Losing ground in Iraq, ISIS trying more terrorist attacks
Iraqi forces trumpeted a victory this week as they took over all of eastern Mosul, and pledged to continue until all of Mosul is “liberated.” This would be a severe blow to Islamic State, which lost nearly a quarter of its territory in 2016.
Analysts caution that while the Iraqi forces, backed by the US, have scored an impressive gain, the fight to retake the western half of Mosul will be more challenging.
“Unlike in other places like Falluja, the (Islamic State) fighters are not fleeing, but are putting up a fight,” Renad Mansour, an expert on Iraq at Chatham House in London, told The Media Line. “Also because the corridor is not open, many civilians are staying in their homes, and it will be door to door urban warfare.”
When Islamic State took over Mosul in 2014, they came from the west, and since then have been more entrenched there than in the east. While the beginning of the battle for Mosul went more slowly than expected, lately it has picked up steam.
“The early part of the fight against the Islamic State in Mosul was slow and the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) faced many casualties, which heartened the Islamic State (IS),” Dylan O’Driscoll, an Iraq expert at the Middle East Research Institute based in Erbil, Iraq. “However, the ISF took a break from the offensive, regrouped and have since made phenomenal gains against IS.”
O’Driscoll says that some in Islamic State are growing desperate and have abandoned the group.
“This has led to troubles within the ranks, as the less devout tried to abandon the cause,” he said. IS is most definitely on the back foot, but the western side of the city is difficult terrain with narrow streets that make it harder to use armored vehicles. Although morale must be low, IS knows the difficulties that the US army and ISF faced in the western part of the city against Al Qa’ida and will be ready for one last stand.
In any case, IS is already changing its tactics to focus more on terrorist attacks, both in Iraq and in Europe. Analysts say that they expect more individual attacks that kill tens of thousands of civilians each year.
It is almost impossible to completely stop these attacks, as Israel has found with a spate of lone-wolf Palestinian stabbing and car-ramming attacks this year, most recently one that killed four Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem.
IS has become extremely proficient in these attacks, from a series of terror attacks in 2015 in Paris that killed at least 130, to the attack on the Nice boardwalk that killed 84 people, to a coordinated attack on the Istanbul airport last June that left 44 dead.
Overall, IS has carried out or inspired more than 140 terror attacks in 29 countries, not including Iraq and Syria, according to a count by CNN. These attacks have left more than 2000 dead and thousands of others wounded. The toll in Iraq and Syria has been significantly higher.
Meanwhile, press reports from Iraq say one Islamic State gunman was killed and two others wounded in western Mosul as they fought over a load of foodstuffs. It was an indication of growing divisions within the city as it loses more ground to Iraqi forces. There are also reports of shortages of food in stores and relief agencies warn of an impending humanitarian crisis.