The battle for Mosul

[Peter1469]

ISIL are using human shields. The UN likes to tell the Western powers that they violate international law in urban combat. But I have not seen the UN condemn the terrorists using humans as shields



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The United Nations said Friday it is "gravely worried" that ISIS has taken 550 families from villages around Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, and is using them as "human shields" as Iraqi and Kurdish forces battle the terror group for control of the city.

Two hundred families from Samalia village and 350 families from Najafia were forced out Monday and taken to Mosul in what appears to be "an apparent policy by ISIS to prevent civilians escaping," Ravina Shamdasani, deputy spokeswoman for the UN Human Rights Office, told CNN.
Meanwhile, ISIS militants attacked security buildings in Kirkuk, 175 kilometers (109 miles) southeast of Mosul.

[Peter1469]

In an attempt to relive the pressure on Mosul, the Islamic State has attacked Kirkuk.

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Islamic State gunmen launched a brazen raid Friday on the northern city of Kirkuk, attacking government buildings, hotels and police positions in what appeared to be an attempt to divert resources and attention from an Iraqi offensive on northern city of Mosul, where the group is losing ground.

Running gun battles continued in Kirkuk for much of the day after the militants attacked in the early morning hours. By sundown, officials said, most of the militants, who were armed with grenades andsuicide vests, were dead. A curfew was imposed in the city, and Friday prayers were canceled.

The Kirkuk provincial governor, Najmiddin Karim, said Kurdish helicopters were called in to carry out a strike in the city, which has a population of nearly 1.5 million. In a statement, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said he had ordered additional troops to the city.

The assault on oil-rich Kirkuk comes just days after Iraqi and Kurdish forces launched a large-scale battle to retake Mosul, the biggest urban center controlled by the Islamic State group and about 100 miles to the northwest. Islamic State militants have often lashed out when they have lost territory in the past, including by carrying out bombings in the capital, Baghdad.

[Peter1469]

ISIL is killing the locals in Mosul.



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ISIS rounded up and killed 284 men and boys as Iraqi-led coalition forces closed in on Mosul, the terror group's last major stronghold in Iraq, an Iraqi intelligence source told CNN.

Those killed Thursday and Friday were used as human shields against attacks forcing ISIS out of southern parts of Mosul, the source said.
ISIS dumped the corpses in a mass grave at the defunct College of Agriculture in northern Mosul, the intelligence source said.

The victims -- including children -- were all shot, said the source, who asked for anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media. CNN could not independently confirm the killings.

[Archer]

[Peter1469]

It is complicated in the Middle East. One of the reasons our nation building there failed.

[UncleRansom]

Evidence piles up that the United States should have intervened earlier. No one in the West nor the Syrian and Iraq governments, nor their militaries are absent of blame, too many stood by and permitted cities like Mosul control to ISIS who rolled over the Levant in Toyota pickups.

[UncleRansom]

[Peter1469]

[UncleRansom]

As we did after the 2003 War. We turn over all governance, security, and policing to Iraq's elected government and take a support role. Continue to support the Iraq government in becoming more secure and one of the rare fairly elected governments in the region. Keep a force capable in Iraq...on an Iraqi Military installation would be my suggestion.....remain present in the Persian Gulf with multiple strike capabilities. Explain to the Iraq Government that an ISIS return won't be tolerated by the United States, they've no vote on that.

An ISIS defeat on the battlefield increases the likelihood of a response that targets countries abroad. A refocus on cyber efforts, ISIS recruitment tactics, and continued investigations by the FBI.

[Peter1469]