80,000 Iraqi soldiers to retake Mosul at the beginning of next year
(IraqiNews.com) On Monday, Saudi newspaper ‘al-Sharq al-Awsat‘ reported that the extensive military operation to liberate al-Mosul city will start at the beginning of next year, and will include 80,000 security elements. Mosul is the Nineveh governorate’s capital city.
‘al-Sharq al-Awsat’ quoted a member of the Provincial Council of Nineveh, Ghazwan Hamid, saying, “According to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, the operation to retake al-Mosul will start at the beginning of next year with 7,000 Iraqi soldiers from the 19th brigade, police force of Nineveh and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters.”
“The operation will include 80,000 security elements blockading the city from all directions.”
Hamid added, “Policemen and volunteer tribesmen are being trained in Dobrdan base in western Erbil while Kurdish Peshmerga will participate in this battle by liberating the plain of Nineveh.”
Members of the Nineveh police force will also be involved, as will fighters from the Kurdish Peshmerga, “who will be contributing to the operation by capturing the Nineveh plains area [which borders the northern and eastern regions of Mosul], and then surrounding the city from every direction.”
Training camps for the operation have now been set up in the Kurdistan region, Hamid said, adding that many of those currently being trained were previously members of the Iraqi armed forces.
“As for the rest, they comprise volunteers and members of Nineveh’s police force, all of whom need intense training in order to ready them for the upcoming battle,” he said.
In contrast to Hamid’s claim that Peshmerga fighters would be involved in the battle, however, Halkord Hikmet, the official spokesman for the Kurdish force, told Asharq Al-Awsat: “We are adhering to [our role in] in the international [anti-ISIS] coalition currently in place, and of which the Peshmerga are an essential part. As for Mosul, the Peshmerga has its own plan in the fight against ISIS [here].”
“For this reason, I don’t believe that we would be able at this time to participate in the operation to recapture Mosul, because our forces are now engaged with ISIS on a long, wide front,” he said.
He added, however, that the Peshmerga “might be able to offer them [the Iraqi force] help in this operation, though this is yet to be decided.”
Mosul was captured by ISIS in June following a lightning advance across northern Iraq which saw the group capture considerable swaths of the country’s territory.
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