Liberation, Step By Step in Iraq

"It is better to go step by step. What we do is to attack a place, clean it and keep it."
"The Iraqi forces have claimed to have captured Baiji ten times, but then ISIL later regains control."
"We do not want the same happening to us. We must protect our rear before freeing new areas."
Brig.-General Hazhar Ismail, Kurdish military

"If ISIL had got Kirkuk, with its oil and gas and the important water dams and electricity plants around it, they would have been a regional power."
"They somehow imagine their black flag flying one day over the UN and the White House. It is crazy, but that is their thinking."
"Their idea is to return to an era when there was the rule of the sword. But the Kurds have proven they can take care of themselves Proof of that is that we now hold this area."
"Even when ISIL is defeated, there will be a new picture. ISIL will still be there in another form. They are sophisticated and very dangerous."
Kemal Kerkuki, (former) Speaker, Kurdistan Parliament

Matthew Fisher/Postmedia   Brig.-Gen. Hussein Yadanpana's (in straw hat) Peshberga brigade pushed ISIL fighters back 17 km during an offensive in northern Iraq in March.

This is Islam at its most vicious, a bestial viciousness that is a source of pride to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. And perturbingly, that state of commitment to vicious atrocities represents a source of attraction to the myriads of young Muslim men who continue to flock to join Islamic State militias in Iraq and Syria, as well as their affiliates Boko Haram and al Shabaab.

Blood-curdling atrocities that disgust normal societies seem to nestle comfortably in the imagination of African and Middle Eastern Muslims.

And nor do they appear to do anything but fascinate Muslims living abroad whose tribal and sectarian heritage of blame, suspicion and hatred for other sects within Islam, for Jews and for non-Muslims in general ensure that they fail to integrate into the communities where they migrate abroad, remaining apart and aloof, spurning national laws and social structures. But more than eager to take advantage of national welfare programs as their just due.

Last summer when the Islamic State forces marched on Mosul and the Iraqi military abandoned their base there, they left behind an estimated $30-billion of military gear, representing equipment supplied by the United States, left behind when its military forces left Iraq. The Islamic State jihadists made use of much of the heavy equipment in its forward march to acquire greater tracts of territory in establishing its caliphate.

That changed when the U.S.-led coalition of flights over Iraq and Syria, to deter Islamic State from further gains, began its aerial bombing campaign. Coalition aircraft easily identified, targeted and destroyed those U.S.-sourced military vehicles. Identifying some of the military equipment that Islamic State has itself built has been a little more difficult to detect and destroy, because of its irregular appearance.

The Kurdish peshmerga recently succeeded in establishing a new front line, 17 kilometres to the west in the Kharabaroot, Iraq sector. The peshmerga found abandoned C-4 explosives and fuel, and large anti-tank mines buried underground.

They also discovered videos of huge armoured bulldozers and modified trucks, buses and trailers, fashioned by the Islamic State jihadis. Sheets of concrete were attached to the sides of vehicles, capable of withstanding rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire. As Islamic State militias retreated under the peshmerga push forward, remote-control sniper rifles were discovered, using scopes whose imagery appear on computer screens a distance from the guns.

A number of tunnels were discovered, including one elaborate, 170-metre-long tunnel running directly under peshmerga lines, reinforced with concrete walls, the underground passage immaculate with electricity throughout. Sleeping and meeting areas were included.

Resembling nothing quite so much as the tunnels that Hamas in Gaza has famously constructed, which Egypt and Israel set about destroying, only to have Hamas begin rebuilding, sidelining cement needed for building and home reconstruction for more tunnels.

Moreover the Islamic State had somehow made use of crude drones to spy on peshmerga positions. "The enemy still has lots of weapons and is still very active. He has money, too, and regional support", said Brig.-General Yadanpna. "I participated in several of the battles around here, and I can tell you, they are not bad fighters", said the infantryman, indicating land that his unit had taken from ISIL.