A military operation to recapture Raqqa — Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria — could begin before coalition forces complete the battle to retake Mosul in northern Iraq

Leaders from 13 US-led coalition nations have been meeting in Paris to discuss their next moves in the campaign to destroy IS.

US Defence Secretary Ash Carter signalled that a push to start isolating the group’s stronghold at Raqqa may not be far off.

“We’ve already begun laying the groundwork with our partners to commence the isolation of Raqqa. As we meet here, we’re helping to generate the local forces that will do so,” Mr Carter told a news conference in Paris.

“This is one of our campaign plan’s core objectives, destroying ISIL’s parent tumour in Iraq and Syria. And we’re on track to do just that.”

The Defence Secretary gave no detail on how the two operations would overlap. However, he said it would be local forces that would capture Raqqa.

“This is a strategic principle of all coalition operations, that it is capable and motivated local forces that we identify and then enable, that’s our general strategic approach because we’re seeking the lasting defeat of ISIL and a lasting defeat of ISIL can’t be achieved by outsiders.”

French President Francois Hollande told coalition leaders that many jihadists would flee from Iraq to Raqqa, as IS lost territory in Mosul and elsewhere in Iraq.

“A certain number of terrorists will go to Raqqa. It would actually be — if Mosul falls — Islamic State’s last stronghold,” he said.

“That is the reason why you have work together so that we can determine the steps of the next operations.

“We have to make sure Daesh is eradicated and destroyed everywhere, and is not able to establish a strong position because every strong position will be a threat for own interests and our own security.”

Mosul operation on schedule

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian added that while focus may be shifting to Raqqa, the operation in Mosul is on schedule to take out one of Islamic State’s major strongholds.

Mr Carter added the Raqqa offensive will require “capable and motivated local forces” to be effective, saying “a lasting defeat of ISIL can’t be achieved by outsiders”.

“It’s true that the next step is Raqqa, but the recovery of Mosul will have a major effect on Daesh in terms of resources, organisation, management and leadership,” he said.

“The effects will be very strong, even if we maintain that this battle will be difficult, it will be long, the city is very important and we are advancing progressively but with respect to the initial plan.”

Iraqi forces are now nine days into their US-backed campaign to recapture the city of Mosul from Islamic State.

The campaign itself could last weeks or months, allowing some leeway in timing.

IS atrocities against civilians

As the fighting intensifies, allegations have surfaced of atrocities by Islamic State militants against civilians.

The United Nations says it has received reports that IS fighters have massacred scores of civilians as they dig in against the coalition and Iraqi-led forces.

In the worst case, Iraqi forces last week discovered the bodies of 70 civilians in houses at Tuloul Naser, a village south of Mosul.

“The bodies had bullet wounds, but it is not known for sure at this point who was responsible for the killings,” said Rupert Colville, the UN Human Rights spokesman.

In another village human rights staff were informed that IS killed 15 civilians and threw their bodies in a river, apparently to spread terror among the other residents.

In the same village last Wednesday, IS reportedly tied six civilians to a vehicle by their hands and dragged them around the village.

Then on Sunday members of IS were reported to have killed 50 former Iraqi police officers they had been holding in a building outside Mosul City.

“We continue to receive reports of depredations, including extrajudicial killings and summary executions against children and women as well as male civilians, by ISIL as Iraqi government forces close in on Mosul,” Mr Colville said.

“We also continue to receive information that reinforces the belief that ISIL are deliberately using civilians as human shields.

“We very much fear that these will not be the last such reports we receive of such barbaric acts by ISIL.”

Allegations of Kurdish rights abuses

The UN has also been told of allegations that Kurdish authorities have committed human rights abuses at Kirkuk, a Kurdish city further east.

The UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, Lise Grande, says it is worried about the fate of 250 Sunni Arabs expelled from Kirkuk after an attack by IS.

“We were informed that after the attack by ISIL two days later the Kirkuk authorities announced that they will be expelling civilian populations and just a few hours after the announcement was made we understand that around 250 civilian families felt they had no choice but to leave,” she said.

“People who are displaced have the right to decide when they return and where they are going to live, they cannot be expelled.”

Kirkuk authorities apparently suspected the Islamic State fighters who carried out the attack were helped by Sunni sleeper cells.

The UN says it has no such evidence, and that the timing of the move suggests it was used as a pretext to force Sunnis out of the city.

Nearly 400,000 Sunni Arabs had taken refuge in Kirkuk in the two years since IS declared its caliphate over much of Iraq and Syria.

 

 

 

abc.net.au

 

The recent missile attacks attributed to Yemeni Houthi rebels, with assistance from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Hezbollah, demonstrate Iran’s classic use of proxies to promote its political agenda. The Houthi rebels denied any involvement in the missile attacks. However, they certainly were not fired by camel herders. The Houthis never would have launched an attack on the U.S. Navy without being ordered to do so by their Iranian sponsors. To think otherwise would be delusional.

Iran has the failed to honor the Obama administration’s nuclear weapons agreement. There is actually no agreement, since nothing has been signed. With Russia’s support in Syria, Iran clearly feels emboldened to challenge the United States directly. And with the $150 billion sanctions relief windfall, plus planeloads of hard cash totaling more than $33 billion, Iran can easily expand its role as the leading state sponsor of terrorism, which is what we are witnessing in Yemen. The Iranian use of proxies has cost thousands of American lives, but, fortunately, this time they failed.

Clearly, Iran wants to be able to control the strategic Bab al Mandab Strait, which would give it de facto control of the Suez Canal. More than 10 percent of the world’s maritime shipping passes through that strait on a daily basis. Such control, when combined with control of the Strait of Hormuz, would give Iran control of all Arab oil shipments as well as all Israeli shipping emanating to and from the port of Eilat in the Red Sea. Iran would also like to see our 71-year alliance with Saudi Arabia terminated.

With the help of the IRGC and the Iranian proxy terrorist group Hezbollah, two radar sites were recently constructed outside of Yemen’s two principal Red Sea ports, Mokha and Hudaydah, which are currently under the control of the Houthi rebels. These sites, according to various reports, were operated by IRGC and Hezbollah radar and missile teams. The missiles fired were an upgraded version of the Chinese C-802 anti-ship missile. It should be remembered that on July 14, 2006, Hezbollah successfully fired a C-802 missile against the Israeli missile ship INS Hanit, inflicting heavy damage.

Despite Iran’s assurance about not providing weapons, the Houthis received a delivery the week prior to the missile attacks, the largest shipment of Iranian weapons to date. Obviously, this shipment, apparently undetected by our intelligence resources, included Scud D surface-to-surface missiles with a range of 800 kilometers as well as the upgraded Chinese C-802 anti-ship missiles. The Scuds went to the northern border to be used against Saudi Arabia, and the C-802 anti-ship missiles went to the Houthi’s Ansar Allah faction, which is under the direct control of the IRGC.

The same day missiles were fired against the USS Mason, Oct. 9, the Houthis, with the assistance of the IRGC, fired Scud-D missiles at the Saudi town of Ta’if, which is 700 kilometers from the Yemeni border — but, more importantly, only 70 kilometers from the holy city of Mecca. The message to the Saudis was clear. Iran intends to challenge the Saudis’ control of Islam’s most holy sites.

The Red Sea is a very narrow strategic body of water. It is only 62 kilometers from the Saudi coast to Africa. All shipping can be threatened and easily attacked with the current inventory of missiles transferred to Yemen.

The Houthis have also landed and taken control of Perim Island in the mouth of the Bab al Mandab Straits. Since the main maritime route is only 20 kilometers wide at this point, it serves as a natural choke point and a threat to all shipping as long as it remains under Houthi-Iranian control.

How did we get involved in this classic Sunni-Shia sectarian war? Very briefly, in late 2014, Shia Houthi rebel forces captured the capital city of Sana’a. The Houthis, backed by Iran, are fighting against the internationally recognized government of Yemen’s Sunni president, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi. In March 2015, the Saudis led a campaign to overthrow the Houthi rebels. President Obama, in an attempt to get Saudi Arabia’s support for his nuclear weapons agreement with Iran, agreed to support the Saudi effort. We proceeded to provide limited intelligence, in-flight refueling, command and control guidance and some weapons.

 

The missile attack on our forces in the vicinity of the Bab al Mandab Straits is another manifestation of Iran’s contempt for America and disregard for international norms. Further, with little to fear from an Obama administration response, they clearly have been emboldened to further their hegemonic objectives by challenging our forces directly. While the Houthi’s missile attack on the United Arab Emirate’s HSV-2 Swift Catamaran vessel was successful on Oct. 1, their attack on the USS Mason was, fortunately, a failure. While it took us four days to respond, the USS Nitze’s tomahawk missile strikes destroyed the three Iranian radar sites, which eliminated the immediate threat to shipping in the area.

This was a minimum response — a tit for tat — which will most likely invite more attacks, since C-802 missiles can be fired without radar. When an enemy attacks one of our U.S. Navy ships, our response must be overwhelming. =We should have destroyed not only the radar sites but also any missile-launching sites and any associated ammo storage sites. Any known Iranian installations should have been destroyed. Electrical utility grids that provide power to support Houthi rebels and Iranian forces in the two areas should also be destroyed. The Houthi installation on Perim Island should be eliminated. The message must be clear: “Don’t tread on me.”

 

 

 

washingtontimes.com

 

 

 

Daesh violently executed nine militants in Mosul for desertion amid Baghdad’s operation to liberate the city

The militants of the Daesh terrorist group executed nine of their supporters for duck-out in the Iraqi city of Mosul, media reported on Tuesday.

“Daesh militants executed nine of their militants, who escaped from the confrontation with the security forces in Mosul, throwing them in the trenches full of black oil for burning with hands and feet tied,” a source in the security forces was quoted as saying by Al Sumaria TV channel.

On October 17, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi announced the start of a military operation to retake Mosul from Daesh, a jihadist group outlawed in a number of states including Russia.

According to reports, about 30,000 Iraqi soldiers and 4,000 Kurdish Peshmerga fighters are taking part in the operation, backed by airstrikes carried out by the US-led international coalition.

 

 

sputniknews.com

As the battle for Mosul enters its second week, the so-called Islamic State’s years of entrenchment in the city ensures a full demonstration of the tactics available to the group. From medieval defensive techniques, to 20th century trench warfare and insurgent drone attacks, the Mosul battlefield is a unique mismatch of tactics from all eras. By resorting to an innovative blend of terrorist, insurgent, and conventional military tactics in a dense civilian environment, the Islamic State has ensured that it will face the city’s liberators on its own terms. The diverse defensive measures serve to tactically subvert the asymmetric military balance between the group and its enemies, and to elevate the group’s defense of the city into a grandiose spectacle.

While the Islamic State knows that it cannot hold Mosul against the overwhelming military force amassed against it, it is keenly aware of the battle’s high stakes. Since taking the city in 2014, the group has systematically militarized the city’s defenses, creating an urban warfare nightmare for advancing forces. In tactics reminiscent of World War I, the approach to the city has been slowed by trenches, offering Islamic State fighters cover and concealment against infantry and armor advancing across open terrain. Underground, the city has been turned into a hive of tunnels and bunkers, allowing the group to quickly shift its forces in reaction to enemy advances, and to negate the advantage of air support and surveillance enjoyed by advancing forces. As Islamic State fighters retreat in the face of the enemy advance, waves of suicide bombers lie in wait, often emerging from concealed tunnels and bunkers to attack the enemy from behind. The city itself is reportedly surrounded by a two-meter wide oil-filled mote, suggesting a resort to medieval tactics and evoking the historic imagery for which the group is renowned. 

Beyond the immediate battlefield considerations, the Islamic State uses various tactics that play to a global audience of supporters. For example, the group’s employment of explosive-laden commercial drones—more accurately described as airborne IEDs—is a valuable sensational headline, as well as a novel and terrifying tactic against enemy forces. For a group that has proven adept at utilizing the spectacle of terror, such innovative tactics in the battle for Mosul will likely be the subject of high-quality propaganda. The imagery of anti-Islamic State forces—labeled ‘crusaders’ and ‘apostates’—attacking these defenses will not be lost on the Islamic State’s sympathetic audience.

With Iraqi security forces approaching the city itself, there is increasing concern over the group’s chemical weapons capabilities. As Islamic State forces withdrew from the town of Qayyarah last week, they ignited huge stocks of toxic sulfur residue, unleashing a massive cloud of toxic gas on civilians and attacking forces located downwind. The improvised chemical attack highlights the group’s well-known chemical weapons capability—itself a novelty among terrorist and insurgent groups—including the manufacturing and use of chlorine and mustard gas weapons. While the ultimate extent of the group’s chemical weapons capability is unknown, advancing forces are preparing for the possibility that the Islamic State could use such weapons extensively in the group’s last stand in Iraq.

The technological and military advantage of anti-Islamic State forces will ultimately prevail in the battle for Mosul, but the group’s diverse defenses ensure that the battle will be a drawn-out and costly endeavor. As parties to the conflict jostle for political advantages in the battle’s aftermath, the Islamic State will buy time through any tactic necessary, enjoying its current international attention, and continuing to devise its long-term survival. As the battle for Mosul continues, the city will remain the stage for an agonizingly-slow, and tactically diverse display of the Islamic State’s military prowess.

soufangroup.com/

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi on Monday rebuked the Turkish government for violating Iraqi territory under excuse of fight against terrorism without permission from Baghdad government.

Speaking at his weekly press briefing, Bahram Qassemi responded to a question about violation of the Iraqi territory by the Turkish government under the excuse of taking part in military operation to liberate Mosul, Iraq.

Any cooperation on international campaign against terrorism should be in line with approval of the Iraqi government and all governments and nations should observe the decisions of the Iraqi government and respect the Iraqi sovereignty, he said.

Iran’s stand on Iraqi sovereignty and territorial integrity is crystal clear and Iran made clear repetitively that Mosul is integral and important part of Iraq.’

It’s a long time that Mosul is under occupation by Islamic State militants and Iran hopes that thanks to the resolve of the Iraqi government and nation, strong military operation will be conducted to liberate Mosul at the earliest, he said.

No country is authorized to intervene in Iraq under any excuses without permission of the Iraqi government, he said.

Iraqi prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declined on Oct. 22 an offer from Turkey to take part in the battle to dislodge Islamic State from Mosul after meeting U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter in Baghdad Saturday.

The Turkish troop presence in Iraq’s Bashiqa, northeast of Mosul has stirred tension with Baghdad. Iraq says they are in “blatant violation” of Iraqi sovereignty and had demanded their withdrawal. Turkey says the troops were invited by Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani and has ignored the calls.

There are 800 Turkish troops deployed in the Mosul and Shaqlawa regions, the move that sparked a crisis between Ankara and Baghdad. Turkey sent a contingent of an additional 150 forces and 25 tanks in December 2015 to bolster its military presence in the Bashiqa camp, an area that has seen recent fighting.

Iraqi leaders said in December 2015 that hundreds of new Turkish troops had arrived without their knowledge or approval, calling it a violation of its sovereignty.

On October 18, thousands of Iraqis gathered outside the Turkish embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday to protest that country‘s continued military presence north of Mosul, despite demands by the government for Ankara‘s soldiers to leave.

A senior Kurdish commander rejected on Sunday the claims by Ankara officials that the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces have requested help from Turkey for the fight against the Islamic State (IS) group in northern Iraq.

 

 

 

ekurd.net/

Iraqi media outlets reported on Monday, that the arrested ISIS official that leaded the attack on Kirkuk on Friday revealed that the ISIS group is planning to attack the province of Kirkuk with 300 suicide bombers.

Al Mada Press stated, “The leader of the attack that was launched by the ISIS on Kirkuk on Friday, confessed that the group is planning to attack the province again.”

“The arrested leader confessed that 300 ISIS suicide bombers are ready to participate in the attack that will be launched on the province,” Al Mada added.

Earlier today, supreme security committee in the province of Kirkuk announced arresting the leader of the attack launched by the ISIS on the province, while emphasized killing 74 members of the ISIS.

On Friday, ISIS members attacked Kirkuk and captured a number of areas, before the security forces manage to foil the attack.

 

 

 

iraqinews.com

A viral video of Saudi and Chinese troops dancing together has been circulated widely online, shining a light on apparently friendly relations between the two countries.

https://youtu.be/7d4YalzhCPU

The video was filmed at the end of a joint training exercise between Saudi and China, according to local website Gulf Eyes. The troops are seen laughing and singing together as they perform a traditional dance under the flags of the two countries and a banner in both Arabic and English.

Saudi website Asharq al Awsat reported that the 15-day joint training exercise took place in the Chinese city of Chengdu. Both Saudi and Chinese troops exchanged experiences in specialized areas such as hostage training, tough weather situations and difficult geographic areas – work that was part of an extended military cooperation between them.

The clip could not be independently verified by Al Bawaba. But the jovial routine could be a reflection of warming relations between China and Saudi Arabia.

A friendship between the two has warmed this year, thanks in part to efforts by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to move the Saudi economy away from its reliance on oil. It’s meant working to attract investment from strong economic powers, and in August Saudi tentatively confirmed partnerships in fields including housing, technology and culture by signing 15 preliminary deals with China.

In January Chinese President Xi Jinping travelled to Saudi for the first time since taking power – and even took part in a traditional Saudi dance during his two-day visit, according to Al Arabiya.

albawaba.com

U.S. special operators in northern Iraq and Syria are killing Islamic State leaders at a faster pace, disrupting the organization’s defense of Mosul and, more importantly to Pentagon leaders, their ability to plot attacks against the United States and other targets outside the region.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter, in a Sunday visit with American and coalition forces at the Joint Operations Center in Erbil, the Kurdish capital in northern Iraq, said he commended American fighters here who are supporting “elements in Syria” and working to envelop Raqqa. Quickening the pace of targeting ISIS leaders, known in military parlance as “high-value targets” or “high-value individuals,” has hurt the terrorist group’s ability to launch external “attacks aimed at our own people, our own country, and friends and allies,” he said.

“That remains our highest priority, always,” Carter said, “those external operations.”

The defense secretary did not offer further details about the U.S.-led missions, which military officials say are kept secret to protect operational security. But the public boast was another acknowledgment by senior Obama administration and military officials that the ISIS war is an active combat operation where elite American fighters — not just local forces — are actively hunting and killing the most feared and effective terrorist leaders in the world.

“We are killing those that are hatching those plots. We are killing the leadership of ISIL. We are getting more and more effective at doing that, and that’s also necessary to protect our people, and our folks are very skillful at that and getting better and better at it.  A very high priority for all of us,” said Carter.

Meanwhile, the special operations community, which purposefully works in the dark, has struggled to find its public footing in a war in which their members appear on social media unwillingly, increasingly cross paths with reporters in the field, and whose commanders remain uneasy about how to discuss their operations in ways that can better inform the public and protect the troops they command.

The secretary and Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, who commands the coalition forces in Iraq, spoke to reporters at the Erbil International Airport. As attack helicopters busily arrived and departed, the duo said special operations efforts to kill ISIS leaders also continue to reap valuable intelligence. Mosul will add to that pile.

“The high-value individual – the top tier of ISIL leadership – there’s an overlap in leadership in Mosul, leadership in Raqqa, and external operations. The top-tier leaders do all those things,” Townsend said. “So by killing those individuals, we affect both sides of this theater and external operations as well.”

“By targeting the mid-tier leaders, which our special operations forces and our air forces have done remarkably well, we have caused a lot of confusion in the ranks of the defender of Mosul,” he added. “I think they’re going to pay off in the coming weeks ahead.”

“Mosul will help us with that,” Carter said. “It helps in several ways. One is we get more intelligence, more information about how they’re operating, therefore we get new opportunities to attack external plotters. Also, as they get squeezed down in their territory they get more concerned with their own security and are less free to orchestrate complex attacks against either this country or externally, including very importantly, obviously, to me and all of us, the United States. So, we’re getting more and more opportunities and that’s why you’re seeing us do more and more in the area of external operations, but it’s got to be always our highest priority. Mosul will give us yet more opportunities.”

Over the past two years, Erbil’s international airport has welcomed thousands of troops from the UK, Canada, Italy, Hungary, Finland, and beyond. They have amassed at this nameless but very active base of counterterrorism and Peshmerga training operations. Hastily erected tent cities are morphing into fields of sturdier structures, and foreign troops have formed their own villages – the Germans have their own restaurant; the Italians, their own dining facility (with alcohol, which still is forbidden for U.S. troops deployed to Iraq).

With few options for a public relations backdrop, and a desire not to reveal the increasingly diverse menu of strike aircraft, Carter’s staff gathered reporters for his press conference inside a featureless passenger waiting lounge along the flight line: a beat-up, converted mobile home unit. It was there, between a dart board with no working darts and a stack of torn magazines and ping-pong paddles, the Pentagon chief and three-star war commander boasted of killing their way through the senior ranks of the Islamic State, which dug in for the fight of their lives just 45 miles away, in Mosul.

 

 

 

govexec.com

The evil jihadis are reportedly using the extensive network of tunnels to escape Kurdish and Iraqi Army troops in a war strategy modelled on the Viet Cong.

The secret enclaves provide an ideal hiding place for the sick militants, from which they can fire machine guns, throw grenades and hide suicide bombers.

In a similar tactic to Viet Cong guerrilla troops during the Vietnam War, the ruthless jihadis are also able to use the complex hideaways to house fighters, transport supplies, lay booby traps and mount surprise attacks, after which they can disappear underground to safety.

According to refugees leaving Mosul, each street in the city has a secret entrance to the underground passageways, may of which are tucked away in residential homes.

Reports claim that ISIS paid villagers $2 per day to carve out the tunnels using jackhammers to penetrate the dry bedrock.

Some of the tunnels have been found to be reinforced with metal frames and rigged with battery-powered lights, containing fridges, solar charging points, mattresses and books, resembling air raid shelters.

It is now feared the tunnels will allow ISIS lynchpin Abu Bark al-Baghdadi to slip out of the clutches of enemy troops.

ISIS’ war strategy for its showdown battle over Mosul, which al-Baghdadi declared the centre of his so-called caliphate in 2014, has so far included suicide car and truck bombers.

The Viet Cong-based strategies enabled guerrilla fighters to combat better-supplied American and South Vietnamese forces.

The crazed jihadis are also reported to have planted fields of deadly bombs in areas from which they have withdrawn, leading to further army and civilian casualties.

Waleed Abdullah, a 23-year-old Iraqi who left Mosul last month, told The Independent that among hardcore fighters “morale is still very high. They will stay underground for a long time since the tunnels are deep and provide the means of life”.

But Former CIA officer Colonel Peter Mansoor has insisted ISIS can still be defeated.

He said: “The result is inevitable. The Iraqi forces with the help of US air support will end up crushing ISIS but it will be a hard fight for that to happen.

“The enemy has had more than two years to dig into the urban landscape. He’s lighting on fire pools of oil to darken the skies and make it harder to target him.”

 

 

 

express.co.uk

Turkey is a NATO partner that stands with U.S. troops on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq, but it’s an ally that’s increasingly turning its guns on fighters the U.S. sees as vital to crushing ISIS.

On Wednesday, Turkey launched one of its biggest airstrikes in decades — bombing 18 positions in northern Syria and killing an estimated 200 fighters.

But the strikes north of Aleppo didn’t involve President Bashar al-Assad’s army, or any of the main groups fighting his government like the Free Syrian Army, the Jihadi militia Jabhat Fatah al Sham, or even ISIS.

Instead, Turkey bombed People’s Protection Units, or YPG — Kurdish militia the U.S. considers the most effective force against ISIS in Syria.

Turkey has sent 2,000 troops into Iraq, where they are watching the massive military operation aimed at recapturing Mosul from the extremists. Baghdad maintains Turkey has violated its sovereignty and on Thursday issued an arrest warrant for an ex-Mosul governor who allegedly “invited” in the troops.

These latest in a series of military moves reveal how the government of President Tayyip Erdogan is reasserting its historic territorial claims while also trying to crush the country’s mortal enemies — Kurdish separatists.

Ankara has fought ethnic Kurdish militias within its borders for decades to prevent the birth of a new country, Kurdistan, carved out of Turkey itself. So it has watched carefully as YPG fighters secure large swaths of land along the Syrian-Turkish border.

To Turkey’s government, these Kurds are no different to the outlawed PKK militants who have carried out a series of deadly bombings within Turkey in the last year. The group is trying to force Turkey to accept the Kurdish right to an independent state, which has been denied them for a century.

Perhaps more terrifying for Turkey, Kurdish groups have established a state in all but name in northern Iraq. Its capital Erbil is one of the only functioning, tolerant and relatively peaceful cities in the country.

The problem as Turkey sees it is that the Kurds want the same for northern Syria. And then they want to link the two, which is anathema to Ankara.

‘The Mosul Question’

Something else is motivating Turkey apart from the Kurds, and this goes back 100 years.

The Kurds were among the great losers after World War I, having failed to gain an independent homeland as the conflict’s winners scooped up the war spoils.

The Turks also emerged humiliated from the conflict, their once great Ottoman Empire shattered and shared out among the victorious French, who took control of Syria and Lebanon, and the British, who moved into Iraq and Palestine.

One issue and one city has remained contentious to this day.

What was dubbed “The Mosul Question” in the 1920s plagued the organization that was the precursor to the United Nations.

Turkey desperately wanted to keep control of a city it had controlled for centuries and considered vital to its image as a power. Mosul’s people, it argued, were bound to Turkey by history, trade and tongue.

The Turks also coveted the region’s oil wealth.

Turkey considered the entire swath of land from the Sinjar Mountains, where ISIS attacked the Yazidi people in this current war, through Iraq’s Erbil and Kirkuk, all the way to the Iranian border, as its natural strategic buffer zone.

The Great Powers, led by Britain, would have none of it. The British saw Mosul as an Arab city built by Arabs. British diplomats and leaders also reasoned the Turks would threaten Baghdad if it they got their hands on Mosul again.

So Turkey lost when the League of Nations ruled against it in 1926. But its obsession with Mosul has not gone away.

Diplomatic Spat

So Turkey is eyeing the current war and the attack on ISIS-held Mosul carefully.

Chiefly, it’s watching what the Kurds do, where they go, how strong they are, and how much backing they get from the U.S. and anyone else.

On Thursday, Kurdish peshmerga fighters opened a new front against ISIS north and east of Mosul, coming close to but avoiding the Turkish army’s training base at Bashiqa.

The base has for weeks been the focus of a diplomatic spat between Iraq and Turkey.

“Know your place … you are not at my level!” Erdogan fumed to the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on October 1. His anger came after Iraq’s parliament labeled Turkey an “occupying force … (that risked) a regional war.”

Turkey maintains it has no intention of pulling out of its base near Mosul. Once the city is taken from ISIS, Ankara is aiming to become the main protector of its Sunni Muslim population.

That’s because the city’s liberation from ISIS may come at a terrible price for its people. Human rights groups have already accused Iranian backed Shiite militias hovering near Mosul of committing atrocities against other Sunni populations.

So the Turks, helped by Saudi Arabia, will position themselves as Sunni saviors. And Mosul is close enough to the Iranian border for the Saudis to help the Turks counter another foe — Shiite Tehran.

Erdogan has his own motives for foreign war. He has frustratingly failed to remove Assad from power in neighboring Syria, and is still trying to shore up his own political power after crushing a failed coup in July.

War in Syria that focuses on crushing Kurds is a popular policy at home.

Miniature World War

In parallel to the Mosul front, Turkish tanks and jets are attacking Kurdish YPG units in Syria.

And Turkey is forging ahead with Operation Euphrates Shield, announced in August, its attempt to carve out a 2,000-square-mile buffer zone deep into Syrian territory.

Turkish intelligence and special forces are digging in as aid organizations and Turkish civic groups build houses for those who’ve fled their homes — all of them pulling together to establish a so-called safe zone along the border. Except it’s much more than that.

Turks, Arabs and Persians are vying for control and influence in a region that’s been their battleground for millennia.

Just as Turkey dreams of influence in Mosul, it is eyeing Syria’s Aleppo — another ancient city with deep and powerful ties to Turkey, another city in the crosshairs of a dozen forces, its future up for grabs.

One thing is certain — Iraq and Syria will never again be the countries they were for a century, their neat border lines drawn by European diplomats in dinner jackets.

When ISIS destroyed the border between Syria and Iraq and declared the end of the British-French agreement that dismembered the Ottoman Empire, everything was up for grabs.

The Syrian war that began with street protests against the rule of the Assad family has come a long way. In the week alone, French, Russian, British, American, Australian, Turkish and Syrian jets have flown sorties over Syria.

A Russian aircraft carrier is heading for the coast off of Syria. Iranian and Lebanese militias are battling ISIS units who attract fighters from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Chechnya, Pakistan and beyond.

It’s a world war in miniature.

And Turkey is at the very heart of it, trying to unmake the WWII settlement that denied it the Mosul buffer and ignited 100 years of Kurdish grievance.

 

 

 

 

nbcnews.com