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MOSUL, IRAQ

Outside the generals office, Raith al-Shababi, an Iraqi Special Forces fighter, flips through Facebook on his phone.

This is my brother, he said, showing a reporter a picture of a young man in a white dress shirt, posing with a serious, thoughtful face.

Daesh, al-Shababi explained, holding his finger up to his head like a gun. Boom, boom. Islamic State militants killed his brother at the age of 21.

Waiting for the generals to escort them on a victory tour of Mosuls Old City, al-Shababi says Mosul has not been completely captured, but the end is near.

But the losses endured over eight months of fighting, three years of IS rule in Mosul and more than a decade of constant extremist attacks, he observes, make the coming milestone more sad than celebratory.

Weve won, but look around you, said Col. Saaed Badeer Katam, of the Special Forces Najaf Battalion. Everything is destroyed.

Even the al-Nuri Mosque, the victory tours destination, is in ruins, with its iconic minaret chopped down and prayer space destroyed. Abu-Bakar al-Baghdadi declared himself Caliph of IS in 2014 in this mosque. Three years later IS destroyed it, apparently just to lessen Iraqs triumph in Mosul.

Living in the battle zone, Col. Katam says he isnt bothered that the declared victory precede the end of the fighting. As he speaks, airstrikes pound IS targets, and militants lob mortars and snap off sniper fire. Soldiers battle house to house, and families continue to flee the fighting.

Katam explodes IEDs that litter the re-captured streets of Old Mosul, hidden in debris and even in childrens toys. Buildings in the area are crushed and abandoned, and militants corpses rot in the streets. Under the piles of rubble are the remains of families killed when houses collapsed in airstrikes, sometimes burying them alive.

I lost 25 of my friends in the fight for Mosul, said Kaisar, 28, an Iraqi Special Forces fighter. When asked if he is happy about the victory, he replies, Im just tired. I want to go home.

Coming battles

For Iraqi fighters, going home will be a break, but not the end of the war. Militants continue hiding out in Iraqi-controlled territory, poised to strike again. IS still holds large parts of Iraq, including parts of Anbar province, Hawija and the strategic city of Tal Afar, according to Col. Katam.

Operations will continue until IS is finished, he noted.

Tal Afar has been surrounded by Popular Mobilization Units, or Hashd Shaaby fighters, since last year, though an advance to retake the city itself has not yet begun.

And the terrain around Tal Afar is so rough that it is impossible to completely secure, added Katam. Militants fleeing other areas will finally retreat to the city if they can.

The last place we fight will be Tal Afar, he said. And there, they will fight to the death.

Hidden militants

Sleeper cells in Iraqi-controlled Mosul already are conducting attacks. Last week three suicide bombers targeted eastern Mosul, killing and maiming people in a market.

Early this week, 40 to 50 militants believed to be hiding out in an abandoned industrial zone overran two neighborhoods of western Mosul in an apparent attempt to distract Iraqi forces from their battle in Old Mosul.

They thought Iraqi forces would leave Old Mosul so some other militants could escape, said Sergeant Mahmoud Mohammad of the Iraqi Armys 9th division. But they failed.

Special Forces and Iraqi Army soldiers killed all of the battling militants, he said, showing us bloodstains on the floor of one house. The blood is still sticky, and two bullet shells are on the floor. Mohammad thinks it was an IS double execution.

Returning neighbors say there was pandemonium when IS showed up in an area controlled by Iraq since mid-April. Families were separated as everyone ran when they saw the bushy beards and traditional clothes. They dont know if anyone was killed.

Soldiers and civilians agree, however, that more sleeper cells are hiding out all over Mosul and that attacks are far from over.

Of course we are always afraid, said Mohammad, a 31-year-old father of seven who lives in Tenek, one of the areas briefly overrun by IS early this week. But where else are we going to go?

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As Mosul Battle Ends, Iraq Forces Brace for Future - Voice of America

Drew Brooks Military editor @DrewBrooks

The 18th Airborne Corps is expected to return to Fort Bragg in September, ending a year-long mission at the helm of the fight against the Islamic State.

By that time, Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend is certain the city of Mosul, Iraq, will be liberated from ISIS. He believes Raqqa, Syria, too, may be freed or well on its way to liberation.

ISIS is close to defeat, Townsend told The Fayetteville Observer from Baghdad on Monday.

But Townsend, the commanding general of the 18th Airborne Corps, Fort Bragg and Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, said he hopes the U.S.-led coalition has a role in Iraq long after ISIS is driven from that country, working with Iraqi forces to ensure they are trained and capable of facing the nation's threats.

That would be a big difference from several years ago. U.S. troops left Iraq in 2011 and did not return until 2014.

In that time, the Iraqi government was nearly overwhelmed by ISIS fighters who were on the doorstep of Baghdad itself.

Weve seen that movie before, Townsend said. My thought is to try something different.

The general said its in the best interests of the government of Iraq, the U.S. and other coalition partners to keep a residual force in the country.

That lasting force, if one is ultimately approved, may or may not involve Fort Bragg soldiers.

With a little less than three months left in their mission in Iraq, the 18th Airborne Corps soldiers can be proud of their support, Townsend said.

Tens of thousands of square kilometers of territory have been wrested from ISIS control, and hundreds of thousands of people have been liberated, he said.

Now, Fort Bragg soldiers are helping train the troops who will be sent to replace them from Fort Hood, Texas.

Once home, Townsend said, the 18th Airborne Corps will turn its attention to its next fight, wherever that may be.

No moss ever grows on the 18th Airborne Corps. It doesnt sit at home very long, he said.

Townsend said the international coalition is committed to making Iraqi forces successful.

This is the worlds fight against a brutal ideology that has to be defeated, that has to be destroyed," he said.

The general saw ISIS' impact up close last month, when he was visiting troops near the front lines of the battle to free Mosul on the same day ISIS fighters destroyed the famed al-Nuri Mosque.

Townsend said he recalled looking out over the mosque and its famous leaning minaret a few hours before the 12th century landmark was reduced to rubble.

The destruction of the mosque was the latest priceless site to be ravaged by ISIS fighters, who are growing desperate as their territory in Iraq and Syria quickly dwindles.

Theyve blown up mosque after mosque, church after church, Townsend told the Observer. They have destroyed history and archaeology and artifacts.

The al-Nuri Mosque joins a list of historical sites destroyed by ISIS that includes the nearly 3,000-year-old ruins of the city of Nimrud, the tomb of Yunus commonly known to Christians as the Biblical figure Jonah and the sanctuary of St. Elijahs Monastery and cultural artifacts that include the remains of some of the most important archaeological sites in the Middle East.

The latest destruction, Townsend said, came as ISIS continues to lose its grip on its largest population centers.

Right now, the coalition and our partner forces in Iraq and Syria are attacking the twin capitals of ISIS Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, he said. Theyre under pressure now.

The group now controls less than two square kilometers of the city, the general said. And a full defeat was expected any day.

Townsend said Iraqi forces are clearly in the lead in the fight against ISIS.

That brings its own set of challenges, one of which is the pace of operations.

Working by, with and through partner forces means the coalition is not in charge of the timetable for attacks against ISIS, Townsend said.

When your partners are doing the fighting, they ultimately make the decisions about what theyre going to do and when theyre going to do it, he said.

Those decisions are not always as fast as the U.S. Army prefers to operate.

But this is a different kind of fight, Townsend said, with partner forces in the lead and making most of the sacrifices.

The Iraqi army has lost more than 1,000 soldiers and had about 5,000 wounded since mid-October, he said. On the U.S. side, two soldiers have been killed in that same time frame.

While Iraqi forces are in the lead of those efforts, theres no denying the contributions of Fort Bragg troops, who number in the thousands in Iraq and include parts of the 82nd Airborne Division, 44th Medical Brigade, 1st Special Forces Command and 528th Sustainment Brigade.

Townsend said it would be difficult to name every Fort Bragg unit with an ongoing mission in the fight against ISIS.

Suffice it to say, Fort Bragg troops are very well represented here, Townsend said. Im proud to serve alongside of them.

Military editor Drew Brooks can be reached at dbrooks@fayobserver.com or 486-3567.

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Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend: U.S. military should have presence in ... - Fayetteville Observer

By Marcus Yam

June 30, 2017 | Reporting from Mosul, Iraq

Sura Hussein Abdulmaged was in her last year of high school and taking her final exams with hopes of winning admittance to Mosul University. She dreamed of being an engineer.

But then Islamic State came to town. Abdulmaged was at home that day in 2014 when she got the news that the jihadists had conquered the city. I was studying, she recalled. And I stopped studying. I was just shocked.

Abdulmaged had long viewed Zaha Hadid, the trailblazing Iraqi-born British architect, as a role model; Hadid was the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize, architectures highest honor. But now Abdulmaged had to put her dream on hold.

Girls cant study engineering with ISIS, Abdulmaged said, using an acronym for the group. Its impossible. Its only for men.

Three years would pass before Iraqi forces mounted an effective counteroffensive against the group. The battle for Mosuls Old City still rages, but the military has driven Islamic State from key portions of the city, including the groups former outpost at Mosul University.

Now, the 21-year-old Abdulmaged and hundreds of other young volunteers are trying to repair the university scarred by war. Some are university students who gave up their studies when Islamic State took over. Others are young people like Abdulmaged, who hope to attend some day.

But first they must help restore what once had been one of the finest institutions of higher learning in Iraq. The Sunni Islamic State fighters looted the campus for anything valuable: ancient manuscripts, rare books, computers and cash. The militants smeared black tar on walls and torched most of the buildings as they were driven out by Iraqi forces this year. The heavy fighting left buildings and streets pockmarked by mortar shells. Some buildings collapsed.

As the Islamic State fighters gave up the campus, they also left booby traps.

Bombs the university was full of bombs, said Talal Kasim Takay, a professor of forestry. So after the army liberated it and cleared it, they said it was safe to go back. We came.

But the cleanup work can be perilous, and warnings left by the military in red paint mark buildings yet to be cleared of explosives.

Undeterred, the young volunteers keep coming to reclaim their campus. One day this spring, Abdulmaged was among a dozen women and twice as many men who cleared rubble from an administrative building, kicking up a dust cloud so thick that they had to wear masks. The sound of glass crunching, metal clinking and debris dragging on the ground was constant.

The women dragged debris and furniture Abdulmaged helped lug a large table toward the windows, where men heaved the objects out the windows five stories up. The process often finished with a loud thud. The sound was jarring. An eerie silence hangs over the campus that once served 30,000 students.

Were trying to forward our lives, Abdulmaged said, in English, of the cleanup work. Abdulmaged, who learned English by watching TV, recalled what happened when Islamic State took the city. Time was stopped in that moment, she said.

Living under Islamic State, she said, was hell.

It was like a life in a cage, Abdulmaged said as she paused from her work. You cant move, you cant do anything. You have to wear a black thing from head to feet. I wasnt free. I was going out of the house everything was OK, but not free. Normal life, but not free.

Takay, the professor, recalled that even during Islamic States occupation, some of students and teachers returned to the university to retain a sense of normalcy. The jihadists made Takay and other faculty continue teaching some courses, he said, but they had their own teachers, and they were teaching their own subjects related to faith and religious stuff.

Eventually, Takay said, people stopped coming and the university essentially shut down. Classes have yet to resume, though students are taking courses in the nearby town of Bartella. Portions of the university have reopened to conduct examinations.

Some pockets of the campus got by unscathed. In one classroom in an otherwise damaged building, chairs were in perfect rows and congratulations in Arabic was plastered on the wall.

Still, risks remain.

There are families that are not letting their kids come back to the university because they fear for their safety, said Mohammed Hamed Abdullah, a chemistry student who still has a year left to finish before graduating.

When asked about the threats of IEDs and booby traps, Abdullah replied, We are worried about it. But what can we do? We have to do something. We cannot just sit. This is how our lives are. Someone has to help, not just sit.

Abdulmaged, who also volunteers with groups that help Mosul residents left homeless by the war, said her parents are resigned to her working to clean the campus. Her father was a professor in the universitys department of agriculture and forestry.

Abdulmaged occasionally hears of fellow student volunteers dying from booby traps. Yesterday a girl and a man were hurt, she said. I heard about that. They died. Thats sad. They got something weird, they touched it and they explode.

Like so many residents of Mosul hardened by war, she speaks matter-of-factly about the dangers of their city.

We are used to it. I dont know how I can explain, but its sudden. You can die in every minute. With ISIS you can die in every minute they pretend you do something bad, they take you and kill you, she said.

She has no plans to stop her work on campus.

Im not afraid if I die, she said. This is an honor for me to do something as good as this. Its OK if I die.

marcus.yam@latimes.com

Twitter: @yamphoto

The rest is here:
Building by booby-trapped building, students work to reclaim Iraq's ... - Los Angeles Times

On the same day the Iraqi army retook Mosuls grand mosque and declared Isis reign in the country to be over, US-backed Kurdish forces managed to cut off all escape lines from Isis last stronghold - the Syrian city of Raqqa.

Isis is now completely besieged after the Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) coalition managed to push towards the last remaining stretch of the bank of the Euphrates opposite the city which serves as the militants de facto capital.

War monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that Isis launched a fierce counter attack on the SDF-held industrial districts in the citys east on Friday, retaking three neighbourhoods.

Women secretly capture life inside Raqqa

The battle for Isiss last city has dovetailed with the campaign for Mosul - and like the fight for the Iraqi city, could be long and bloody.

Fighters on the ground have been slowly tightening the siege around jihadi militants in the northern city since November, assisted by coalition air strikes.

Several foreign volunteers make up their number - including 27-year-old Briton Kimmie Taylor, who fights with the Womens Protection Units (YPJ).

I know a lot of friends will die, especially in the city its going to be a bloodbath, the 27-year-old told The Independent before the assault on Raqqa began in earnest earlier this month.

There are mounting concerns for Raqqas residents - who, like hundreds of thousands in Mosul before them, have been barricaded into their homes to prevent them from fleeting.

Faced with a fight to the death with no prospect of surrender, Isis are more likely than ever to use Raqqas estimated 100,000 civilians as human shields.

Naser Haj Mansour, a senior SDF official, told Reuters on Thursday he thought it could be maybe more than a month or a month and a half before the militia coalition retook the city.

While previous SDF timelines for its battles against Isis have proven overly optimistic, new analysis from IHS Markits Conflict Monitor suggests that it is highly unlikely Isis quasi-state project will live to see its fourth birthday.

By June 2017 the group has lost 60 per cent of its territory and more than 80 per cent of its income since the height of its powers in late 2014 - early2015.

Combined with the fall of Mosul - during which fighters blew up the al Nuri mosque from which the caliphate was declared in 2014, a huge symbolic blow - morale in the organisation is thought to be very low.

Islamic State's project lies in ruins. To see just how bad things are going, consider that they even destroyed the historic mosque where Baghdadi first emerged to declare his caliphate, said Dr Shiraz Maher, deputy director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King's College London.

Once Raqqa has fallen Isis will have lost both its Syrian and Iraqi capitals - but the fight is not quite over.

In Iraq, pockets of Isis resistance in Hawija, Tal Afar and al-Qaim are now in the US-backed coalitions crosshairs, and in Syria, Isis still retains control of most of the 200 kilometre(130 mile) stretch of the Euphrates valley up to the Iraqi border.

Kurdish-led forces launch offensive on Syria's Raqqa

Isis has also besieged the city of Deir Ezzor, although the Syrian army is advancing to the jihadists front lines from the direction of Palmyra.

Analysts expect the group to morph into a full-blown insurgency across the two countries, and for Isis to step up terror attacks around the world in future.

Its important to differentiate between Isis as a global ideology and its physical quasi-state project, Dr Andreas Krieg of King's College London's Department of Defence Studies told The Independent.

As long as the root factors for violence remain - the Syrian civil war and all the local grievances that allowed Isis to flourish [in Iraq] - this philosophy will not be defeated.

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Isis has 'fallen' in Iraq and is now hanging on by a thread in its last stronghold - The Independent

NBCNews.com

Iraqi PM Declares End of ISIS 'Caliphate' in Iraq as Mosul Falls NBCNews.com Iraqi PM Declares End of ISIS 'Caliphate' in Iraq as Mosul Falls. Fri, Jun 30. Iraqi troops re-claimed the heart of Mosul on Thursday, ending an 8-month campaign to retake the city from ISIS militants. Official warned, however, that pockets of ISIS ... Iraq shouldn't count out the Islamic State caliphate just yetWashington Examiner Iraq's most house-proud man sweeps away the detritus of war in MosulThe Sydney Morning Herald Iraq PM thanks top Shia cleric Ayatollah Sistani for role in anti-Islamic State warHindustan Times Post Register -Buenos Aires Herald all 111 news articles »

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Iraqi PM Declares End of ISIS 'Caliphate' in Iraq as Mosul Falls - NBCNews.com