Operation Featherweight: Month 37, Week 1, Day 5

This should be read as a continuation of; https://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/operation-featherweight-month-37-week-1.html

No Plan For Civilians:

The start of the Mosul operation coincided with a Syrian and Russian effort to liberate the eastern side of the Syrian city of Aleppo from the Al Qaeda-led, ISIL allied Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition.

This Aleppo City operation was almost a textbook example of how to conduct urban warfare.

The first step was to surround the Army of Conquest occupied areas of the city on all sides. This isolated the enemy preventing them from escaping and from bringing in supplies and reinforcements.

The second step was to established several humanitarian corridors out of the besieged area. This allowed civilians to escape from the fighting and be housed in the relative safety of Internally Displaced Peoples (IDP)/Refugee camps.

The third step was to subject the besieged area to heavy aerial bombardment. This destroyed defensive positions, weapons stores and command and control centres alongside the extensive tunnel and bunker network the Army of Conquest had established beneath the area.

The fourth step was to send in ground troops to liberate the area.

The encirclement of eastern Aleppo City was completed with the liberation of the Castello Road on July 7th 2016 (7/7/16). The total liberation of Aleppo City was completed on December 12th 2016 (12/12/16).

However the Aleppo City operation was delayed by not one but two ceasefires. The first of these lasted from August 9th 2016 (9/8/16) until September 20th 2016 (20/9/16). The second ceasefire lasted from October 17th (17/10/16) until November 15th 2016 (15/11/16).

So in terms of operational periods Aleppo City was liberated in just 82 days. That is significantly less than the 100 days it took the ISF to liberate eastern Mosul and the 141 days it took them to liberate western Mosul. A total of 266 days include operational pauses for troop movements.

The reason why the Aleppo City operation kept being delayed is that the international community supported the Army of Conquest. This is particularly true of the US under former President Barack Obama and France under former President Francois Hollande.

As part of this support they would make entirely false claims of the Syrians and Russians committing atrocities against civilians. These claims would then be used to demand ceasefires with the intention of allowing the Army of Conquest to continue their occupation of Aleppo City. By causing delays those ceasefires actually worsened the situation for civilians in Aleppo City.

Although neither Hollande nor Obama survived the battle ultimately they wanted the Army of Conquest's occupation of Aleppo City to continue long after Mosul had been liberated. This would require them to continue to be able to make these false accusations against the Syrians and Russians and demand ceasefires.

So in the planning stage the US in particular put great pressure on the Iraqis to conduct the Mosul operation in a way that would contrast with the Aleppo City operation. The US wished to demonstrate that you could conduct an urban battle without extensive use of airstrikes and without civilians being forced to leave their homes during the fighting.

To this end the only provision made for Mosul's civilians was to airdrop leaflets telling them to remain in their homes during the battle.

The problem is that as the Mosul battle has gone on to prove the US' proposition was entirely false. In this type of battle you do need to use airpower and even using just ground forces civilians will always be put in danger by the fighting going on around them.

Although many will probably not believe me the air campaign conducted in Mosul by both CJTFOIR and the Iraqi Air Force has been one of the most accurate in military history. They have made extensive use of technology that allows them to deliver bombs onto targets little more than the size of a coin.

The problem is though that once you deliver a 227kg (500lb) bomb onto its target it still explodes with the equivalent of 227kg of TNT. That creates a blast radius that does damage across an area that is significantly larger then a sixpence.

Therefore it is an inevitably that civilians and their property that are close to ISIL positions are going to get injured and damaged.

CJTFOIR's unwillingness to use these highly targeted airstrikes particularly within the Old City district actually seems to have had the effect of making the problem worse.

Without ready air support troops on the ground have felt exposed. This has caused them to use what are termed; "Area weapons" such as artillery, rockets and mortars instead.

As the name suggests you don't aim these area weapons at specific targets. Instead you aim them at an area containing the target. You then fire a lot of warheads into that area in the hope of destroying the target along with everything else in the area.

ISIL of course have no airforce so they have relied entirely on these area weapons.

Prior to the opening of the northern axis in western Mosul this was a particular problem. With Federal Police units fighting in the Old City district ISIL would use the Zanjili north through the 17 Tammuz district to just rain artillery fire down on the Federal Police positions. It should hardly come as a surprise then that it is this area of Mosul that has seen much of the worst destruction.

The other main weapon in ISIL's armoury has been the Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED). Many of these VBIED's are truck bombs similar in size to the Provisional Irish Republican Army's (PIRA) bombing in Manchester, UK in 1996 or the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City, US in 1995. These have the power to wipe out entire city blocks.

Quite apart from the danger of being caught in the crossfire ISIL as a particularly vile enemy posed a direct threat to civilians themselves.

Throughout the battle for Mosul ISIL - as they have done in other battles - made extensive use of civilians as human shields. They would take over control of several civilian homes and turn them into fighting positions by establishing tunnels between them. They would then gather the civilians from those buildings together in one of the homes so they would be killed if ISIL's fighting position was attacked.

While completely forbidden under the laws of war human shields are normally used to deter attacks against the positions where they are being held. ISIL however have taken particular pleasure in killing Mosul's civilians often rigging the buildings with explosives to kill the civilians should there be a risk of the building being liberated.

ISIL have also gleefully killed civilians who try to escape areas of Mosul under their occupation. Throughout the battle they have deployed snipers specifically for this task.  The start of June was a particularly dark period for this with snipers killing 70 civilians in a five day period in the Zanjili district alone. The Pepsi plant by the Third Bridge is said to have been used by ISIL as a slaughter house for civilians.

As it became apparent to all that the advice for civilians to remain in their homes was wrong many civilians started to ignore it and try and flee. Towards the end of the battle in the western side of the city the ISF's tactics changed and they did begin to focus on rescuing civilians.

Again due to the lack of organisation exact figures are not available. However it is estimated that somewhere in the region of 700,000 of Mosul's roughly 1.2 million civilians ended up fleeing.

The problem was that there was only provision for 45,000 IDP's. As a result having fled these civilians were then left without adequate food, water and shelter. With local businesses and charities stepping in to try and make up the shortfall there have been numerous cases of mass food poisoning with poorly prepared or stored food making sick.

What should have been done for Mosul's civilians was to copy what the Russians and Syrians were doing for the civilians of Aleppo City. Establish humanitarian corridors to allow them to escape the fighting and prepare IDP camps to provide for them until the battle was over.

Following this plan would have helped save the lives of many of Mosul's civilians. It would also have given the Iraqis a headstart in the next phase; post-conflict reconstruction.

Establishing properly serviced IDP camps for 700,000 is no small task. It would require the establishment of if not an entire government ministry but certainly a dedicated department within a government ministry. This would have helped provide a voice for Mosul's civilians within the Iraqi government.

It is tempting to say that throughout the battle Mosul's civilians were ignored by the government. However the truth is more complicated than that. With those civilians being held in ISIL occupied areas it was impossible for the government to communicate with them. So rather than being ignored it was more a case of ISIL denying those civilians their voice.

If those civilians had been evacuated from Mosul and then housed in IDP camps operated by the government it would give them a voice. This would make it easier for the government to understand their needs.

This really goes back to the issue of the goats.

Throughout the battle the land around Mosul has been filled with stray sheep and goats. The reason for this is that many of the families living in the villages around Mosul are livestock farmers. With the fighting causing their animals to escape these people have now lost their livelihoods.

Whether the damage has been caused by war or natural disaster the lesson that has been learned time and time again is that the best way to manage recovery and reconstruction is to get people back to their normal lives a quickly as possible.

If the government can get local businesses up and running then people can start getting paid again. This makes it much more likely that they will repair the damage to their homes themselves rather than waiting for the government to do it for them.

If the farming families from in and around Mosul were in government operated camps it would help give the government a clearer idea of how many people had lost how much of their business. From there the government could start rounding up the stray animals and reuniting them with their owners so they can get back to looking after themselves.

The issue of course doesn't just apply to livestock farmers. Say for example there's someone who runs a grocery store in the middle of the Zanjili district who'd been evacuated to an IDP camp.

From that camp he could work with the government to make sure he has loans or loan guarantees to suppliers and transport for stock to be delivered to get his shop reopened as soon as possible providing it hasn't been destroyed.

Obviously you can't work out the extent of the challenges facing the post-conflict reconstruction effort until the fighting is completely over. 

However by working with local residents before they return to the city you can get a clearer idea of the problems that will be faced and start working on solutions to them.

19:00 on 24/7/17 (UK date).