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The Islamic state

These seems to be form an al sura tweet. They say they talked to isis prisoners who told them this. Very flimsy, but totally possible.

Al sura seems to be a pro-iraqi state anti-barzani platform.
 
the odds of him making it out of captivity alive were always close to zero, but its still sad. its among the weirdest ISIS-related stories there has been.
 
On Musings On Iraq Post Mosul Liberation Day 17 Jul 27 2017
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Human Rights Watch accusedthe army’s 16th Division of extra judicial killings in west Mosul. In mid-July 2017 two observers in the Old City witnessed soldiers from the division beat and shoot four IS suspects. Soldiers detained the observers afterward, took their cameras, and deleted photos they took of the incident. As they were leaving they saw more dead bodies. The observers also saw a 14-year-old boy who was shot accused of being an IS fighter, and a woman’s head decapitated who was allegedly an IS sniper. Since the liberation of Mosul several videos and pictures have been posted on social media and in the media depicting soldiers and police beating and executing IS suspects. The Human Rights Watch report is just the latest to document these abuses. Prime Minister Haider Abadi has repeatedly said that anyone caught committing these types of crimes would be prosecuted, but that has never happened. At the same time, he has increasingly attacked human rights groups for making these accusations, which is another sign that nothing will be done about them.
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If I recall correctly the 16th Division was reformed from units that collapsed in the face of IS's advance in the Summer of 2014. IS massacred a large number of ISF soldiers sometimes sorting out Shia men for execution. It's no excuse but there's probably an element of revenge for that here.
 
On Niqash IS Far From Gone: For Iraq, One Down, Three More Battles To Go
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Al Qaim

It is highly likely that the fight to expel the IS group from Al Qaim is a long way down the list of battles to come. Tal Afar and Hawija are more likely to happen first. This is because Al Qaim is located on an international border, between Iraq and Syria. Given the geography, Al Qaim is by far the most secure city for the IS group.

Basically the location of the city means that it would require both countries to coordinate in a campaign against the IS group.

The Syrian government is not able to do this at the moment and the Iraqi forces are not ready for this fight either, according to Ibrahim al-Jumaili, a senior officer retired from the Iraqi army.

In February this year the Iraqi government announced that it would start aerial bombing of the area around Al Qaim, in coordination with the Syrian government. However after just a few days the raids stopped, and no explanation was given.

“The most difficult fighting is that taking place on the border and in the large desert areas,” explains al-Jumaili, who served in Iraq’s ground forces during the Iran-Iraq war. “If the Iraqi army pushes the IS fighters out of Al Qaim, they will just go to Abu Kamal [the Syrian town on the other side of the border]. But then they will just come back into Iraq when they want to, because there are no Syrian troops there to stop them,” al-Jumaili argues.

There is also the difficult political situation in Syria to consider, with various actors, including the US and Russia, engaged in their own level of conflict. “The longer it takes to settle the Syrian problem, the longer it will take to liberate Al Qaim and the Iraqi-Syrian border area,” al-Jumaili argues.
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All three of these battles have political complications as the article explains.
 
On Brookings Evidence-based keys to a stable, post-caliphate Iraq
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BEWARE SPOILERS

Peace is difficult enough to sustain when there are only two parties. Add in more rebel groups, however, and it gets even harder.

Think of it as the conflict version of having too many cooks in the kitchen. The more rebels there are, the more difficult it is to get them all to agree on what the recipe for peace should be. Even worse, the more rebels there are, the more likely at least one will have incentive to play the spoiler—typically by targeting civilians as a way of eroding popular support for political compromise.

Two of the best new studies on post-conflict stabilization, by Sean Zieglerand by Peter Rudloff and Michael Findley, show that the effects of rebel competition are especially pernicious. When rebel groups split and compete with one another, they don’t just make it harder to end civil wars—they make it harder to keep the peace for years after the war finally ends. In one model, in fact, peace was over 50 percent more likely to break over 10 years when there had been multiple rebel groups than when there had only been one.

For Iraq, the implication is straightforward: The coalition should do all it can to avoid either splintering the Islamic State or giving rise to competing Sunni insurgents. Rather than trying to weaken the Islamic State by fracturing it—which Kathleen Cunningham has shown is a common tactic—the coalition should instead seek to keep the Islamic State unified.
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Looks at a number of studies on recurring civil wars.
 
On BuzzFeedNews Inside Iran’s Mission To Dominate The Middle East
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In Iraq, the war against ISIS has propelled the paramilitary forces into a formidable military and political force with as many as 172,000 men. Iraq’s Shiite militias now have their own TV stations, construction businesses, and even sponsor soccer clubs. They control vast patronage networks that provide jobs and a sense of purpose to thousands of mostly, poor young Iraqi men while empowering their political bosses in Baghdad.

Last year, the Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, announced plans to recognize the paramilitary groups, formally called Popular Mobilization Units, or PMUs, as a branch of the armed forces in recognition of their growing power. Iranian-backed militias including Asaheb ahl al-Haq have taken up positions on the front lines adjacent to the city of Tal Afar, complicating plans by US-led forces and the Abadi government in Baghdad to use the less controversial Iraqi army to retake the city from ISIS. On Saturday, Abadi said Iraqi militias, which include both Sunni tribal groups and Shiite fighters, would take part in the offensive to recapture Tal Afar, raising fears of further sectarian conflict.
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That numbers probably an overestimate. Not all Iraqi Hashd are loyal to Iran. I've seen estimates around the 100K mark for Hashd strength. It's still a big strategic reserve of Jihadist manpower. And that's just the Iraqis, Iran's drawing on Shia manpower elsewhere in Asia too.

Article points out Iran's militias tend to be rate as more effective than anything US training efforts amongst Sunni Arabs have produced. Mentions recent reports of them training in the use of Explosive Formed Penetrators. The Iranian gadget that killed and maimed a lot of our soldiers during the Iraqi occupation. That's an ominous sign of a clash coming with US forces.

The rise of these militias and a far firmer Iranian grip on Iraq and Syria may be the big legacy of IS's Iraqi rising in 2014. The PKK's Rojava, a US protectorate, another. Both are ticking regional time bombs.
 
On Musings On Iraq 1,459 Killed, 636 Wounded In Iraq July 2017
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Diyala has witnessed the greatest increase in insurgent activity in recent months. Monthly incidents continued to go up and down, but in June, there were an average of two per day, matching the highest mark of 2016, before going down to 1.3 in July. Most attacks are low level shootings, 15 total, or IEDs, 24. But there are larger attacks such as four successful suicide bombers. IS has strongholds throughout the rural and mountainous regions of the province. These are usually isolated or contain lots of small towns, palm groves and rivers that allow the militants to avoid the security, give them cover from aircraft, and provide them access and transportation to the surrounding provinces. The security forces, which are controlled by Badr, carry out continuous sweeps in Diyala, but have not had any discernable effect.
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Attacks down in most of Iraq but Badr Brigade fiefdom in Diyala still not an advert for IRGC counterinsurgency.
 
On Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi Blog The Archivist: The Islamic State's Security Apparatus Structure in the Provinces
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Even so, it is questionable how successful the IS security apparatus has actually been in counter-espionage/counter-intelligence. It is true that there have been no successful internal revolts in IS territories that have driven the group out of areas under its control. Retaking territory from IS has required forces to enter from outside. Yet such a measure of success for IS primarily comes down to IS' monopoly on force over would-be armed opponents inside the territories it controls, having disarmed many rivals in conquered areas through imposition of repentance programs, and inspiring terror through brutal executions of accused spies and collaborators with the coalition and other enemies, with some cases broadcast in IS propaganda. On another level, IS has not been able to prevent many senior cadres from being killed in raids and airstrikes intended to target the leadership, suggesting a considerable degree of intelligence penetration and leaking of valuable information to the coalition by locals, the very thing counter-espionage is supposed to stop.

Within the documents, one particular department identified as part of a provincial security centre's structure is the security of the mujahideen administration, intended to track cases of doctrinal corruption. This issue has in fact been a serious problem for IS, particularly on the issue of takfir(declaring someone/something to be of disbelief in Islam) and how widely it should be applied.[8] In the realm of the use of the Internet, no evidence has yet emerged to show that IS was able to develop software and tools to wiretap and monitor communications by civilians over local Internet networks. Instead, the introduction of measures that gradually banned personal Internet connections in people's homes suggests a reactive approach that fell short of a technological breakthrough.[9]

In light of these considerable failings, the narrative that former Ba'athists were able to create a highly effective security apparatus in IS seems less convincing once examined more closely. Along with the 13 documents found that detail the security structure was a brief document, in the form of a letter from the greater Diwan al-Amn al-Aam to the amir of the security centre Aleppo wilaya, providing notice on a new framework for the security apparatus. The structures detailed in the 13 documents appear to reflect this new framework, notice of which is dated to June 2016. If the framework for the security apparatus had to be revised, the implication is likewise a reactive approach to security problems facing IS
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The IS Caliphate as a rather leaky authoritarian state.
 
On Musings On Iraq Post Mosul Liberation Day 28 Aug 7 2017
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Control of Mosul remains in transition. The spokesman for the Joint Operations Command General Yahya Rasool said that the army would remain in the city until the local police were built back up. That came after units from the 9th and 16th Division were pulled out to be used in the Tal Afar operation. The Federal Police is taking over many of those areas. The Ninewa Council has been asking Baghdad for months to re-instate the former police, but it appears that the central government would rather create a brand new force. That could take months to years, and there appeared to be no pre-planning for it either. That has left Mosul and Ninewa to a mix of over 30 different forces from tribal Hashd to Hashd to police to Federal Police to the army to the Golden Division. There is no overall command for these forces, there is little to no coordination, and many of the Hashd and tribal Hashd are rivals. Again, Baghdad did not prepare for this contingency leading to this ad hoc situation. Luckily, the Islamic State is on the run, but once it regroups this hodgepodge situation could easily be exploited by the militants.
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This is a mess, Mosul had a large (on paper 60K in 2014) local police force that was fairly well rated though it had declined as Baghdad asserted it's authority and squabbled with the (pretty awful) local governor.
 
On WaPo Islamic State’s next move could be underground criminal networks
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Strategic retreat into underground criminal networks

Since the Islamic State no longer has the ability to tax and control illicit trade routes, its leadership is retreating into the underground economy to stay financially afloat. Most important, the group has turned to other mafia-style money laundering methods to hide and protect its large cash resources. “They’re already looking into other economic models, which look very much like organized crime,” Mansour said. “They’re changing money into American dollars and investing in local businesses, such as pharmaceutical companies or car dealerships.”

As its fighters move underground, the Islamic State plans to use these businesses as front operations to conceal and launder its massive cash resources.

By retreating into the underground economy, the Islamic State hopes to work like a mafia, extorting local businesses and biding its time until there is another opportunity to rise to power. Whether the Islamic State succeeds, however, depends on whether the existing criminal networks in Iraq will allow it to operate on their turfs. There are powerful, long-standing smuggling networks in the region that have their own business interests to protect — these criminal elites may prove to be an unexpected check on Islamic State ambitions in the underworld.

The smugglers have good reason to be suspicious of the extremists. As I explain in my new book, before its dramatic rise to power in 2014, the Islamic State forged a secret and powerful alliance with key stakeholders in the underground economy in Mosul, promising them a better deal than the corrupt and rapacious militias affiliated with the government. But that relationship went sour after the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate betrayed its business supporters and raised taxes exponentially. The fact that the Islamic State bamboozled these well-established smugglers may make its retreat into the underground precarious.

While it is easy to get distracted by their extremist ideologies, the real story behind these jihadist groups is often interwoven with criminal networks and pragmatic interests. In Afghanistan, wealthy smugglers along the Pakistan border financed Taliban power for years. In Somalia, clandestine business elites in Mogadishu were directly responsible for funding the rise of al-Shabab. In Mali, AQIM commanders even married the daughters of the mafia bosses who controlled the cigarette and narcotics trafficking industries, to cement these profitable relationships.
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As the author explains this resort to the black economy is rather likely. IS still has muscle, a lot of money, international connections and a truly fear inspiring reputation.
 
On CMEC Will the September 25 Referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan Lead to an Independent State?
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Even if it is counterintuitive to argue this, I would say that the referendum risks inhibiting Kurdish independence rather than enabling it. It may fulfill the genuine aspirations of an older generation of Kurds who struggled and now wish to leave behind a legacy. Yet, it also leaves the younger generation of Kurds with a heritage of unachieved political reforms, personal networks dominating weak institutions, and a hostile neighborhood. Therefore, this generation remains unequipped to build up and pursue the dream of an independent state. Whether Kurdistan will be a fully sovereign state or not, Kurdish millennials face similar problems as their peers across the globe: the abstract promises of a political establishment in crisis, that offers assurances for the future while leaving youths to struggle with the previous generation’s shortcomings.
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Three analysts all doubtful. As Sowell has pointed out it's a bit Barzani clan charade with the outcome a foregone conclusion. KRG Kurds will vote sentimentally for independence even if they know they're a broke, riven polity and actually pretty dependent on their neighbours.
 
On CMEC Abadi’s Momentary Refuge in Victory
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A common theme of this narrative is the security service’s professionalism and their good relations with citizens in Mosul and other liberated areas. At his July 25 press conference, Abadi commented that “treatment of citizens and the displaced by the security services of citizens has been dignified and humane. Indeed these forces represented the best possible example of the protection of citizens and displaced, and concern for them.” He has also repeatedly been dismissive of NGO reports on abuses and illegal executions in Mosul, commenting on July 12, “I do not deny that there are some violations of citizens here and there. In every war and confrontation there are violations. But I demand these organizations check their people and their sources… Should we just surrender our country to terrorism? Our heroes are protecting human rights!” His stance reflects the mainstream view within the Iraqi political establishment.

Human Rights Watch, as well as other NGOs, has issued multiple reportsnoting evidence of executions and abuse of prisoners, which have also become a major part of international media reporting on Mosul. Still, there is no clear pattern of sectarianism, and a substantial but indefinable number of the executions are by local Sunnis taking revenge on fellow Sunnis. Much of the attention on illegal executions is coming from non-credible figures or media outlets that support Sunni insurgency or have worked with the Islamic State in the past. Many executions are in fact often driven by the widespread belief that corruption in the judiciary will allow suspected Islamic State members to buy their freedom and get away. One investigative report by the Telegraph into the only court in northern Iraq trying terror suspects found that torture was routine, death from ill-treatment common, and judicial procedure generally perfunctory. Unlike in Baghdad in 2005 and 2006, Shia militias are not making an effort at sectarian cleansing, but regular security forces are executing suspects instead of turning them over to a judiciary no one trusts.

Although this issue may not be of as much concern within most Iraqi media or have significant internal political impact, field executions create an image issue for Abadi with international actors, and there is no likelihood of him taking serious action. Because Abadi’s dismissal of such NGO reports reflects the mainstream view within the political establishment, it is the only politically viable response available to him. Even were Abadi willing to risk his political future by pushing the issue, orders to arrest and try security personnel might not be carried out, and neither is there a reliable judicial framework for doing so. Still, the controversy over security forces’ actions in areas under government control looms over Abadi.
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Sowell on the dilemmas facing Abadi.

Note the distrust of the judiciary to even jail IS fighters. In 2013 IS began breaking out a large strategic reserve of men from Iraqi jails. Some were AQI veterans others new recruits gained in prison. IS had dedicated officials managing the prison population; it was that important to their strategy. This also goes back to US capture rather than kill policies in the Bush era and Camp Bucca. Iraq's jails were an incubator of the second rising. After what happened in 2014 ISF soldiers, Hashd and Pesh sometimes taking no IS prisoners should not be a surprise.

In an era of routine targeted assassinations by western power when SF got sent to Mosul with kill lists of foreign fighters it's a bit hypocritical to get overly judgemental about these things.
 
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On Musing On Iraq Post Mosul Liberation Day 34 Aug 13 2017
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Former Governor Atheel Nujafi again attacked his rivals. Nujafi recounted June 9, 2014 when Mosul was under attack by the militants. According to him that night the Iraqi forces had withdrawn from west to east Mosul. The Defense Minister called him and ordered Nujafi to ask the Peshmerga for help. Nujafi said the Kurds refused to provide aid without a direct order from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The premier however refused to make the call and said one of his aides would do it. The U.S. Special Presidential Envoy Bret McGurk confirmed part of Nujafi’s recollection saying that the Americans pushed Maliki to ask the Kurds for help, but he refused claiming the situation was under control. The PM was also concerned that if the Peshmerga were brought in they would not leave the city. A few days later Mosul fell. This was the just the latest example of Nujafi going after his opponents. In the last few weeks he has talked to the press more and more attacking his political enemies, attempting to blame them for Mosul. This time he picked an easy target as Maliki was responsible.
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The former governor basically destroyed his own support in Mosul by becoming too close to Turkey and the KRG. When he called for a city favoured by Baath officers as a place of retirement to resist IS little happened. The ISF had not been behaving well in Mosul. The last time the sticky fingered Pesh entered Mosul was not remembered fondly by locals. The Pesh remained outside during the retaking of Mosul this year. In 2014 owning the decision to bring the KDP militia in would have been politically courageous. PM Maliki finally was the guy in charge when IS took Mosul and is the most to blame but Nujafi and Barzani in Irbil really were part of the problem as well. All three tended to squabble and appear to have underestimated the ability of a relative small IS force to take a big city. It wasn't as sudden as it appeared in the MSM; the situation in Mosul had been deteriorating for sometime as IS carefully created the conditions for the city's fall. At this stage it was probably too late. It was less reported but like the ISF the Pesh also collapsed before the surprising advance of IS in areas like Sinjar. IS's ability to conduct highly mobile battalion sized battles wasn't something Iraqi forces were trained to deal with.
 
On War On The Rocks THE ISLAMIC STATE MAY BE FAILING, BUT ITS STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS LEGACY IS HERE TO STAY
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Besides this, the Islamic State’s media legacy will also continue and expand as other insurgents emulate its obsessive proclivity to media, information operations, and propaganda. From Syria to Southeast Asia, likeminded armed groups have taken notice and begun imitating the Islamic State’s style, output and dissemination. (Judging by some of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s recent tapes, al-Qaeda Central is not among these groups. While the terror chieftain’s rants are pithier than they used to be, they remain geriatric in the extreme.)

The scale of the menace presented by the Islamic State today pales in comparison to the myriad other global challenges we face, yet the group nevertheless manages to persistently dominate and terrorize the public mind. Tellingly, Pew recently named it the top threat in a total of 18 countries surveyed — with climate change ranking second — something that clearly demonstrates that dedicating time and energy to the information environment can generate a robust return on investment. This is the power of terrorist strategic communications par excellence, and it is not going unnoticed.
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As threats go IS always was hugely self hyped but it has had Western states acting like easily scared ninnies. That actually detracts from taking other threats as seriously as they should be taken. The great flaw of the endless, distracting GWOT. Active US enemies like Russia, North Korea, Iran all dwarf IS's modest capabilities but don't have the terrifying PR machine of the Caliphate's paper tiger.
 
On CTC Sentinel PREDICTING THE SHAPE OF IRAQ’S NEXT SUNNI INSURGENCIES
Abstract: All politics and security is local in Iraq. Therefore, the analytical framework for predicting the shape and intensity of Iraq’s next Sunni insurgencies should also be based on the unique characteristics of each part of Iraq. The Islamic State and other insurgents are bouncing back strongest and quickest in the areas where the security forces are either not strong enough or not politically flexible enough to activate the population as a source of resistance against insurgents.
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Perceptive piece by Knights. He does not see IS as a movement in "disarray" thanks to its territorial losses but one building towards a new insurgency. He points to new areas of Shia and Kurdish militia "colonisation" as possible hot spots. Diyala under Badr is currently a mess. He also points to Dibis district where tension with new Kurdish masters is spawning an insurgency. He's disturbed by new IS activity in the Baghdad Belts. Knights also sees the continuing Syrian Civil War feeding insurgent activity in areas like Anbar. Ungoverned areas have always featured in Iraq and he sees those as a problem. As always he recommends improved Baghdad/Irbil security forces with a far greater mission emphasis on protecting the population as essential. Of course behind that there has to be the political will not simply to oppress restive populations.

Consider that and think of Assad's manpower poor grab for Caliphate territory in Eastern Syria.
 
In TDS Iraqi forces close in on Daesh-held Tal Afar
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Tal Afar was once a major supply hub between Mosul and the Syrian border and capturing it would be another major blow to Daesh's self-declared "caliphate" that once controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq.

The Iraqi army, federal police and counter-terrorism forces backed by 20,000 fighters from the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary group launched the offensive on Tal Afar.

They are battling Daesh on three fronts - the west, south and southeast - and commanders have told AFP they expect to tighten the noose on the militants by edging closer to the gates of the city.

The federal police said its forces had retaken four villages on the western front on the first day of the operation while the Iran-backed Hashed said its fighters had advanced to the edges of Tal Afar's western suburbs.

Iraqi forces have been pounding Daesh with mortar fire after weeks of air strikes to weaken the fighters who overran Tal Afar in 2014.

In an indication of their next target, Iraqi planes on Sunday and Monday dropped leaflets on the town of Hawijah to the south, urging residents to prepare as "retaking your city is the next goal of the armed forces."
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Note the large Hashd force. The Turks were making aggressive noises about the Hashd being involved in Tal Afar last year. Iranian Turkish relations seem to have approved since then. Now taking the city is finally happening with a big Hashd involvement. Tal Afar in population terms in 2014 was about 10% smaller than Raqqa. Tal Afar has often been a hub of Salafi-Jihadi activity in Iraq for a while.

Trump's head of the NSC McMaster commanded the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment out there in 05. He was credited as a rather enlightened counterinsurgent working closely with locals at a time when the US officer corps was often a bit overly "kinetic" in Iraq. It's one of the reasons he became such a well respected officer within the US military.
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But according to Bing West in The Strongest Tribe, “McMaster’s real success was not clearing and holding the city by setting up out posts,” but by “overcoming the sectarian feud” that had previously rent the city.” McMaster removed Tal Afar’s corrupt Shia police chief and his 133 handpicked deputies and replaced them with a balanced Shia-Sunni police force of 1,700 men. He also provided money to be distributed by a joint Shia-Sunni city council. “Both the city leaders, who gained power through control of the purse, and the population, who gained security and services, had an incentive to oppose those who supported a return of the takfiris.”Well, Lieutenant Colonel Chris Hickey did a tremendous
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The Shia population fled IS in 2014.
 
On Niqash.org Next Stop, Tal Afar: In Northern Iraq, Forces Prepare For Extremists’ Last Stand
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The last component is the one that is causing some problems between Turkey and Iran. During the fighting in Mosul, only one Shiite Muslim group took part, the Al Abbas brigade. Turkish officials have been warning against the participation of more Shiite Muslim militias for months, fearing illegal acts and revenge killings against the Sunni Muslims who remained in the area. Turkey cares about these because they are mostly of Turkmen ethnicity. Shiite Turkmen believe that their neighbours who stayed all support the IS group.

Turkish troops remain in Iraq, in a camp that is about 50 kilometres away from the battlefield. Despite the fact that their presence has ignited a diplomatic spat between Iraq and Turkey, the Turkish soldiers have remained there, to threaten Iran should Shiite Muslim militias get too close to the Turkmen of Tal Afar.

However Turkey’s fears have apparently been eased recently, an Iraqi MP told NIQASH on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the press. Secret talks were held and “Iraq made pledges that there would be no sectarian violence,” the politician told NIQASH.

In order to ensure this, the Iraqi government had decided upon four Shiite Muslim militias to fight at Tal Afar. Three of them were militias that were known to be more loyal to the Iraqi government, associated directly with the senior cleric, Ali al-Sistani, as opposed to those militias that openly pledge loyalty to the neighbouring Iranian government. The fourth faction would be the group known as the Hussein Brigade; most of the fighters are Shiites originally from Tal Afar who will know the city’s geography better than most.

Other Shiite Muslim militias, including those who have expressed loyalty to Iran – such as the Badr organization and the League of the Righteous – will secure the outskirts of the city, ensuring the extremists cannot escape, as well as take charge of security in Tal Afar’s smaller towns.
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Tal Afar is important but like Raqqa it's hardly IS's "last stand".
 
On Rudaw Peshmerga, Iraqi forces on high alert around ISIS in Hawija
Kurdish Peshmerga positions around the ISIS stronghold of Hawija are being fortified to halt attacks and the infiltration of militants. To end the risk to Kirkuk province, the Peshmerga believe Hawija has to be liberated from the extremist group. But, as of now, no agreement has been reached to launch the offensive.

ISIS’ continued presence in Hawija poses direct threats to the four provinces of Kirkuk, Nineveh, Diyala, and Salahadin in northern Iraq. According to information from the Iraqi intelligence agency, some 1,500 ISIS militants are in the city with 50 car bombs ready to be used. From the Hawija area, ISIS has frequently carried out attacks on Peshmerga positions and civilians, often causing casualties.

According to Peshmerga and Kurdish officials, ISIS has adopted a new strategy in the area, regrouping in the Hamrin mountains and around their stronghold of Hawija, establishing relations with local people and moving towards guerrilla-style tactics as they lose territory elsewhere in Iraq and Syria.

The Peshmerga are ready for an offensive on Hawija from five fronts around the city: Daquq, Khurmatu, south Kirkuk, east Kirkuk and Gwer-Makhmour, while Iraqi forces are located on the Hamrin plains, Fatha near Baiji, and the left side of Shargat.
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Goes into detail about each of these fronts. The Hamrin mountains are another area where Iraqi insurgents have often taken refuge.
 
On Musings On Iraq Tal Afar Battle Day 4
The Iraqi forces (ISF) moved further into Tal Afar in just the fourth day of the campaign. First, on August 22, Kifa was declared freed. That turned out to be another example of exaggeration by the ISF. On August 23, the Badr Organization repeated that claim, but then the Golden Division said it only cleared south Kifa, while the northern section was still under attack by the Federal Police and Hashd. The 9th Division along with the 2nd, 11th, and 26th Hashd Brigades took Tanak in east Tal Afar, while the 16th Hashd Brigade entered Khadra in the south. Originally, Baghdad claimed that Tal Afar would follow the model of Mosul with only the Golden Division, army and police entering the town. The government also allegedly held secret meetings with Turkey to assure it that the Hashd would only have a limited role since Ankara threatened intervention over their involvement. Instead what’s happened is that ISF units have been partnered up with Hashd brigades and they have entered Tal Afar from multiple directions. This includes Badr, which is connected to Iran, and exactly the type of unit the Erdogan government was opposed to taking part in the campaign.

Asheq, Sheikh Ibrahim, Ain Wah, and Hamra al-Arab were all freed. In another variation from Mosul, the ISF did not methodically clear all of the surrounding areas before taking on the main target. This time, the Iraqis rushed towards the center of Tal Afar as quickly as possible relying upon multiple fronts and overwhelming force to simply overpower the IS defenders. That has left plenty of small towns under IS control. That’s what the 15thDivision and several Hashd forces are now taking on.
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Seems to be progressing quickly. The Hashd involvement is not going to please Erdogan. Great Satan involvement not pleasing some of the Hashd.
 
On IIR Decentralized Rent Seeking in Iraq’s Post-ISIS Economy: A Warning from the Concrete Block Industry
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Decentralized corruption became a particularly serious issue in Iraq after 2003, when rent seeking by multiple power centers replaced the more centralized exactions of Saddam Hussein and his inner circle (More and Parker, 2007). In the post-ISIS era, the strengthening of the militias will have the potential to exacerbate this problem even further. As these groups become more powerful, each will demand a greater share of the country’s economic surplus. But in the absence of any effective coordination among them, there will be nothing to prevent them from collectively becoming an unsupportable burden on many of the sectors they are trying to exploit.

In this article, I use the experience of Tuz’s concrete block manufacturers to illustrate the threat that the militias’ decentralized rent seeking poses to the Iraqi economy. The evidence comes mainly from interviews with factory owners carried out in March, 2017 as part of a research project sponsored by the Institute of Regional and International Studies (IRIS) at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS). Section I begins with some basic information about concrete block manufacturing and marketing in Tuz. Section II describes how the security crisis following the emergence of ISIS in 2014 led to the current checkpoint regime. Section III provides a theoretical explanation for the seeming paradox of an entire industry shut down by excessive tariffs—clearly the worst possible state of affairs for everyone involved. Finally, Section IV considers the implications of this particular case for the future of Iraq’s non-oil private sector.
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The "corruption free for all" in Tuz Khurmatu as Hashd militias chaotically extort fees at checkpoints crushing the economy. Many regime "controlled" areas in Syria appear to have similar problems.
 
CrabbedOne , why don't you do a blog instead? That way if people here want to read it they can, but it leaves this thread and the Syria one for other people to read and post on. No one posts here and I don't think people bother reading either, it's too much. I'm not even sure of your politics, it's just too much information. This is a bulletin board, a communal space, not a blog.
 
I agree. While I do appreciate the time and effort you put into posting all this stuff I feel like it's killed any level of interactive discussion. I'd visit and read a blog though.
 
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Pickman's model
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Pickman's model
Pickman's model
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