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He stated that the assault could be completed before the new year 2017. However, this has not yet happened and it is still far from the complete victory over the terrorist groups. Particularly stubborn battles lie ahead for such powerful fortifications as the University of Mosul and the Kindi hospital.

The operation is being conducted by a coalition force grouping under the control of the Joint Task Force led by the commander of the 18th Airborne Corps of the US Army, Lieutenant General.

Now the main efforts of the coalition in the Mosul area are focused on liberating the eastern part of the city, blocking IS communications from the south and northwest, disrupting the control system of terrorist formations and undermining their combat effectiveness through massive airstrikes.

The total number of the coalition group is about 30 thousand people. They are opposed by several thousand IS fighters, including several hundred foreigners.

Formations of terrorists can be conditionally divided into those operating in western and eastern Mosul, as well as in the area of \u200b\u200bthe city of Tell Afar, 55 km northwest of Mosul. Contrary to the statements of the American and Iraqi commanders, communications between terrorist formations operating in different regions have not been interrupted.

The attack on the eastern part of Mosul is carried out from three directions by the forces of the joint group of forces, and the Iraqi anti-terrorist service. The Joint Military Operations Command is headed by Lieutenant General of the Iraqi Armed Forces Shaghati. The grouping is reinforced by special forces and artillery units of the US and British ground forces, as well as by the American 101st Airborne Division.

The Iraqi Special Forces Division, the so-called "Gold Division", operates in the center.

Its assault units, with the silenced role of the American servicemen, managed to reach through the Dabit region to the bank of the Tigris, to the bridge number 4, which was destroyed by the American aircraft on November 22 last year. However, its progress has stopped here so far.

In the southeastern direction, the offensive is being developed by the 9th Armored Division of the Iraqi Army, which was badly damaged in street battles a month ago, and reinforced by an infantry brigade. These troops, with the support of American aviation and artillery, managed to free the Falyastyn, Dumez and Sumer areas from the ISIS.

In the northeast, strike units of one of the Iraqi infantry divisions are advancing, which are supporting the multiple launch rocket systems of the US and French ground forces.

Here, the attackers managed to reach the borders of the Sukr, Al-Baladiya, Al-Musanna regions. For a time they were mired in fighting in the Al-Hadbaa area, in front of the well-fortified areas of Kindi and Mosul University. However, on January 13, reports emerged that Iraqi troops had already occupied a number of university buildings.

A kind of second echelon of the offensive are several divisions of the Iraqi federal police, which use rather tough methods to clean up occupied areas.

It can be stated that the offensive is developing only because IS militants offer stubborn resistance selectively in certain areas.

The military from Western countries are stationed in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Kajara airbase and the Karamlis settlement. Artillery strikes militants in the area of \u200b\u200bthe settlements of Tell Kaif and Baviza in the northeastern outskirts of Mosul, but Iraqi forces have not yet advanced here.

In the northwest, the forces of the Shiite militia "Al-Hashd al-Shaabi" are concentrated, which retreated from the city of Tell Afar after an erroneous attack by American aircraft. Fighting in this direction (a section of the highway between Mosul and the Kurdish city of Sinjar) is also being conducted without much success by two infantry brigades from the 15th Infantry Division of the Iraqi Armed Forces, the rest of which is located on the southern side of the city.

In the rear of the coalition group that is storming Mosul from the east, there are territories controlled by the Peshmerga - the armed forces of Iraqi Kurdistan, which are not directly involved in the storming of the city. In the area of \u200b\u200bthe capital of the Iraqi Kurds - the city of Erbil, several thousand military personnel from Western countries, most of them American, are deployed. However, it is not planned to use these forces for the operation in Mosul. Their task is to cover Iraqi Kurdistan from possible breakthroughs by IS militants, for example, similar to the one that has already taken place from Kirkuk.

At the same time, the northeastern outskirts of Mosul are still held by terrorists. And this fact, it seems, is not taken into account in American combat reports. The Kurdish formations occupying positions north of Mosul, according to previously made official statements, should not participate in the storming of the city itself.

Probably, such a combat task at the moment is beyond the power of the Kurds due to the lack of the necessary heavy weapons and equipment.

The Turkish contingent, which could support the offensive in the northeast, the Iraqi authorities are urging to withdraw from the country.

It is quite possible that the Iraqi army is also running out of strength. A month ago, IS forces inflicted very sensitive losses on Iraqi armored units. In addition, the elite formation of the Iraqi armed forces - the "Golden Division", suffered significant losses.

The forces of these assault units may not be enough for the eastern regions remaining under the control of the ISIS. Not to mention western Mosul, which is somewhat smaller in area, but much more built-up and fortified.

And the Iraqi army has practically no other units prepared for battles in the city.

The fighting has resulted in serious civilian casualties. Liz Grande, Iraqi coordinator, said 683 Mosul residents wounded in street fighting in the eastern part of the city were admitted to hospitals on government territory in the first week of January. This is in addition to the 817 wounded since the beginning of the active phase of the assault in late December. The exact death toll is unknown.

The fighting has already brought Iraq to the brink of humanitarian disaster. According to the UN, at least 138 thousand people have already left the liberated areas of Mosul and its environs. Moreover, the camps prepared for their placement cannot accept more than 100 thousand refugees. As a result, people are left without a roof over their heads, food and drinking water.

If IS releases civilians from the areas it holds, then hundreds of thousands of refugees will be counted.

Militarily competent terrorist commanders seem to have a good idea of \u200b\u200bthe real combat and operational capabilities of the coalition grouping of troops (forces) near Mosul. They concluded that part of the forces and assets employed in the defense of Mosul could be transferred to other parts of Syria. They surrendered the southeastern part of the city quite easily and stepped up their efforts against Syrian troops in the Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor region, as well as on the defense of the city of Al-Bab in the Syrian province of Aleppo.

It seems that the next phase of the assault on Mosul should not so much help defeat IS in Iraq as restore the reputation of American generals against the backdrop of Russia's success in Aleppo.

Mikhail Khodarenok / facebook.com

- Military columnist for Gazeta.Ru, retired colonel.
Graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976),
Military Command Academy of Air Defense (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile battalion (1980-1983).
Deputy commander of an anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986-1988).
Senior officer of the General Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988-1992).
Chief Operations Officer (1992-2000).
Graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Observer "" (2000-2003), chief editor of the newspaper "Military Industrial Courier" (2010-2015).

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi yesterday announced for the second time the complete liberation of the city of Mosul from ISIS terrorists. Now without any exaggeration and assumptions. This battle lasted 266 days and required the involvement of American air and artillery forces and the concentration of the best forces of the Iraqi army, as well as the country's Shiite and Sunni militias. Kurdish units were also involved in the assault.

We will never know the exact number of those killed during the assault, but we are definitely talking about thousands of dead and thousands of wounded coalition soldiers.

The official data on the losses provided by the United States is about a thousand killed and about 6 thousand wounded. According to other estimates, about 7 thousand killed and up to 30 thousand wounded.

Civilian casualties are colossal. Nobody simply considered them and hid them in every possible way from the "world community".

Back in December 2016, when the Syrian Arab army of Bashar al-Assad, with the support of the Russian Aerospace Forces, took by storm a similar city in which a much larger group of militants settled, comparisons were made between the two operations. Here's my December review:

In Aleppo, before the start of the battle, there were up to 15 thousand militants, of whom, after surrender, about 8 thousand were taken out (including the wounded). And about 10 thousand of their "brothers" tried to break through the encirclement in the fall of 2016, and almost carried out their plan.

In Mosul, according to American data, there were initially 10-15 thousand ISIS men, of which about half were withdrawn and transferred to other sectors of the front before the city was completely surrounded. And then no one interfered with the Iraqi forces to finish off the surrounded group.

And now this battle is over and it's time to take stock. It took the American coalition, supported by the Iraqi army, 266 days to liberate the city.

This is just the storming of the city itself. If you take the entire operation and exit to its outskirts, then it must be counted from March 2016. Moreover, the ratio of forces was simply overwhelming (1 to 10), which was not even close during the fighting in Aleppo.

So, 266 days of pure assault. Taking into account the forces and means that were involved in the operation, this is a lot. Assad took two assaults to regain control of Aleppo, which were interrupted by an attempt by militants from Idlib province to break into the city surrounded by the army. The first assault took several weeks, the second (thorough and without outside interference) just over a month, after which the rest of the group surrendered and was taken out of the city.

True, there were also irreconcilable ones, whom the army finished off in a few days in December.

And nevertheless, this is a great victory for Iraq and now it will be able to regroup its forces to launch an offensive against other strongholds of ISIS, thereby bringing its end closer and helping Syria to quickly get rid of this black infection, created by order of American politicians and with the money of the Saudi and Qatari princes.

Mosul is the second largest city in Iraq after Baghdad. According to UN estimates, the city is home to 1.5 million people. This is a city where Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs, Kurds, Yezidis, Armenians, Assyrians, Turkomans and even a certain number of followers of Christianity coexisted for a very long time. Mosul is also the unofficial political and economic capital of Sunni Iraq. This ethnically diverse city has a higher proportion of Christians than other Iraqi cities.

From an economic point of view, Mosul is a major oil production center. ISIS received up to $ 50 million a month from the oil trade before the start of the Russian operation to track and destroy oil caravans that were heading along the "northern route" (Iraq, Syria, Turkey). Mosul is also a major transport hub. There are 3 main routes through Mosul: the Baghdad 1 - Mosul - Syrian border - Aleppo (M4) highway, the Baghdad 2 - Mosul - Turkish border and the Mosul - Kirkuk 80 highway. A branch of the so-called Baghdad railway also passes through the city. The city is located on the banks of the Tigris River - the largest river in the Middle East. The largest hydroelectric power station in Iraq is located on this river, 60 kilometers from the city.

On October 16, it was again announced the beginning of the attempt to finally take Mosul. It is worth noting that for ISIS, Mosul is the last stronghold in Iraq and a key source of oil revenues. For the government of Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan, control of Mosul is a matter of control over the entire region, where they, first of all, have their own financial interests. For their Western counterparts, the operation to storm Mosul is an important part of a PR campaign and a source of political dividends.

One of the leaders of the Shiite armed groups in Iraq, Hadi Al-Ameri, said that due to the length and intensity of the fighting, Mosul could become another Aleppo.

The composition of the coalition forces is as follows:

1. Iraqi security forces - 54,000 soldiers
2. Peshmerga - up to 40 thousand soldiers
3. Sunni militia loyal to the government - 9 thousand people
4. Shiite militia, detachments of Turkomans, Yezidis, Christians, which operate as part of the Popular Mobilization Detachments, also known as the Popular Mobilization Forces - up to 5 thousand people
5. About 5 thousand US military personnel
6. More than 130 artillery systems, several hundred units of armored vehicles, as well as about 90 combat aircraft, helicopters and combat UAVs.

Such a diverse composition of the anti-IS coalition forces creates additional problems in the course of operations, primarily in terms of interaction and command and control of troops. About 9,000 ISIS terrorists are determined not to surrender the city; they are armed with many cars filled with explosives and chemical weapons that they will use against the coalition. Absolute superiority in numbers, weapons and training is unquestionably on the side of the coalition.

However, anti-IS forces face multiple challenges, and the dire humanitarian situation in the city is just one of them. At the initiative of the UN, 5 camps for 120 thousand people are ready for deployment. It is obvious that they will not be enough for those 1.5 million people who are tentatively in the city.

Among the ISIS fighters there are former officers of Saddam Hussein's army - indigenous people who perfectly know the city and its communications. This circumstance turns the storming of the city into an almost impossible task. In addition to officers, there is a significant number of ISIS fighters who have experience in urban battles in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Libya and Syria. These people know all about fighting in urban areas. Western media portrayed the IS terrorists as savage, cruel and dumb. Such a frivolous assessment of the enemy always leads to losses. In less than a month of fighting on the outskirts of Mosul, where the local population is loyal to the government coalition, losses amounted to: more than 3 thousand soldiers were killed and wounded, 22 tanks and over 120 lightly armored vehicles were destroyed.

The Ishilov defense of the city is carried out in accordance with all the rules of military science. The city has long been under the control of ISIS and was suitably prepared in terms of the construction of defensive positions. The Iraqi military has repeatedly tried to storm Mosul in the past, and it can be said for sure that ISIS commanders took measures to strengthen the most vulnerable defensive positions. The tactics of ISIS militants can be described as rapid maneuvering throughout the entire area of \u200b\u200bdefense along pre-prepared roads that are used to approach the enemy, organize ambushes and encirclement. The use of grenade launchers (RPG-7, RPG-18, RPG-22) is widespread; mortars are used less frequently in urban conditions. Booby traps and land mines are set up in places where the enemy is most likely to appear.

Photo Gettyimages

Against the background of the continuing acute phase of the Syrian crisis, events in Iraq faded into the background and again attracted attention only after the start of the military operation to free the Islamic State (IS, banned in Russia) from the country's second most important city, Mosul, from terrorists.

Baghdad had long hatched plans to liberate it, but the timing of a large-scale offensive operation was being postponed all the time. The main reason for this was the lack of unity among internal and external forces interested in expelling Islamists from the region. The newly formed Shiite Arab units of the new Iraqi army did not have the necessary experience in fighting, and the morale of the recruits did not match the upcoming fierce battles with the militarily well-trained and ideologically motivated jihad soldiers. By mid-October alone, it was possible to prepare up to 10 motorized rifle brigades of the Iraqi Armed Forces with support and reinforcement units with a total strength of about 40 thousand people. Detachments of Shiite military-political groups such as "Hashd al-Shaabi" and "Brigade Badr" (a total of 8-10 thousand people) are also expressing their readiness to act with them.

The second most important contingent of attackers (18-20 thousand people) can be considered several Kurdish Peshmerga brigades, mainly from the Barzan tribe. These units have combat experience, are distinguished by high morale and coordination of actions. By the beginning of this week, they managed to liberate dozens of settlements on the outskirts of Mosul and take control of all the dominant heights to the north and east of the city.

The third participant in the assault on Mosul may be a 3-5 thousand Sunni Arab and Turkoman contingent trained by Turkish instructors at the Bashik military base. Turkish ground military units with artillery and armored vehicles, as well as the Turkish Air Force are ready to provide this contingent with the necessary fire support during the offensive.

The total number of ground forces attacking Mosul is over 80 thousand people. Air forces of the USA, France, Great Britain, Denmark, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Iraq, possibly Australia and Canada are supporting the assault on Mosul with missile and bomb strikes from the air. Combat aircraft of the coalition are based on airfields in Iraq, Turkey, UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel. Deck aircraft of the American and French navies operate from the Persian Gulf.

What are the options for the further development of events around Mosul? The possibility of collusion of the Turkish authorities or other mediators (Saudi Arabia, Qatar) with IS leaders or even bribery of the latter, so that the militants leave Mosul along the corridors saved for them in the west to other regions of Iraq or Syria, is not ruled out. This option suits the United States and its allies quite well, as it strengthens the position of the government under its control in Baghdad and at the same time increases pressure on the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. Allegedly, attempts have already been made to bribe the leaders of the former Baathist groups who have joined IS, and the elders of the Sunni tribes in order to provoke an uprising within the Caliphate, but so far without success. The jihadists executed not only those suspected of treason, but also civilians who tried to leave the city without permission or did not follow orders to create a human shield.

The second option - with long, fierce battles for the city - is more realistic. The Caliphate had been preparing for the defense of Mosul for over two years - various engineering structures, barriers, tunnels, trenches, underground passages, trenches, ditches were erected (some of them are filled with oil and set on fire to cover the actions of militants from both ground and air strikes), jihadists mined roads, bridges, buildings, approaches to the city, etc. Practice shows that IS fighters, as a rule, withdraw from large settlements only after fierce resistance, when there are no prospects for their further retention. Already now they are carrying out acts of sabotage on the roads, actively using suicide bombers to blow up columns of armored vehicles and vehicles approaching the city. Surplus small arms and ammunition are distributed to local Sunni tribes, the police, and all Mosul citizens who are trustworthy from the Islamist point of view.

The number of IS militants is estimated at 15-20 thousand people. A well fortified city with a population of one million, an area of \u200b\u200bover 620 sq. km, with a circumference of more than 50 km on the move can not be taken. Even a grouping of troops numbering 80 thousand people runs the risk of simply getting lost in its quarters. Most likely, the battles for this city will drag on for several months and will be accompanied by numerous casualties among the civilian population. IS retains its influence among a significant part of the Sunni Arab population, skillfully maneuvers its forces in the region, and continues to enjoy the support of its sponsors in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and other Arab and Muslim countries. Washington also has not yet finally abandoned the use of the capabilities of the Islamists in the fight against Damascus.

The expulsion of IS militants from Mosul will in no way mean the end of the struggle for power in Iraq and the region as a whole. It can be expected that the new US administration will also continue its foreign policy course towards turning the Middle East into an arena of prolonged confrontation between the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, led by Riyadh, on the one hand, and Tehran, on the other, in the struggle for leadership in the region. In this case, Iraq and Syria may remain hostages of this confrontation for many years and turn into training grounds for permanent armed conflicts. Overseas puppeteers will try to take advantage of the lingering ethno-confessional conflicts in the region with maximum benefit.