Since the dawn of October 17, all major news agencies have been reporting the same news: "The battle of Mosul, a stronghold of the Islamic State in Iraq, began". For ten days, news on the progress of the anti-ISIS army has been going on, with more or less confirmed updates on the ground.
The general offensive was announced about two months ago and is essentially conducted by the Iraqi army, the Kurds and the NPU, Ninive Protection Units, created in the 2014 to defend the Assyrian (and Christian) identity in the historic regions of northern Iraq. The supervision and management of the supporting air campaign are American.
The first element to note is the great media attention given to the event, considered the turning point in the war against the Islamic State and the start of a future stabilization of the region.
In particular, the main newscasts, at least in the early days, focused on the massive Turkish presence on the Turkish-Iraqi border, just over 100 km north of Mosul.
In parallel, military developments continue to be followed on the Kurdish-Syrian front (even the Syrian border is just over 100 km, but west of Mosul).
In the chaos of news that is not always reliable, let us try to bring order by concentrating on data as much as possible.
Mosul, also famous for the muslin dear to our tailors, is the self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State on the Iraqi side. The attack in grand style has the declared goal of driving out Islamist militants from Iraqi territory. However, the media resonance hides two truths that are often tracked down:
- even releasing Mosul, the problem of Iraq's ungovernability would not be solved, on paper a federal state administered with a sort of triumvirate: Presidency of the Republic to the Kurds; Government to the Shiites; Presidency of the Parliament to Sunnis. The reality is quite different. The 2005 Constitution seeks to mend the fabric of a country held together in an authoritarian way from the 60 years onwards. The entry of Iraqi regular forces into the city and the fall of the Caliphate would reopen the problem of succession to power, never solved by the fall of Saddam onwards. Without prejudice to the Assyrian community which has no political weight, the most delicate variable is in fact the relationship between the Kurds and the central power. According to some rumors reported by Arab newspapers (AMN), Kurdish militias would not want to enter Mosul, but instead are reported bulldozers digging ditches at the administrative limits of Iraqi Kurdistan, whose capital is Erbil, very well known to our Armed Forces. How easy it was to foresee, the Iraqi Kurds, who are the second community among the four scattered in neighboring countries (Turkey, Syria and Iran), very soon will ask to liquidate the accumulated credit fighting the Caliphate. Behind the media hubbub of victory over ISIS (a question of time only), the questions will remain open: what will happen to northern Iraq? The provinces of Erbil, Dahuk and Suleymaniyya (officially Kurdish) are joined by claims on other governorates including Kirkuk, rich in oil, and Ninawa, whose capital is precisely Mosul.
Here comes Turkey, whose troops, barely 100 km apart, are described by many media as about to participate in the battle against the Caliphate. Nothing could be more wrong. Ankara's sole objective is to stem Kurdish independence, as is happening with the military operation Shield of the Euphrates in Syria. In other words, once Mosul is freed, the problems left suspended by the Syrian conflict and by the Islamist insurgency in Iraq will return to the surface.
- The second point on which to focus attention is the transfer of the Islamists of the Caliphate from Iraq to Syria. The unpopular intelligence of Damascus is not necessary to sound the alarm, common sense is enough: what will happen to the 9000 terrorists estimated in Mosul once the army of liberators has cleaned up the city? The easiest answer is to escape over the Syrian border, as mentioned very close to the Assyrian governorate (that of Mosul in fact). In reality, across the border there are the Syrian Kurds, also at war with ISIS. It is therefore more probable that the routed columns of the militiamen will pour into Syria through the southernmost bank, towards Deir Ezzor. Damascus openly accuses Saudi Arabia of being the logistical side of this possible transhumance. Although there is no direct border between Arabia and Syria, Iraq's out-of-control western provinces lend themselves well to the passage of jihadists on the front of Deir Ezzor, a loyalist fortress in Syria that has been besieged for years, which we have talked about many times in this column .
In essence, the victory over the Caliphate in Iraq would give two great results to the US-led anti-terrorism coalition: to flaunt an important and undeniable victory on the ground; pass the hot potato to Syria, probably forced to divert troops from the Aleppo front, where the victory against the Islamist rebels (not the ISIS, but the anti-Assad rebels) seems now more than possible.
When the anti-ISIS army liberated Fallujah in June, militants fleeing north were bombed. What will happen now to those going to Syria?
At the time we highlighted how the wars against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq are very different from each other. Today we highlight the different ways in which they are treated: the fighters that bomb Mosul, are the same ones that in September struck the Syrian troops in Deir Ezzor, engaged in the same cause, "by mistake".
In the war of the Humvees (the Iraqis, the Iraqi Kurds, the Syrian Kurds and ISIS militants have them) everything can be said except that the liberation of Mosul will lead to a stabilization of the area. The picture will change, but it will take a long time to talk about peace.
(images: AMN / web)
