In the very early hours of this morning (local) Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi - under what struck me as extreme duress - announced the start of the operation to liberate the northern city of Mosul. The de facto capital of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq.
Obviously I want to see ISIL defeated. I also want to see Mosul liberated. So as this operation progresses I will try to be optimistic and supportive. However that will be a difficult task because it is clear that Iraq is nowhere near ready to launch this operation.
One of my main concerns is the sheer distance between Mosul and the forces trying to liberate it.
At the time of al-Abadi's announcement the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga were based on the Gwer frontline which is around 40km (24 miles) south-east of Mosul. Through the course of today they have advanced to the Hammam al-Alil district which sits around 16km (10 miles) south-east of Mosul. Over rough ground and under fire that's still a half-hour drive away from Mosul.
So what we're currently seeing is not an operation to liberate Mosul. Instead it is an operation to move forces to the forward positions from which they would plan an operation to liberate Mosul.
I sincerely hope that once those forward positions have been taken the operation then stops and the next move is carefully planned. Rushing into battles before they've been properly planned out has been a persistent problem with Iraqi forces that has seriously delayed the fight against ISIL.
In April 2015 the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and in particular the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) militias rushed into an operation to liberate the roughly 70% of the city of Ramadi in Anbar province from ISIL.
Due to poor planning and preparation this operation went so badly that not only did the ISF fail in liberating Ramadi from ISIL they ended up losing the 30% of the city they did control at the start of the operation to ISIL. It wasn't until February 2016 that the ISF finally succeeded in liberating Ramadi from ISIL.
The ISF's last big operation prior to the current one was the operation in May and June 2016 to liberate the city of Fallujah, also in Anbar province. Rather than waiting for the city to be properly encircled the ISF instead rushed in by launching a single attack on the south of the city. This allowed ISIL to focus all its forces on repelling this single column.
Within a day the attack had ground to a halt and it even looked as though the ISF would be forced back amid heavy casualties. It was only when a second attack column was launched from the west of the city that ISIL's defences were split that the city was finally liberated.
By other very big concern is the sheer range of different forces participating in the Mosul operation and the clear tensions between them.
The group that has been most active today has been the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga. Although they've never fought a battle on this scale the Peshmerga have been the most successful in fighting ISIL of all the Iraqi forces. They also have a reputation for integrity and fairness.
Although a largely Sunni-Arab city Mosul is far from exclusively Sunni-Arab. Alongside the large Sunni-Arab population there is also a large Kurdish population along with numerous Yezidi, Armenians, Turkmen and Shia-Arabs. As such it seems likely that the Peshmerga would be widely welcomed as liberators by Mosul's civilian population.
The problem is that Mosul is not part of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region. The Iraqi government is therefore very concerned that the Peshmerga may well attempt to exploit the liberation of Mosul to expand the Kurdish region. Given the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) comments regarding the similar city of Kirkuk this seems to be far from paranoia on the Iraqi government's part.
As a result the Peshmerga have been refused permission to enter Mosul itself. Instead they will limited to securing the outskirts of the city and the surrounding area.
The force that will actually be going into Mosul is the ISF - specifically the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi Police. As with Iraq itself these are made up of predominately Shia-Arabs.
Under Saddam Hussein it was the Sunni-Arab minority that oppressed the Shia-Arab majority including by forcing Shia-Arabs out of areas such as Mosul and Tikrit to make way from Sunni-Arabs. As a result there is longstanding tension and distrust between Iraq's Sunni-Arabs and the ISF. Not least because the Sunni-Arabs initially sided with ISIL - particularly in Mosul.
The tension between Iraq's Sunni-Arabs and the ISF are particularly bad when it comes to the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) - "Al-Hashd Al-Sha'abi" in Arabic. This is actually a coalition of around 40 different militia groups. The majority of these are Shia-Arab and some of them have a particularly bad reputation for sectarian violence against particularly Sunni-Arabs and Kurds but generally anybody who isn't Shia-Arab.
In order to ease that tension the PMF will not be entering Mosul as part of the ISF. Instead like the Peshmerga they will be limited to securing the outskirts of the city and the surrounding area.
This is actually rather disappointing because their extreme hatred of ISIL makes the PMF a high effective cutting edge or tip of the spear when it comes to offensive operations. The trick is to quickly back-fill the areas they've liberated with more moderate and professional forces to hold the ground.
Although predominately so the PMF are not exclusively Shia-Muslim. One of the PMF militias that will be particularly important in the Mosul operation is a Sunni-Arab one belonging to the Jabouri tribe which is indigenous to Mosul and the surrounding area - particularly to the south.
The problem is that there is a second Sunni-Arab militia that is not part of the PMF and is not affiliated to ISF. They are of the Nujaifi tribe which traditionally ruled Mosul and the surrounding area when it was part of the Ottoman Empire.
This is the militia that Turkey has been training at the Bashiqa camp. As part of recent a cyber-attack on the Iraqi government they released a map showing Mosul and Erbil as part of Turkey.
Today Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that it is out of the question that Turkey and the Nujaifi militia will stay out of the Mosul operation. Erdogan went on to say that he will not hesitate to intervene with military force at the first hint of sectarian violence in Mosul. To back up his threat Turkey has deployed a large number of troops, tanks and armoured vehicles to its border with Iraq.
So this Mosul operation seems to be running a very high risk that it will trigger a conflict between two Sunni-Arab tribes. Not only that but Erdogan looks like to try and use that conflict as an excuse to launch a large scale military invasion and occupation of northern Iraq similar to the invasion and occupation that Turkey is currently undertaking in northern Syria.
Experience has taught us that in managing this threat the Iraqi government and the KRG can expect absolutely no help from the US or President Obama.
Sadly a lot of the responsibility for this volatile situation seems to lie with Masoud Barzani - the President of the Iraqi Kurdish region.
On October 4th (4/10/16) the Iraqi Parliament passed a motion demanding that Turkey immediately ceased its training of the Nujaifi militia and removed its forces from both the Bashiqa camp and all of Iraq. The matter was then elevated to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
The problem is that despite Erdogan's treatment of Turkey's and Syria's Kurdish populations Barzani decided to side with Erdogan over the Iraq Parliament. So rather than joining the calls for the Turkish troops to be removed Barzani invited them to stay in the Kurdish region for as long as they liked. This lack of a united front reduced the pressure on Erdogan meaning that the situation remains unresolved.
Also alongside the US and Turkey Barzani also seems to have been exerting pressure on a reluctant Iraqi to start the Mosul operation before preparations are complete. For example Barzani came out and declared the operation had begun on Saturday (15/10/16) night - two days before the operation began.
Although it was late in a long day I also slightly got the impression that al-Abadi took a swipe at Barzani in his own address to the nation declaring the operation under way.
My main concern though remains that this operation is being dictated by the US. Their objective is not to defeat ISIL. It's not even to liberate Mosul. Instead it is to generate positive news coverage in the hope of getting Hillary Clinton elected in November. That is absolutely no way to conduct a war.
In order to achieve this objective the US has done the unthinkable. Through Erdogan they have brokered a deal with ISIL that will see them granted safe passage from Mosul to Raqqa in Syria.
Now the operation is underway that US backed evacuation of ISIL fighters from Mosul has sped up. Since dawn there have been numerous reports of ISIL fighter gathering in the Baaj area in the east of the city before being loaded onto convoys of vehicles heading for Syria along Highway 47 via Tal Afar.
The provincial council for Nineveh province in which Mosul sits have apparently been calling on the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolves (CJTFOIR) - to destroy these convoys or at the very least destroy the road.
So far CJTFOIR seems to be refusing.
17:05 on 17/10/16 (UK date).
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