"Baghdad Doesn’t Want You to Know How Many of Its..." Topic

…Soldiers Are Dying.

"On Dec. 1, 2016, the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq reported that 1,959 Iraqi Security Forces troops had died in combat during the month of November, including army, police on combat operations, Kurdish Peshmerga and other allied militias.

The casualty report came six weeks after Iraq launched an operation aimed at liberating Mosul from Islamic State.

On Dec. 2, the Iraqi Joints Operations Command angrily refuted the United Nations' claim. "This figure is not accurate and much exaggerated," the command stated. However, JOC refused to offer casualty figures of its own,…."
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Amicalement
Armand

Well they're hardly unique in that, but yes, some units are getting a horrific pasting.

However, assuming reinforcement is impossible, sooner or later Daesh will run out of people.

sooner or later Daesh will run out of people.

That is the bottom line in this case. And as we know … any position/objective can be taken if you are willing to pay the price.

And in this case the Iraqis have to clear Daesh from their lands. And it's going to cost them. No matter how much support the US/West provides them. It really is at this point their fight.

And in reality, very, very, few in the US care about how many troops the Iraqis lose. They just are not interested. And most don't want the US to lose anymore of it's troops regardless … Not in places like Iraq, A'stan, Syria, etc., … It's just not worth it …

…"some units are getting a horrific pasting."…

You are right… the Special Forces have a rate of more of 50% of casualties in only one week…

Amicalement
Armand

They say they've reached the Tigris. Assuming there's no tunnels under the river that will make things easier.

If one half of the city can't be reinforced, the fighters are doomed.

And I doubt many Daesh will be taken prisoner. As many will fight to the death so they can get to Paradise.
And based on how Daesh treated most everyone else in Iraq … well we all know what is probably going to happen.

The problem is figuring out who is an ISIL fighter and who is not. If an Iraqi Army unit captures 100 men (all of whom are capable of bearing arms and all of whom have some form of military experience) during the course of army operations and 15% of them are likely ISIL fighters, how does one sort out the innocent from the guilty? Remember, most males in war-torn Iraqi Sunni society bear arms and have some sort of military experience, be it former Ba'athist regime military experience or fighting Americans and Iraqi puppets in the Sunni-triangle a decade ago. How do you distinguish between ISIL terrorists and Iraqi Sunni nationalists? Do you just send in the Shi'a militias to kill them all or do you hold hundreds of thousands of men in custody for years until you can sort out their military pedigree?

On the casualty front, the Iraqi government is on such weak ground that it can't afford to have truthful casualty figures circulating, lest they demoralise the small professional anti-terrorist brigades and thus force the present Iraqi government to further rely more heavily on Shi'a militia and Kurdish auxillaries. The militias will cause more atrocities and the auxillaries will strengthen the hand of the separatist Kurds. The reliable proxy well is running dry and the very people who could refill it, the Sunni tribesmen, are suspected of cooperation or membership with ISIL. Thus, there are no easy and clean solutions in this quagmire of ever shifting allegiances.

Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

As that other article by Kilcullen demonstrated, you can either take buildings with artillery shells, or you can take buildings intact with door-kickers. The Iraqis have gone the US route of "use door kickers, take stuff intact". It costs lives….especially if your door-kickers aren't exactly on the level of US Marine Infantry. And the government really is in a jam, burning up the only troops who are fairly multi-ethnic/non-secular and proficient enough to serve as a model for a unified Iraq once ISIS is finally defeated.

Yes Rod we know all that. But along as they are killing each other and on Coalition die. While the factions "work" things out. Is the best we in the West can hope for.

And bottom line, IMO, they have been and will be fighting among themselves for quite some time. And the West or even the Russians can not do anything about.

And after all that has come to pass. We, the non-molsem world would be foolish to think we could. Some have to "win" and some have to "lose", it appears. And only the players in the region can decide otherwise. We all know they don't do well with making "peace" among/between themselves.

sooner or later Daesh will run out of people

Which is why we should not be stopping individuals from heading over there and joining them.

You stop them you then will have to put them on trial and put them behind bars.

You allow them to go over there and join ISIS you can then killed them.

How do you distinguish between ISIL terrorists and Iraqi Sunni nationalists.

Well if you captured them that means that they are not fighting for you.

The high casualty rate is due to Mosul turning into a meat-grinder. Without the disregard for collateral damage and scorched earth policy displayed by the Russia-Syria-Iran alliance, more young men must be sacrificed on the altar of liberating Iraq from the scourge of Daesh.

I think Bill had a scorched earth policy on this thread!