ISIL Retreats
by James Dunnigan
November 8, 2015

After nearly a year of stalemate near the oil refinery at Baiji (on the Tigris River between Baghdad and Mosul 200 kilometers north of Baghdad) has been broken as government forces made major progress in October. Security forces have managed to push ISIL (al Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant) away from most of the refinery. For over a year ISIL attacks were constant and deadly. They generally involved suicide car bombs and equally determined gunmen. In the last few months the security forces developed better ways to deal with these attacks to the point where they could call in air strikes on ISIL men preparing for another attack and stop it before the Islamic terrorists were able to even make their move. This was made possible by the growing capabilities of the Iraqi Air Force, which at Baiji has been accounting for some 90 percent of the dozen or so air strikes a day. The Iraqi ground controllers have gotten lots of experience and become quite effective at quickly calling in air strikes. This apparently made it too expensive for ISIL. For nearly a year ISIL was willing to suffer as many as several hundreds of casualties a week to hold onto parts of the refinery and the surrounding town. But since September ISIL has been sending in fewer replacements and this has enabled government forces to regain control of most of the refinery and the surrounding town. ISIL has been fighting here since mid-2014 and this is the first time they have been unable to make an effective effort to regain lost ground. In the past they pushed back many times and kept returning with more suicide bombers and mobs of suicidal gunmen anytime the army gained some ground. At this point unless ISIL can muster a lot of reinforcements and do it quickly the security forces will be able to push the Islamic terrorists far enough away to restart refinery operations before the end of the year. The Beiji refinery can process 320,000 barrels of oil a day and that represents more than a quarter of Iraq’s refining capacity. It was always the case that until ISIL is cleared out of Baiji a major advance on Mosul was not practical. But with ISIL being forced out the government has revived its plan to taking back Mosul and reinforcements are being moved up to get that attack under way.

The nearly two million civilians in and around Mosul are largely in favor of liberation, the sooner the better. The ISIL occupation force is becoming more brutal and paranoid this year. Earlier in the month 25 civilians were publicly executed outside the city after being accused of spying for the government. A lot more civilians are arrested and never heard from again. Even many ISIL men are not happy to be in Mosul where the hostile population and the growing threat of being cut off by advancing Iraqi and Kurds forces makes it clear that the future is not promising.

Meanwhile security forces have been making progress in retaking Ramadi. In the last month more American and Iraqi troops have been sent to Anbar. The Americans are there to train and advise Iraqi soldiers, police and pro-government tribal militias. Most of the several thousand U.S. troops were at al Asad airbase (in eastern Anbar) but more are being sent west, closer to ISIL occupied Ramadi and the main ISIL forces. Iraqis handle security for these bases but American troops take part in the fighting when needed. More American troops are being seen out in the countryside with Iraqi troops. There are about 5,000 ISIL gunmen in Anbar and that number appears to be declining. Several recent ISIL defeats in Syria and ISIL have been bad for morale and suddenly ISIL seems to have fewer people to send out to fight. Many ISIL local hires have deserted and taken with them useful information on where ISIL stores its weapons and other important stuff. More of these sites are being bombed even though they are, from the air, just another building with nothing special going on around it. The locally recruited tribesmen (especially those on the ISIL payroll) were also unhappy with the ISIL policy of kidnapping tribal elders and killing them or holding them for ransom (money or cooperation from tribal chiefs for whatever ISIL wanted). A lot of the local tribesmen working for ISIL are related to some of the elders kidnapped or murdered by ISIL and that bad treatment is not appreciated. ISIL needs some victories in Anbar but is having a hard time making that happen. At the moment the ISIL forces defending Ramadi are not showing their usual aggressiveness and resolve. Thus soldiers have been able to slowly advance, removing roadside bombs and mines as they do. American and Iraqi officials have been insisting that Ramadi will be retaken by the end of the year. Such claims are often based on intel that is not available to the public. For a long time it was believed this was just wishful thinking but now the Iraqis are closing in and ISIL is not responding. In the last few days Jordan has doubled its troop strength on its Iraqi border, which is near Ramadi and what Jordan expects will soon be a major battle with ISIL.

So far the American led air coalition has carried out nearly 7,700 air strikes (64 percent in Iraq and the rest in Syria). The growing number of Iraqi and Russian air strikes to not follow the restrictive American ROE (Rules of Engagement) and have been more effective. There are accusations from within the American intelligence community that political leaders are hiding the truth about how the restrictive ROE are crippling the air offensive against ISIL in Iraq and Syria. Another reason for the greater success of Iraqi and Russian air strikes is that they have air controllers on the ground to make sure the right target is hit. The American political leadership forbids putting American air controllers on the ground despite the fact that American military commanders believe that the chances of these U.S. troops getting killed or captured is an acceptable risk because it would mean more effective air strikes. Currently the American ROE is obsessed with avoiding any civilian losses from air strikes and ISIL exploits this by regularly using human shields. The locals, including the Iraq government, realize this is counterproductive because the longer ISIL remains operational the more death and misery they bring to the millions of civilians they control.

ISIL Retreats by James DunniganNovember 8, 2015

ISIL Retreats
by James Dunnigan
November 8, 2015