Iraq’s Mosul Offensive, Mocked by Trump, Has ISIS on the Run

found online by Raymond

 
From Jon Perr at PERRspectives:

While Americans have been focused on the growing crisis surrounding the Trump administration’s tangled web of ties to Russia, the good news coming from Iraq has gone largely unnoticed. After successfully liberating eastern Mosul from ISIS fighters, Iraqi forces have launched their final offensive to retake the western of the city from the Islamic State. With close support from U.S. advisers and bolstered by Shiite militia units, some 40,000 Iraqi troops hope to eliminate the remaining, well-entrenched ISIS gunmen over the next six months.

The progress in freeing the city of some 800,000 people captured by the Islamic State in 2014 has brought a new sense of optimism. As Rukmini Callimachi reported two weeks ago for the New York Times, in eastern Mosul “the streets were busy with civilian traffic” and remarking “what stunned me is quickly life has returned.” In Baghdad on Monday, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis promised, “The coalition forces are in support of this operation and we will continue…with the accelerated effort to destroy ISIS.” Meanwhile on state run television, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced “a new dawn” while urging his troops “to move bravely forward to liberate what is left of the city.”

But the one voice that has been silent about the positive developments from Mosul is the one you’d normally least expect.

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