Tha challenge of urban warfare with ISIS
The survival or breakdown of Islamic State, aka ISIS, hinges on the outcome of what promises to be a grueling battle for control of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. Since the city’s fall on June 10, reports of mass executions have been confirmed by fleeing refugees. The ISIS jihadis have committed a “staggering array” of human-rights […]Michael Soussan writes for the Wall Street Journal:
The survival or breakdown of Islamic State, aka ISIS, hinges on the outcome of what promises to be a grueling battle for control of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. Since the city’s fall on June 10, reports of mass executions have been confirmed by fleeing refugees. The ISIS jihadis have committed a “staggering array” of human-rights abuses including ethnic cleansing, abductions, rape, and other physical and sexual violence against women and children, according to a United Nations report released Oct. 2.
To understand the challenge of retaking Mosul, a densely populated city with some 1.8 million residents, consider Israel’s experiences in Gaza this year and the U.S. experience in Fallujah in November 2004. Fallujah was the single most violent urban battle in the Iraq war. Ninety-five American soldiers were killed taking the city and 560 were wounded. The majority of the city’s 250,000 residents fled before the battle, but according to U.S. officials more than half of the city’s homes were damaged and about 10,000 destroyed.
