Iraqi Factions Vie to Take Part in Mosul Offensive
A rapid advance toward the Islamic State-held city of Mosul in the past few weeks has exposed tensions among competing Iraqi political factions over who will participate in the final offensive and who will govern the city if it is recaptured. The fight for Mosul is high on the agenda this week as international defense […]Sarah Kent, Ali Nabhan, and Ghassan Adnan write for The Wall Street Journal:
A rapid advance toward the Islamic State-held city of Mosul in the past few weeks has exposed tensions among competing Iraqi political factions over who will participate in the final offensive and who will govern the city if it is recaptured.
The fight for Mosul is high on the agenda this week as international defense and foreign ministers gather in Washington to discuss military strategy against Islamic State and raise funding for Iraq, where a humanitarian crisis is already unfolding among the millions displaced by the fighting.
Islamic State has suffered a string of defeats in Iraq and Syria over the past year. But capturing Mosul is seen as more complicated because of its tangled local politics, demographics and size.
