Mosul Iraq IV.

This is coolbert:

Conclusion!

Once more from the latest edition of the DEBKAfile newsletter.

Spoiling/diversionary attacks by the combatants of the Islamic State in response to the coalition effort to capture Mosul continuing.

"Fiercely resistant ISIS seizes two Iraqi cities"

25 October.

"One obstacle after another - often unforeseen - is slowing the coalition's advance on Mosul . . . It is becoming obvious that ISIS is following a plan to circle around Mosul in a wide radius and pouncing on important spots for diversionary attacks: Last week, they overran Kirkuk; this week, Sinjar and Rutba. The capture of Sinjar in northern Iraq near the Syrian border was the Islamists' second victory against the Kurdish Peshmerga. Its fall saved ISIS' main supply route from Iraq to its Syrian stronghold in Raqqa from being cut off. For the Kurdish Peshmerga, it was disastrous. Sinjar was the main assembly center for Syrian Kurdish fighters coming in to aid their brothers in the fight for Mosul. A large concentration of the outlawed Turkish Kurdish PKK was also present. The fighting in Kirkuk only died down Sunday after three days, leaving at least 100 Iraqi and Kurdish fighters dead. ISIS captured the Anbar desert town of Rutba, 700km southwest of Mosul, by a three-pronged strike. Rutba commands the Baghdad-Amman highway. It is also situated near the Ayn al-Asad Air Base, the largest US military facility in Iraq, which hosts US air and special operations units. Iraqi government forces were deployed to guard this strategic town, but they were no match for ISIS."

"Large numbers of Iraqi, Kurdish and local Sunni fighters fell in battle there. It has become apparent from these events that the planners of the Mosul operation, Haidar al-Abadi's generals and the American officers fighting with them did not take into account that ISIS would mount major attacks in unexpected places far and near to throw the coalition assault on Mosul off balance."

WHO HAS THE BETTER GENERALS? ISIL OR THE COALITION? SO FAR IT APPEARS THE FORMER RATHER THAN THE LATTER! OH MY!

coolbert.