To end terrorism in the region

The battle of the Iraqi army, backed by the US-led coalition, to recapture the western part of Iraqi city Mosul from Daesh’s clutches is making slow progress, with military specialists speculating that it could take several more months before it falls under Baghdad control.

Recapturing the eastern part of this second largest city of Iraq, took more time and was more difficult than the Iraqi government had predicted, but now that its army is in the thick of things, it is making determined efforts to finish the job of freeing the entire city. 

It will be a severe blow to Daesh, which considers Mosul its capital — Raqqa, in Syria, is another — but it will come at great cost.

Already the losses among the government army, the Iraqi Security Forces, are high, as high as 50 per cent, according to some estimates denied by the government, preoccupied with keeping morale among troops high.

The problem facing the Iraqi military advances is that as many as 800,000 residents are trapped in the densely packed city, making this an urban, street-by-street, house-by-house war that can never be easily won.

Daesh is allegedly using Iraqi citizens as human shields in the face of the advancing Iraqi soldiers. Moreover, it has an army of suicide bombers ready, with some saying that about 10 jihadists would commit suicide attacks in the east of Mosul a day, targeting the Iraqi army, and these are as unpredictable as they are lethal.

Another big hurdle facing the Iraqi Security Forces lies in the fact that when Daesh faces a defeat in one place, it tends to redeploy its forces elsewhere in the country in order to inflict more harm, discredit the government forces and assert its power. 

Beyond Mosul, Daesh increased its attacks in other cities, including the recently liberated Fallujah and even in Baghdad where about 100 people were killed in bombings so far this year.

Such elasticity is difficult to beat and, more worrying, points to both the terrorist group’s capabilities and to putative support from much of a population abandoned by the Shiite rulers in Baghdad and terrorised, or even sympathetic, to the new honcho in town.

Mosul will eventually be taken — the Daesh regime is unnatural to most human beings — and the fight against this barbaric movement will be taken to other places as well.

The battle for Raqqa, in Syria, cannot be far away, but that creates other fears. Many military strategists speculate that once Daesh is defeated in Mosul and Raqqa, its forces will move down south, close to the Jordanian border, where the final chapter of the war against Daesh in the region can be expected to take place.

That will also means that the Daesh forces in the area will soon see their last days and that the region can expect a return to normalcy and stability, which makes the war against these outlaws not exclusively Iraqi or Syrian, but the fight of the entire region against terrorism and anarchy. 

All countries of the Middle East must mobilise their military efforts to that end.