Why the Defense Department Says It's Important the Iraqi Offensive Retakes Mosul

Eivaisla/iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — The deployment of 615 additional American troops to Iraq is the latest indicator that the Iraqi military offensive to retake Mosul could be launched as soon as October.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Wednesday that the new troops “will provide specific capabilities including logistics and maintenance support; train, advise and assist teams for Iraqi Security Forces and Kurdish Peshmerga for the upcoming Mosul operation.”

Last week, General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress that according to current assessments “the Iraqis will have, in early October, all the forces marshaled, trained, fielded and equipped that are necessary for operations in Mosul.”

Ultimately, senior American defense officials say it is up to Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi to decide if an Iraqi military offensive will take place in October or later this year.

General Joseph Votel, the commander of U.S Central Command, believes ISIS could employ different strategies to defend the city when Iraqi forces eventually launch an offensive to retake it. He thinks ISIS may cede some parts of the city willingly, as it has done most recently in Jarabulus, and put up stiff resistance in other parts of the city, as it did in the battles for Manbij and Ramadi.

An Iraqi offensive on Mosul would be the culmination of a two-year Iraqi military campaign to remove the ISIS military threat from northern Iraq.

Much of the U.S. military presence in Iraq during that time has been geared toward training and advising Iraq’s security forces to defeat ISIS militarily and take back the cities controlled by ISIS, particularly Mosul. So far 35,000 Iraqi troops have been trained by the U.S.-led coalition, including the 8 to 12 Iraqi Army and Kurdish Peshmerga brigades that have been slotted for an offensive on Mosul.

ABC News takes a look at why Mosul is so important in the fight against ISIS.

What Is Mosul?

Located along the banks of the Tigris River in northern Iraq’s Nineveh Province, Mosul is Iraq’s second largest city with a population of more than 2 million residents. The population represents a mix of the diverse ethnic groups in northern Iraq, though the majority are Sunni Arabs and Kurds.

Mosul is the main industrial city in northern Iraq and a vital transportation hub in the flow of goods to and from Turkey and Syria. It is also located near significant oil fields in northern Iraq and the major oil pipeline into Turkey.

ISIS surprisingly seized Mosul in June 2014 in a matter of days after the retreat of a large number of Iraqi security forces from the city. American officials have blamed that retreat on the Sunni Arab soldiers and police based in the city who abandoned their posts after growing disenchanted with the increasing sectarianism of the Shiite-led government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The city’s capture left ISIS with large amounts of Iraqi military equipment and supplies that it quickly used to push toward the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, 250 miles to the south. ISIS also seized an estimated $500 million in cash taken from the Central Bank of Mosul that is has used to fund its military and terror operations.

Why Is It Important to Retake Mosul?

ISIS’s seizure of Mosul was a blow to Iraq’s political stability and a propaganda coup for a terror group that wanted to demonstrate it was gaining territory to establish a new caliphate.

A successful offensive on Mosul will take away from ISIS its last strategic stronghold in Iraq and end the territorial dominance it commanded over large areas of northwestern Iraq for the past two years.

The group’s control of territory there was made easier by the flow of ISIS fighters from its de facto capital of Raqqah in north central Syria. An ISIS defeat in Mosul would cut off that route and leave the terror group’s military operations effectively contained to Syria.

What Is the Iraqi Military Plan for Mosul?

For more than two years, the Iraqi military offensive on Mosul has been expected to be the most important battle against ISIS.

Much of the training of Iraqi and Kurdish security forces by American and coalition trainers has effectively been directed at generating the more than 25,000 troops believed needed for an offensive on Mosul.

From early on, American military officials have telegraphed that the city would be enveloped from the north and south by as many as eight Iraqi Army brigades.

The expectation has always been that ISIS would mount a stiff defense to hold the city with the possibility of fierce street-to-street fighting on a grand scale.

If Iraqi forces successfully retake the city, plans call for as many as 6,000 local Iraqi police to quickly step in to help establish order.

ISIS Prepares to Defend Mosul

The U.S. military estimates that there are between 3,000 and 4,500 ISIS fighters still inside Mosul. It appears they are readying themselves for the Iraqi military offensive, no matter when it is launched.

On Friday, Colonel John Dorrian, the U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, told Pentagon reporters that ISIS has dug “elaborate tunnels” and is placing roadside bombs throughout the city. He said they are also placing restrictions on the local population to conceal their operations in buildings like hospitals, schools and mosques that coalition aircraft are not allowed to strike.

“They’ve dug in, put up things like T-walls, big barriers to stop people from coming in or slow an advance,” said Dorrian. “They’ve dug trenches. I’ve seen reports that they’ve poured oil in some of those trenches with intent to start them on fire.”

“Essentially, they’ve built a hell on Earth around themselves and they’re going to be in that whenever the Iraqi security forces come in there and push them out,” said Dorrian.

ISIS is also conducting what Dorrian called “harassing attacks” on Iraqi forces near Qayarrah and the airbase that several hundred American troops are converting into a major logistical hub for the upcoming Mosul offensive.

Copyright © 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.

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