes ex-Iraqi army Special Forces members — some trained by the Americans. He also says that some of the Karway tribe fighters aiding the militants are veterans of Hussein’s army. Many possess sniping and explosives skills.
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Piece on interminable PUK Peshmerga operations around Jalawa near the Iranian border. It is thick with intra-Kurdish and Arab-Kurdish tensions. Most Western support has gone to to the KDP Pesh. Here the PUK are getting some support from Baghdad rather than the Americans. The PUK have a rather long history of working with the Iranians but deny such a role here.

 

[CrabbedOne]

In The National Battle for Mosul is emerging as a lost opportunity

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A number of curious gestures point to an effort to appease Sunni fears over the battle in and around Mosul.

On Saturday, a spokesman of the Nineveh Guard, a Turkey-trained Sunni militia led by Nineveh’s former governor, Athil Al Nujayfi, confirmed that the force had formally merged with the Hashd Al Shaabi. Ankara also announced on Friday that the Turkish prime minister, Binali Yildirim, will visit Baghdad later this month – following two months of heightened diplomatic tensions between the two countries over the role of Turkish forces and their allies in the Mosul operation. On the same day, the PKK, a Turkish-designated Kurdish militia, announced that its militants would withdraw from Sinjar, west of Mosul.

Given these developments, the controlled entry of a select size of Hashd Al Shaabi militias into Mosul to fight alongside the professional forces might now face little opposition. Turkey has fiercely opposed the participation of the Hashd Al Shaabi and insisted that only local fighters join the battle. This demand and the presence of Turkish troops in northern Iraq led to great diplomatic tensions between the two countries.

The situation between Baghdad and Ankara seems to be changing, and de-escalation and cooperation might lead to a closer understanding in Mosul. The involvement of the Hashd Al Shaabi may become necessary. But it would add another layer of uncertainty to the fight for Mosul and diminish the value of the largest battle Iraq has fought in more than a decade.

The battle in Mosul could have been much more significant; it could have been part of a national project to rewrite Iraq’s social and political contract. Unfortunately, it has been reduced largely to a counterterrorism operation to clear the city of ISIL militants. That is a worthwhile target, but a modest one compared to what could be achieved if Washington and Baghdad had worked together on a political track.

The militants’ perseverance in the face of the advancing government forces and the reduction of such a major battle into a counterterrorism operation mean that Iraq has already lost a significant aspect of the war: the grand objective of dealing a deadly blow to ISIL’s claims of statehood. The entry of despised militias into Mosul might render the militants’ defeat in the city meaningless.

I don't know how you would "rewrite Iraq’s social and political contract" while trying to take a city of 1.5 million with the population in place that conspicuously failed to rise against little more than a Brigade of brutal IS fighters. A decidedly unhelpful Turkey stoking sectarian tensions certainly did not help.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On SST The Battle for Mosul: IS' swansong or yet another shapeshifting ? (part 2)

Bahzad compares Mosul to East Aleppo, doubts it will fall in Q1 and has difficulty seeing how it does not end up dragging on without a drastic change in the ROE.

What I'd add is the Iraqis are already signalling a less delicate use of their artillery will begin. Trump will want Mosul taken quickly, he admires Russian ways and has promised to "bomb the shit out of IS". Densely populated Mosul might well be where he starts delivering on that promise. If that happens it'll make the fall of East Aleppo look like a picnic.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Musings on Iraq 24,079 Reported Dead And 39,166 Wounded In Iraq In 2016

Iraq has had far worse years in the 21st century. About 16K civilians were reported killed in 2016 by Iraqi Body Count roughly the same number as in Syria but much less reported. This would make for 66% rate of civilian casualties reflecting the Iraqi insurgency's peculiar level of savagery. This is the inverse of the Syrian civil war where two thirds of casualties tend to be combatants with the regime side often coming off worse and rebels killing rather low level of non-combatants so far. Even IS is less predatory when off home turf in Syria.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Oops!

I heard that they're not going to be recommissioning Martyrs Do The Funniest Things for a second series

 

[CrabbedOne]

In The Kurdistan Tribune Barzani vs. PKK: Recipe for Kurdistan’s Second Civil War?

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Barzani’s gamble against the PKK in Iraq has the potential to spark a second civil war in the KRG. The KDP must ensure that all legitimate factions within the KRG are represented and heard rather than using the KRG as a tool to push personal KDP objectives. The KDP also risks losing further trust within the KRG if it continues its path in fulfilling Erdogan’s ambitions in Iraq. Turkey is forcing the KDP to use KRG Peshmerga as an extension an internal Turkish dispute. Deputy prime minister of Turkey, Veysi Kaynak, has threatened to take matters into his own hands if the KRG fails to drive the PKK out of Sinjar.

The Kurdistan Regional Government is not economically or politically capable of intervening in another conflict. If a KDP-PKK encounter does occur, it would be without the support of the PUK and Gorran. The KDP would also take the risk of portraying itself as traitors against Kurds for siding with Turkey, a state that openly imprisons and kills Kurdish civilians within its own borders, as well as in Syria.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On ISW The Campaign for Mosul: December 20, 2016 - January 3, 2017

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New accelerants from the ISF and Coalition made this revived push successful. Three brigades of Federal Police and units from the Emergency Response Division, an elite unit in the Ministry of Interior, redeployed from the southern axis and began operating in the southeast alongside units from the 9th Iraqi Army Armored Division. The introduction of the Federal Police into Mosul is a risk if the units are especially compromised by or comprised of pro-Iranian militias, which has historically resulted in sectarian violence, although the Coalition has previously cooperated with at least one of the three brigades in Ramadi. These reinforcements bolstered Iraqi Army efforts to retake several southeast neighborhoods from December 29 to January 3 and relieved the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), which has shouldered the bulk of the urban warfare, the burden to both hold territory and support less-experienced ISF units.

The Coalition also accelerated the advance by embedding deeper with Iraqi units. The Coalition announced on December 24 that it would embed at a lower-level in the ISF, including alongside formations, such as the Federal Police, with which the Coalition has not embedded in the past. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter had announced in July, after the ISF retook the Qayyarah Airbase, that embedding U.S. advisors at brigade- and battalion- levels was one of four accelerants it would deploy as the ISF set final conditions for Mosul, however advisors continued to remain primarily at the division level. U.S. advisors are now particularly focused on supporting the northern axis, where Iraqi Army units have not yet breached the city, though the advisors are also operating alongside the CTS and other ISF units. The ISF may also begin relying on increased Coalition airstrikes to counter ISIS targets, rather than door-to-door operations; this raises the risk of civilian casualties but can stave off further attrition.
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US taking more risks with embedding it's SF in Mosul attack.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Al Monitor Is Iraqi Kurdistan heading toward civil war?

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These patterns are repeating themselves in the Kurdistan Region. Even if the KRG and Kurdish party officials have much to lose from internal conflict, other groups may not and could benefit from the weak Iraqi state, angry populations and managed instability. In addition, as the KRG becomes increasingly dependent on Ankara, the Kurdish problem in Turkey remains unresolved, the Kurds in Syria demand autonomy and the PKK expands its influence, the KRG will inherit the transborder PKK problem. The PKK in turn will attempt to benefit from the political void growing in the Iraqi Kurdish street, where many see it as an authentic Kurdish nationalist party. The PKK and other radicalized groups are also useful to regional states, including Iran, that seek to counter Barzani-KDP power and Turkey.

Left unchecked, these tensions will continue to undermine the economic growth and internal stability of the Kurdistan Region — even after Mosul's liberation — and the KRG’s ability to act as an effective local partner to defeat IS. More serious attention should be paid to strengthening Iraqi state institutions, including the KRG and provincial administrations, economic diversification, revenue-sharing between Baghdad and Erbil, border security and relations between Ankara, Baghdad and the KRG. The PKK issue inside northern Iraq also needs to be addressed by including ways to reinstate a cease-fire with Ankara and resolve the Kurdish issues in Turkey and Syria.

Rather a lot of similarities to the last intra-Kurdish civil conflict in the 90s.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Quite.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Rudaw Nine Peshmerga arrested on charges of business deals with ISIS

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Nine Peshmerga were arrested a few days ago near Daququ, southern Kirkuk. Five of them were from the Ministry's 80 Unit and the other four from 70 Unit.

Financial dealings with ISIS have been a problem previously. The KRG formed a committee to investigate smuggling of cars, food, and fuel across territories then held by ISIS. The final report issued by the committee in early 2015 revealed that the illegal trade amounted to $1 million a day.

A number of officials from the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and the Peshmerga had been involved in the illegal trade.

In December, Shiite commanders announced that they had arrested tens of Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi soldiers accused of carrying out trade with ISIS in Hawija.

As in Syria little gets in the way of doing business.

 

[CrabbedOne]

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Finally, there was a story in eKurd about the Kurds attempt to control the areas they freed. Qaraqosh, east of Mosul is controlled by the Ninewa Protection Unit a Christian militia. The Peshmerga however have stopped supplies being sent to them. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) that ran much of northern Ninewa tried to co-opt the various ethnic groups in the province before the Islamic State swept through in 2014. Since then its carrot and stick approach to controlling these groups has been frayed, and now it is attempting to re-assert its hegemony over them.

Irbil often appears to be worse in terms of inclusion (even of opposition Kurds) than heavily criticised Baghdad.

 

[CrabbedOne]

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This unitary system changed after 2003 into a diffuse, multi-actor framework. The basic economic model is the same as before Saddam’s ouster, but now there are many more political actors who are competing with each other. The basic calculations in Iraqi politics today is: “How much money is needed to win the next election?” These funds come from the oil revenue in government coffers — accessed by holding a position in charge of a ministry, for example. Ultimately, to be in government, a politician needs money, and to have money, the politician needs to be in government. This dynamic — which is very myopic, unstable, and transactional in nature — characterizes Iraqi politics more than sectarian, ideological, or ethnic divides. Political debates at the national and local levels always come down to the issue of how much control an individual or party has over the state resources. When one looks closely at the budgetary debates in Iraqi Parliament, it becomes clear that the main problem is that of revenue-sharing.
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Clever point here is that Baghdad's politics may suffer from a surfeit of inclusion of very corrupt politicians of every stripe. Something the US often myopically encouraged during the reconstruction and a cause of a great deal of discontent. Already as bent as a nine bob note under the Baath Iraq remarkably actually became more corrupt as did Afghanistan.

You can't just blame the Americans though they had little to do with building up Irbil and it's also a remarkably sticky fingered rentier state created by native genius. Raises the interesting point that it's far from certain if oil rich Kirkuk would opt to be a permanent part of the KRG.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On MEE Iraq forces launch operation to retake western area

Heading for Al-Qaim. That's a couple of hours drive down from Deir ez-Zur, Syria.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On ISW Iraq Situation Report: December 21, 2016 - January 5, 2017

Lots of IS counter offensive attacks across Iraq.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Tigris reached, claims of 80%+ of the Eastern bank liberated. The Eastern bank was meant to be the easy bit.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Musings On Iraq Mosul Campaign Day 85, Jan 9, 2017

IS defences in East Mosul beginning to fail. Some reports of IS infighting Iraqis V foreigners.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Two bigotries for the price of one there.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On ISW Iraq Situation Report: January 6-11, 2017

IS attacks on Baghdad undermining PM Abadi.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Musings On Iraq Mosul Campaign Day 87, Jan 11, 2017

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Finally, the ISF has adapted to the urban fighting as well. Before Iraqi units were moving in large vehicle columns through the city. Those were slow and easy to hit. Now the forces are moving by foot. They are also using spikes and cratering roads along with older tactics like employing bulldozers to create berms all meant to slow down and impede vehicle bombs. Finally, there are four different forces in Mosul, the Golden Division, the army, the Federal Police, and the Rapid Reaction forces. At first, none of these units were coordinating. Now the U.S. has pushed them towards greater cooperation with weekly meetings of commanders. Finally, the multi-front push on Mosul was abandoned for concentrating just on the eastern side.
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Better progress but still slow with the same turf having to be reclaimed multiple times.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Yup.

 

[CrabbedOne]

Well blew them up some more. Coalition bombing had already put them beyond use but not repair.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Niqash.org Whose Frontier Is It Anyway? International Interests Line Up To Take Control Of Iraq-Syria Border

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The Shiite Muslim militias, formerly volunteers but recently classified as a legitimate force by the Iraqi government, fighting the IS group are developing plans to guard this border. Many of these militias receive support, in terms of finances and training, from the Iranian government.

Meanwhile the US has also been encouraging Sunni Muslim tribes in the area to launch operations in the border areas too, underscoring the military importance of the area.

But of course, the border area also has a political significance. It is highly likely that Iran would like a land corridor connecting it to long-time allies in Syria. It is also highly likely that the US and some Iraqis would like to prevent this. Each country will use its allies in Iraq to try and get what it wants.
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Watch this space. Elsewhere I've seen reports that Saudi intelligence has been arming the tribes in West Anbar.

 

[CrabbedOne]

The Danish government has said it will stop paying Isis militants welfare benefits as part of a plan to fight terrorism.

More than 30 foreign fighters from the country are known to have continued to receive thousands of pounds worth of state unemployment benefit known as “kontanthjælp” in Syria and Iraq, with the revelations provoking outrage last month.

Employment minister Troels Lund Poulsen immediately vowed action and efforts to recover the payments, although it was unclear how the money could be reclaimed
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Well that's al Baghdadi's plan for buying a new Rolex buggered.

Back in the days before the DLA West Belfast PIRA also scraped a living off the Bru while extorting funds from state building projects. Slab's rather more effective South Armagh lot meanwhile were making a fortune smuggling diesel and fags while savagely disfiguring the countryside with huge bungalows. Private sector efficiencies innit.

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Musings On Iraq Mosul Campaign Day 88, Jan 12, 2017

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A Coalition air strike was blamed for losses in west Mosul as well. Airwars that monitors civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria by the Coalition had 21 dead and 14 wounded from such a incident. U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator Lise Grande pointed out that 47% of all the casualties in the Mosul campaign have been civilians. Most of those have been due to IS shelling and gunfire and Coalition air strike. The Iraqi forces have also picked up their air strikes and artillery fire on east Mosul likely adding to those numbers.
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This is a very high rate of civilian casualties. It compares to about 30% in Syria and 40% in Yemen. In this case it appears to mostly due to IS as is typical in the Iraqi insurgency but Coalition bombardments are also killing substantial numbers.

There've been reports of the ISF shelling civ pop an old habit. Some elite Iraqi units have taken unsustainable levels of casualties. There's a trade off in an urban fight between taking casualties and using area weapons that are prone to kill civilians.

Reports infighting between local and foreign IS fighters rather reminiscent of the collapse of East Aleppo.

 

[CrabbedOne]

The CTS gets a rather favourable coverage in our media. Not as favourable as the Pesh get. It's Gulf Arab media that has more of a problem with them and the new establishment in Iraq in general.

 

[CrabbedOne]

 

[CrabbedOne]

On Musings On Iraq Interview With Journalist Florian Neuhof On The Mosul Campaign

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3. After east Mosul is freed the next big move will be crossing the Tigris River and taking on the western half of the city. There doesn’t seem to be any consensus on what that will be like, the same, harder, or easier than the east. Any predictions for the coming fight?

I fear it will be tougher still. The roads in the old parts of West Mosul are narrow and windy, the neighborhoods more densely packed. Moslawis have told me that support for ISIS is higher in the west. Civilians and soldiers have told me that a lot of the foreign fighters have retreated to the west bank. These fighters have a reputation of being better than local ISIS combatants. The terror group may still have half of its fighters left to defend the west bank.

That said, I think the tactical advantage has shifted to the Iraqi military. ISIS has sprung its surprise by throwing waves of suicide bombers at the attackers, but the military has been able to devise ways of better dealing with these. The ISF should also be able to learn from its mistakes in the past, while the US has realized that it needed to up its support. ISIS on the other hand may well have run out of ideas, recent innovations like dropping grenades from drones have proven pretty ineffective. So hopefully my fears will prove unfounded.
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Interesting interview, puts down poor performance of some ISF units to poor senior commanders and lack of training. That's not much different than the problems under the previous PM.

 

[CrabbedOne]

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Abu Rami, a 54-year-old former government employee, described a division of labor among Islamic State militants at the frontlines: a group that plants explosives, one that has snipers and another that serves as local guides.

The snipers are usually Russians, Chechens or Afghans, he said. The Iraqis, many from Mosul and the nearby city of Tel Afar, ride around on motorcycles telling them where to take up positions.

Abu Rami said he was surprised when the fair-skinned sniper who posted up in his house spoke to him in broken Arabic, saying: "For the sake of Allah, get out."

"They do not know the area so the motorcycle guides the suicide car bomb (to its target) and tells the fighters, 'You go here, you go there. Go detonate here'", he said.

U.S. Army Lieutenant-General Steve Townsend, commander of the international coalition backing Iraqi forces, told Reuters last week that Islamic State's local leadership had proven effective without a hierarchical chain of command.

But he said separate cells fighting in different neighborhoods appeared increasingly unable to coordinate across different areas it controlled inside the city.

Another U.S. military official said fighters the coalition observes moving skilfully across Mosul's urban terrain usually turn out to be foreigners.

According to another Muharibeen resident, who asked not to be named, Islamic State will shoot from a position for several minutes until the military identifies the location. The militants often escape to another house through holes previously knocked through outer walls.

"Then there is bombardment to destroy the house, to destroy the sniper position," he said. "But the sniper will pop up again here or there."

 

[CrabbedOne]

Still much smaller than anticipated.