Believe it or not, the Iraqi army is on the verge of launching an attack on ISIS-held Mosul.
The city – home to millions of Iraqis – is Bakr al-Baghdadi’s most important urban stronghold.
Raqqa is the ISIS “capital”, but it’s easier to command. Mosul is a major city with a population that numbers in the millions. If ISIS were to lose its grip there, it would almost surely mark the beginning of the end for the self-styled “caliphate.”
Over the past three weeks, Mosul has come under pressure from Russian-backed Shiite militias, US-supported Iraqi regulars, and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who at this point have no idea who is on their side and who isn’t.
Below, find excerpts from a new WSJ piece that outlines the pressure Islamic State faces from an international intelligence community that no longer finds them useful.
Last week, the Pentagon said the U.S. military had killed a man they identified as one of Islamic State’s top military officials. It didn’t give any further information, but Gen. Magsosi said the man, known as Abu Eman, was the top expert at the Mosul bomb lab.
When Islamic State captured Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, in the summer of 2014, the university was one of the spoils. The university had a strong reputation around Iraq for its science departments, alumni say.
By March 2015, dozens of Islamic State engineers and scientists had set up a research hub in the chemistry lab, which was full of equipment and chemicals, according to the people with knowledge of the university.
Many of the regular staff, including professors specialized in organic, industrial and analytical chemistry, remained in the city at the time, but the new laboratories were staffed by Islamic State’s own men, according to one of those people.
At least since August, dozens of individuals—presumed to be foreigners because they didn’t speak Iraqi Arabic—were seen moving through the labs, the two people said. They said they were told specialized units had been set up there for chemical explosives and weapons research as well as suicide-bomb construction.
A separate group at the university’s technical college was dedicated to building suicide-bomb components, one of the two said.
Of course it’s a little late to be getting that kind of feedback. Sure, ISIS is now in control of Mosul’s intellectual community and that includes the bombmakers.
The question is whether these individuals will fold under pressure from the IRGC and admit what they know to the Ayatollah.
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