US Plans to Retake Mosul in January; Governor Says It’ll Be Easy

Plan Is to Send About 1,000 Troops Toward the City

US officials are confirming that they have greatly accelerated their planning to retake Mosul, and that they could orchestrate an attack on the city as soon as January.

The plan such as it is, is to assemble “about 1,000 troops” to attack the city of nearly two million people, under the assumption that if they attack the north and south of the city at once, they’ll be able to oust the ISIS fighters.

Nineveh Provincial Governor Atheel Nijaifi, whose office in Mosul was sacked by ISIS months ago, says he believes it “will be easy to free Mosul” and that ISIS won’t put up serious resistance.

ISIS is believed to have some 5,000 fighters in Mosul, and about 20,000 across the Nineveh Province, by the governor’s reckoning. They routed a dramatically larger Iraqi military force back in the summer.

US officials aren’t saying how they imagine a much, much smaller group of Iraqi military forces will be able to retake Mosul when they couldn’t defend it in the first place, though they did say that the plans are merely contingency plans that could be revised (read: scrapped) at any time.

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Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com. View all posts by Jason Ditz

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Walter Cole

It seems pretty obvious what the US will do for a successful retake of Mosul, bomb it to smithereens and then march in amongst the rubble to claim victory. However, if ISIS reads American military history, they will dig in very deep to wait out the devastation, only to capture 1,000 new recruits.
Andrewp111

Is this article supposed to be a joke? Retake Mosul with 1000 men!!

Reportedly, ISIS has an army of 200,000.
- RIC
  
  It's not the article, but US "strategy" for re-taking Mosul, that is the joke.
curmudgeonvt

Check me if I'm wrong, but…wasn't there a big stink back aways when all the warmongers were besides themselves and wailing all kinds of warnings when Obama was talking about leaving Afghanistan that "telling the enemy when we are going to do something (like attack a city – like Mosul) was putting our forces at risk."

I guess, if you don't care about the forces – since they're saying the troops will be Iraqi/Islamic fighters (with US "advisors," of course) – then I guess it's OK to tell the enemy when and where you are gong to attack – even telling them from which direction you'll be coming.

Is this the type of strategy they're teaching the current batch of strategists nowadays? Seriously? Very glad I'm not a ground-pounder in this version of warfare.
John Ellis

Troops of USA — Ripe for a Revolution

The most religiously dedicated, do or die courageous and heroic martyrs to a man, a military force unequaled in all of the 20th and 21st century, yet Empire USA with a military comprised mostly of impoverished troops off the unemployment lines — is gung-ho for hand-to-hand combat?
Joe Hill

I take this "plan" about as seriously as the endless hysterical shouts of "The Russians Are Coming!!!" from Kiev.
oddie

read it all:

RT: Andre Vltchek: At the ISIS frontline: Who’s who
“Do you also plan to liberate Mosul?” I ask.
“We are not going to take Mosul,” says colonel at one of the stops and subsequent military gatherings. Others nod in agreement. “We have nothing to do with that city… We just want to recapture what is ours.”
As we drive back to Khazer base, I am told that the IS contingent fighting around here is truly ‘international’. Recently, the Kurdish forces killed three Chechen fighters, four Afghans, two Germans and two or three Lebanese.
“Colonel Shaukat,” I ask, “where did you learn to speak English so well?”
He gives me one big and bright smile, answering “In the United States and in the UK. I spent two years in the UK and 14 years in the US, where I was trained. I was also trained in Austria…”
“Where exactly were you trained in the US?”
“In North Carolina.”… http://rt.com/op-edge/209747-isis-iraq-hussein-wa…
John Ellis

Come — Let us improve things

Think about it, since 1776 when the castle owners of England realized that if they were to enslave the laboring-class lower half of society worldwide, first they needed to create an Empire that gave the middle-class the deadly force needed to do such a thing, after creating Empire USA to get the job done, absolutely nothing has altered such a fake morality in the slightest.

For to this very day the middle-class slave drivers are given 25% of the wealth, a proper distribution as they are 25% of the population and great motivation does this give them to be the slave drivers of society.

To this day the laboring-class are given zero wealth, not a penny above what is needed to survive. A most corrupt distribution, as the lower half of society does all the hard labor drudgery pain and gets nothing for it.

To this day the rich ruling-class continues to hoard 75% of the wealth. A most greed driven distribution as they are the 25% most wealthy, an abomination to enslave society as they own 90% of the wealth that by inheritance passes from one generation to the next.

So , it ‘s either come up with a solution that will change all things toward the good or wait for our Empire to instigate a great and final war.

For sooner or later it must become self-evident to all that man has no more right to own things then the animas, especially to hoard the land and excessive wealth when it destroys the ability to live of the laboring class and the animals.