ISIS Captures Mosul – Second Largest City in Iraq

ISIS Captures Mosul - Second Largest City in Iraq

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham [the Levant] (Isis), a highly militant splinter group of al-Qa’ida, has effectively taken control of Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul and its surrounding area of Ninevah province.

The city was the de facto capital of Northern Iraq and, whilst economically important, is the strategic gateway to Eastern Syria which is, essentially, ISIS’s base of operations and where it controls the city of Raqqa, and has been involved in an intra-jihadi civil war with Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham and a number of other groups.

ISIS is actively engaged in establishing a local Islamic state across the Iraqi and Syria border and was, apparently, recently reprimanded by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the overall ‘leader’ of al-Qa’ida (from his apparent base in Pakistan) and told to make its main effort in Iraq; they appear to have done this in spades as they have also sent fighters into Samarra, taken over Iraq’s largest University of Anbar in Ramadi (10,000 students; a useful number that can volunteer or be coerced into fighting; see below) , and undertaken seven bombings, targeting civilians in Baghdad, that killed at least 50 over the course of an hour.

The group has been led, since 2010, by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (aka Abu Dua), it is a highly polarised militant organisation with effective military leadership, and is equally effective at killing Shia Muslims and Christians.

Isis tactics aim to launch surprise attacks, inflict maximum casualties before withdrawing without incurring heavy losses. It often uses militarily untrained foreign volunteers as suicide bombers either on foot wearing suicide vests, or driving vehicles packed with explosives; frequently one suicide bomber is followed by a second, to maximise casualties. Isis has also, apparently, produced propaganda videos showing Isis groups forcing families, with sons in the Iraqi army, to dig their own graves before they are shot. Isis was also behind the well-coordinated attack on Abu Ghraib prison in 2013 that freed large numbers of experienced fighters.

Mosul fell within four days with fighting erupting, in the west, on Friday before militants seized the entire western bank of the river Tigris in the early hours of this morning. This makes Isis, probably, the most militarily effective jihadist force in recent years.

Major Army and security bases have been captured together with American supplied equipment, aircraft and helicopters, weapons (including artillery) and munitions. This will be a huge embarrassment to both the Iraqi and United States governments as the troops are largely US trained, and demonstrates the relative weakness of the current military and security apparatus.

Local police stations have been set on fire and prisons have been stormed, and hundreds of prisoners including insurgents, set loose. The Times (United Kingdom) reports that ‘Escaped prisoners dressed in yellow jumpsuits were seen running in the city’s streets as armed men careened about in pick-up trucks flying the black flag of the jihadist movement’.

Convoys of government troops (trained by the Americans) and police, many having abandoned their uniforms and identity cards, fleeing the area have been stoned by children and teenagers.

Osama Nujaifi, the speaker of the Iraqi parliament and a native of Mosul, helpfully informed the world in a televised news conference ‘when the battle got tough in the city of Mosul, the troops dropped their weapons and abandoned their post, making it easy prey for the terrorists …… everything is fallen, it’s a disaster by any standard’. He appealed for international and government help to retake the city; ‘The presence of these terrorist groups in the heart of Iraq threatens not only Iraq but the entire region’.

Atheel Nujaifi, the speaker’s brother and the governor of the Sunni-majority province (there is nothing like a little nepotism), described events as a ‘massive collapse’ of the Iraq security forces; that might be an understatement.

Up to 150,000 of Mosul’s inhabitants have fled, many on foot and headed towards the safer Kurdish areas towards the north, despite the ‘reassurance’ of the insurgents who have announced that they would only attack those that chose to attack them.

This is the second major failure of the current Iraqi President, Nouri al-Maliki, having lost Fallujah to ISIS in January. Readers will recall that Fallujah was the centre of alleged US atrocities, and the centre of the original Sunni uprising against the Shiite government. Fallujah is only 40 miles, or so, from Baghdad and has been held by Isis despite repeated artillery bombardment and air-strikes.

The President has, therefore, lost control of two major cities and has no effective central or local government. His efforts to bolster his popularity amongst the Shiite population has alienated the Sunnis, and encouraged many to support the more militant factions.

Al-Maliki is seeking to establish a ‘state of emergency’, has appealed for ‘outside assistance’, and there have been rumours of the death penalty for troops and police that abandoned their posts. Although he has stated that the government would not allow the area to fall ‘under the shadows of terror and terrorists’ and called on ‘all power, political financial and popular to stop the terrorism’, this appears to be largely empty rhetoric with internal police, security and military forces seemingly incapable of even holding their ground.

The incursion into Samarra is important as, although, largely Sunni it is home of the golden-domed al-Askari shrine which is sacred to the Shia; attacks on this shrine by al-Qa’ida bombers, in 2006, led to wholesale massacres of Sunnis by Shias.

Look forward to some interesting drone and cruise missile strikes, and/or bombing, in the next few days, as the US seeks to minimise the dispersal of the captured equipment.

There are also reports that ISIS captured the oil refinery in Baiji – the largest oil refinery in Iraq. Kurdish TV allegedly reported that ISIS collected 500 billion Iraqi Dinars from Mosul banks – an equivalent to $425 million US Dollars.

Video below shows Mosul residents, including children, pelting retreating Iraqi army with rocks following ISIS offensive.

This video shows smoke rising from Iraqi military base near Mosul destroyed by ISIS:

Video of vehicles on fire on roads around Mosul:

Gallery of a few photos released by ISIS after Mosul takeover: