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Islamic State Is Near Defeat in Iraq, Prime Minister Says
‘We are seeing the end of the fake Daesh state’
By Ghassan Adnan in Baghdad, Ben Kesling in Paris and Dion Nissenbaum in Washington
Updated June 29, 2017 8:51 p.m. ET
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BAGHDAD—Iraqi and U.S. officials said Islamic State is on the cusp of defeat in Mosul and close to being driven out of Iraq, after the country’s military seized a mosque in the city where the extremist group’s leader first proclaimed a caliphate.
“We are seeing the end of the fake Daesh state,” Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Twitter, using another name for Islamic State. “The liberation of Mosul proves that. We will not relent,” he added.
Thursday’s recapture of the ruined Nouri mosque came a week after Islamic State blew it up as Iraqi forces closed in, reducing to rubble the 12th-century building and its 150-foot minaret. The mosque gained notoriety when Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi spoke there three years ago and declared himself the head of a caliphate, or religious empire.
Col. Ryan Dillon, the Baghdad-based spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition battling Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, said that Iraqi forces on Thursday cut a wedge in the middle of the area held by Islamic State, seizing the Nouri mosque and cornering the few hundred remaining fighters in half of Mosul’s Old City on one side, and an area around a hospital that has been a stronghold for the group on the other side.
Col. Dillon predicted that the fighting would be over in a matter of days and that it would then take time to fully clear the areas the Islamic State holdouts.
“What comes next, where to defeat ISIS, is a decision that will be made in Iraq,” he said.
Military officials have warned of tough fighting ahead. In recent days, Iraqi troops have faced counterattacks in the city, with Islamic State penetrating defensive lines and staging deadly attacks even in Iraqi-controlled areas. The warren of narrow streets in the Old City, where Islamic State fighters are holed up, has slowed the offensive.
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“What comes next, where to defeat ISIS, is a decision that will be made in Iraq,” he said.
Military officials have warned of tough fighting ahead. In recent days, Iraqi troops have faced counterattacks in the city, with Islamic State penetrating defensive lines and staging deadly attacks even in Iraqi-controlled areas. The warren of narrow streets in the Old City, where Islamic State fighters are holed up, has slowed the offensive.
But the progress in beating back Islamic State has been steady, both in Mosul and in the campaign to retake Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital. Col. Dillon said the persistent military pressure in the two countries means Islamic State leadership has no effective capital left.
“There is no hub anymore,” he said.
Islamic State leaders have abandoned fighters on the battlefield, morale is plummeting and inexperienced fighters are making rookie mistakes, he added.
“ISIS cannot stop the progress that Iraqis and Syrians have mounted in the last two years,” he said. “They are on the run, and we will not allow them to regroup and catch their breath.”
Even after Mosul is retaken, Islamic State won’t be defeated in Iraq. The group remains in control of a number of other smaller Iraqi towns and a significant swath of territory in Syria, including eastern Deir Ezzour province and Raqqa. And while it has lost much of the territory it captured over the past few years, it has proven it is still capable of mounting deadly terrorist attacks in the West as well as in the heavily fortified Iraqi capital of Baghdad, where bombers get through daily.
To the northwest of Mosul lies militant-held Tal Afar, likely the next military objective for the Iraqi military. However the battle for that town near the Syrian border is already fraught before it has even begun, with Iran-backed Shiite militias insisting they lead the fight and the U.S. saying it won’t work with those militias.
If the Shiite militias do take the lead, it will likely inflame sectarian tensions with Sunnis across the country.
The town of Hawija, south of Mosul, has also long been a Sunni extremist stronghold and poses a constant threat to the neighboring city of Kirkuk. In October, militants from Hawija launched a complex attack on downtown Kirkuk that took days to quell and left dozens dead.
When Islamic State is defeated, the Iraqi government will face enormous challenges in resettling hundreds of thousands of people displaced from Mosul and reconstructing the enormous ruin of three years of war. The government must also take steps to ameliorate the strife that has only deepened between the country’s three main groups—Shiite Arabs, Sunni Arabs and Kurds.
The government’s goal in rebuilding Mosul and restoring its pre-Islamic State population of about 1.5 million is seen as critical to its effort to reunite the country. Islamic State launched a drive in 2014 that ended up with the militants in control of about one-third of Iraq, and with Mosul their de facto capital in the country.
Since the start of Iraq’s Mosul campaign in October, more than 875,00 residents have fled the city, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Some return only to retrieve bodies from homes collapsed in the fighting. Those who remained line up for hours for clean water from tanker trucks.
Mosul policeman Azad Thiyab Jasim said recently that he has little hope that the city will remain peaceful after Islamic State is driven out.
He said the criminal justice system makes it far too easy for suspected sympathizers or even fighters to go free. That means vigilantism rules on the streets, which can feed a cycle of revenge.
“Killing members of Daesh is much better than detaining them,” he said.
Write to Ben Kesling at
benjamin.kesling@wsj.com and Dion Nissenbaum at
dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com
Appeared in the June 30, 2017, print edition as 'After Seizing Mosque, Iraqis Declare ISIS Close to Defeat.'
