Small Wars Journal

U.S. Fight Against Islamic State Is Accelerating, Mattis Says

Sat, 05/20/2017 - 11:09am

U.S. Fight Against Islamic State Is Accelerating, Mattis Says by Paul Sonne, Wall Street Journal

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said changes in the fight against Islamic State that were approved by President Donald Trump have given the U.S. the ability to move more quickly and forcefully on the battlefield, though the overall strategy remains largely unchanged from the Obama era.

Mr. Mattis said the president had given U.S. military commanders more leeway to make battlefield decisions and approved a tactical shift that directs U.S.-backed troops to focus on annihilating Islamic State rather than waging a war of attrition.

“No longer will we have slowed decision cycles because Washington, D.C., has to authorize tactical movements on the ground,” Mr. Mattis said at a Pentagon news conference, where he appeared alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joe Dunford and the State Department’s special envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition, Brett McGurk.

Mr. Mattis said U.S.-backed troops previously were surrounding Islamic State positions and allowing enemy fighters to escape through a designated exit route, because the goal was to oust them from occupied cities as quickly as possible and allow residents to return.

But the effect, the defense secretary said, was essentially to move Islamic State fighters around the area…

Read on.

Comments

Outlaw 09

Tue, 05/23/2017 - 11:50am

As long as Iraqi and Iranian Shia militias commit war crimes and ethnic cleansing against Sunni civilians be it in Mosul and or Raqqa IS will never be "defeated" regardless of what is being done against IS.....

DER SPIEGEL photographer Ali Arkady documents Iraqi security forces abducting, torturing, raping, and killing civilians around Mosul.

Describes "competition" among Federal Police & ERU: Police described raping particularly beautiful woman, ERU also wanted to raid the place.

Story carried in Spiegel Online....in German....

Basically the Shia units were using fear in driving the Sunni's out ie de facto ethnic cleansing

BTW...the US had problems with the Federal Police even in 2006 in Diyala ...as they were mainly Shia....in a largely Sunni Province

AND from the photos the Shia torture techniques have not changed much from 2006...
Our friends that we knew so well from 2006 Badr Corp......

Arkady says he received death threats, brought his family to safety before releasing evidence of the crimes he documented. Now lives abroad.

His account was published in this week's SPIEGEL Magazine. No English version available yet AFAIK.

German version: https://magazin.spiegel.de/SP/2017/2...n=centerpage#

@DerSPIEGEL #Mosul: A detained Sunni soldier said he was abducted and raped by the #PMU in #Mosul "because I'm a Sunni. They hate us."

@DerSPIEGEL #Mosul: #Iraq|i Shia Captain Omar: "Oh, we did everything. We took Sunni men & women and looted their houses."

@DerSPIEGEL #Mosul: Reporter: "They (#PMU) tortured a Sunni father. Then they tortured his 16-year-old son and executed the son in front of his father."

Outlaw 09

Sun, 05/21/2017 - 9:44am

IS fight is gaining speed AND so is the Russian and Assad fight to recapture the entire country and the US is contributing to this by supporting a US named Kurdish Communist PKK terrorist organization that is rumored to be then turning over Raqqa to the Assad regime...

Since the introduction of the "De-Escalation Zones" in Syria,pro-#Assad forces have captured more than 2000 km^2 of Syrian opposition land.

Talking about none-ISIS opposition.
Not a single km^2 of these areas in EastGhouta, RifDimashq, Suwayda & Homs province was held by HTS.

In southern Syria the US under Trump bombs a proIranian supported group of Iraqi Shia militia and Hezbollah and then does nothing else when they advance on those positions....

One cannot in the end "defeat" IS unless one addresses the Assad and Kurdish PKK problems the US is some how deliberately provoking...