Operation Featherweight: Month 28, Week 2, Day 1.

Since October 17th (17/10/16) an operation has been underway to move forces into position in and around the city of Mosul. From those advanced positions those forces will then be able to plan and then undertake an operation to liberate this northern Iraqi city from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Those combined Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) have been advancing on Mosul from three directions; The north, the east and the south.

Progress has been the most rapid to the east. On Monday (24/10/16) the Peshmerga entered the town of Top Zawa which sits just 8km (5 miles) from Mosul. This is as far as the Peshmerga will advance towards Mosul from the east. On Tuesday (25/10/16) the ISF element on the front entered the town of Bazwaia which sits just 2km (1 mile) from Mosul. On Wednesday (26/10/16) it was reported that the ISF's elite Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU/Golden Division) has started mounting raids inside of Gogjali. This is a district inside of Mosul itself.

As such it is fair to say that all the objectives in this phase of the operation to the east of Mosul have been achieved and that phase of the operation is now at an end. All that is left for troops there to do is establish defensive positions, rest and regroup and prepare for the next phase of the operation.

Progress to the north has been almost as rapid. In my post on Thursday (27/10/16) I said that the Peshmerga were in the process of securing the village of Faziliya which sits 15km (9 miles) north-east of Mosul. About an hour after I wrote that the Peshmerga confirmed that they had succeeded in securing Faziliya. Since then they have secured a number of other villages in and around the town of Bashiqa & Bahzani.

However across the front there remain roughly 10 locations that are merely strong-pointed rather than fully secured. These include the town of Bashiqa & Bahzani itself. The Peshmerga have said that they have no intention of fully securing that town before the operation against Mosul itself begins. This concerns me for a number of reasons.

When the operation against Mosul itself begins the ISIL fighters that remain in in Bashiqa are unlikely to sit there quietly and let it happen. Instead they're likely to use the town as a base to launch attacks against the supply lines running to the Mosul battle. Bashiqa & Bahzani is going to have to be fully secured at some point. It makes more sense to fight that battle now rather than when the Peshmerga/ISF are also trying to fight the battle inside Mosul.

Also alongside the ISIL fighters there are a number of civilians trapped inside Bashiqa & Bahzani. Just yesterday the United Nations (UN) confirmed that ISIL had massacred at total of 230 civilians in and around the town of Hamman al-Alil to the south of Mosul. My concern is that once the operation against Mosul itself starts ISIL could massacre the civilians still inside Bashiqa & Bahzani in one of the acts of gruesome revenge we've come to expect from the group.

Although civilians remain inside Bashiqa & Bahzani many fled the advance of ISIL and are currently living as Internally Displaced People (IDP) in camps across Iraq. The operation against Mosul is likely to create as many as a million more of these IDP's. If Bashiqa & Bahzani and the surrounding villages are properly secured prior to the operation against Mosul it may be possible for people to start returning to their homes creating space in the IDP camps for new arrivals.

In the two days since my last post on the subject the most dramatic advances have occurred on what it termed the "Qayyarah Front" to the south-west of Mosul. Although the most advanced position on this front remains the town of Al-Fishkah which sits 13km (8 miles) south-west of Mosul the ISF have pushed out to secure more than a dozen towns and villages south of Al-Fishkah between the Tigris River and the M1 Motorway. We are now just waiting for them to advance a short distance more to secure the Ayn an-Nasr to Hamman al-Alil line.

With all objectives to the north, east and south now being all but achieved the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - yesterday declared a two day "Operational Pause" which is likely to be extended. This allows the troops that have been in battle for almost two weeks time to re-group, re-supply and repair any damage to their equipment and vehicles. Crucially it also allows the soldiers time to sleep, eat and maybe even grab a hot shower.

With this operational pause it is clear that we are now entering a new phase of the mission. During this phase it is likely that I will quite quiet. To the point that I'm not even exactly happy to confirm that a new phase has begun. It is also almost impossible for me to tell how long this new phase will last because it is entirely dependent on uncontrollable factors. A possible indicator comes from the fact that yesterday (28/10/16) the Belgian arm of the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) confirmed that it is sending a field hospital to aid with the Mosul operation.

The issue of medical treatment has long been a source of irritation to me personally. Although they do the best they can with what they've got compared to the standards of a NATO army such as the British or American the standard of medical care to people fighting ISIL - particularly the Peshmerga - is utterly appalling. 

As a result we've long had to put up with people dying of battlefield injuries such as simple bullet wounds that are normally considered completely survivable. With the US having already sent some 5000+ ground troops to Iraq including artillery units I find it hard to believe it's taken until now for someone to think to send a field hospital. 

MSF estimate that they will have their field hospital up and running in two weeks time. However it make take them slightly longer than that. After all the key is getting the casualty from the frontline to the hospital as quickly as possible. In Afghanistan the British aim to have a casualty triaged with wounds dressed and IV lines established within 10 minutes and the casualty in hospital within 60 minutes. However they have helicopters that are essentially trauma units with rotor blades.

Today's big development is that the Popular Mobilisation Force (PMF) militias which operate as part of the ISF have opened up a new front to the west of Mosul. This is intended to seal the vast 20,000kmsq (12,000 milesq) "Falls Road" corridor that the US had planned to leave open to allow ISIL to escape west from Mosul into Syria. 

The plan is for the PMF to advance from the base in Qayyarah across largely unpopulated desert to the town of Tal Afar which sits roughly 55km (30 miles) west of Mosul along the H47 Highway. Already the PMF are confirmed to have reached the town of Ayn an Nasr which sits around 9km (5 miles) west of Hammam al-Alil and around 60km (35 miles) south-west of Tal Afar. However this rapid advance is continuing as I write.

Ideally I would have liked to have seen this operation to the west conducted in the way the coalition conducted "Operation Desert Sabre" during the 1991 Gulf War. Obviously they attacked Iraqi forces inside of Kuwait but they then also swung a massive arc into south-eastern Iraq cutting off the Iraqis escape. I though appreciate that type of manoeuvre moving hundreds of tanks across hundreds of kilometres/miles of desert in a very short space of time is extremely complicated. Even the US' 1st & 5th Cavalry very nearly didn't manage it on time.

Also I appreciate that the current coalition is not as unified and organised as the coalition during the 1991 Gulf War. Airpower is provided by the US-led CJTFOIR while ground forces are being provided by the Peshmerga who are answerable to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the Iraqi Army and Police who are answerable to the Iraqi government in Baghdad and the PMF who sometimes act as a law upon to themselves.

The US has very much been driving this Mosul operation in order to get it underway from the November 8th (8/11/16) Presidential election. In pressuring Baghdad and the KRG are to participate the US has been keen both for the Falls Road to be left open and for the PMF to be kept out of the operation. 

Therefore I very much appreciate that in order to launch any sort of operation on the Falls Road the PMF have had to very vocally face down a lot of US opposition. So while it might not be the ideal I was dreaming of I'm sure this operation to the west will be more than sufficient. Provided it goes according to plan.

There is a rumour doing that round that the current operational pause is actually a cover for CJTFOIR to refuse to conduct airstrikes in protest of the PMF's Falls Road operation. From what I've seen the operational pause is tactically valid and while it has been in place no-one has really done anything that requires CJTFOIR airstrikes. After all you don't need a B-52 bomber to dig a trench or drive across the desert.  

However knowing what a childish little b*tch Obama can be it is something that I will be keeping an eye and something that I certainly hope is not true.

16:40 on 29/10/16 (UK date).