{"id":68392,"date":"2016-10-12T08:00:29","date_gmt":"2016-10-12T12:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=68392"},"modified":"2016-10-12T10:39:41","modified_gmt":"2016-10-12T14:39:41","slug":"mosul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=68392","title":{"rendered":"Telegraphing Mosul"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to the Washington Post<\/a>, Donald Trump urged the Pentagon to stop telegraphing their intents in Iraq. Specifically, in Mosul. The armchair generals at the Post write that Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about;<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest problem I have with the stupidity of our foreign policy, we have Mosul. They think a lot of the ISIS leaders are in Mosul,\u201d Trump said, using an alternate name for the militant group. \u201cSo we have announcements coming out of Washington and coming out of Iraq: We will be attacking Mosul in three weeks or four weeks. Well, all of these bad leaders from ISIS are leaving Mosul. Why can\u2019t they do it quietly?\u201d<\/p>\n

He later added: \u201cHow stupid is our country?\u201d<\/p>\n

[CNN’s armchair general Martha] Raddatz countered that there could be reasons military commanders have elected to share details about the planned mission, including \u201cpsychological operations,\u201d in which information is selectively shared to achieve a desired outcome. She cited allowing civilians to flee as one example \u2014 a strong possibility in Mosul, a city of more than 1 million people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, another thing that could happen is we give enough warning beforehand so that the ISIS folks have to time booby-trap the city, dig earthen fortifications and tunnels from which to defend the city from the US troops and Iraqis tasked to take the city back. In fact, that’s what they’re doing, according to Reuters<\/a>;<\/p>\n

Islamic State militants have placed booby traps across the city of Mosul, dug tunnels and recruited children as spies in anticipation of an offensive to dislodge the jihadists from their Iraqi stronghold, Iraqis and U.S. officials said.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The battle for the city, expected later this month, will help shape the future of Iraq and the legacy of U.S. President Barack Obama. Even if Islamic State is driven out, there is a real danger of sectarian strife, especially if civilian casualties are high in a mainly Sunni city wary of the Shi-ite led Iraqi government and the Shi’ite militias it depends on.<\/p>\n

The jihadists, who swept into Mosul almost unopposed two years ago as Iraqi forces fled, have rigged its five bridges with explosives, prepared car bombs and suicide attackers and stepped up surveillance, according to four residents who spoke via telephone or social media.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Kurds<\/a> are well-acquainted with ISIS’ unexploded ordnance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe strongest weapon they (the militants) have is the bombs left behind. The main fight for the Peshmerga against ISIS is avoiding the bombs left behind by them. Each time the Peshmerga take a village they see a lot of bombs,\u201d [Peshmerga General Salar] Taymour said.<\/p>\n

Last month, a Peshmerga explosives expert told Rudaw that Kurdish bomb disposal teams have defused more than 13,000 booby traps and landmines left behind by ISIS since the start of the war in August 2014.<\/p>\n

He said that, in addition to improvised explosives and landmines, the Peshmerga have also defused 800 munitions, cleared 240 homes of bombs, and destroyed six tons of TNT. He added that, on average, Peshmerga bomb disposal teams defuse more than 17 bombs per day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maybe we can get the Washington Post editorial staff and Martha Raddatz to lead the troops into Mosul since they have such a firm grasp of the intent of the operation. It should be a clean sweep.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Chief Tango for the links.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the Washington Post, Donald Trump urged the Pentagon to stop telegraphing their intents in … Telegraphing Mosul<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}