Deadlock in battle for Iraq refinery casts doubts on Mosul campaign

Reuters ^ | Thu Sep 24, 2015 12:37pm EDT | Stephen Kalin and Phil Stewart

[keat]

The Iraqi army's failure to recapture the country's largest oil refinery from Islamic State after 15 months of fighting is calling into question the government's plans to retake the northern city of Mosul from the jihadists.

Iraq's military has been trying to build momentum at the Baiji refinery and in Anbar province in the west before attempting to seize Mosul, the biggest prize in the war against the ultra-hardine Sunni group.

Officials say the army should secure gains in those areas before setting its sights on Mosul, the largest city in the north. Advances in Anbar's vast desert terrain since the provincial capital Ramadi fell in May have progressed fitfully.

Taking the refinery and the nearby town of Baiji would boost the morale of the army as it tackles the gravest security threat since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The military, plagued by corruption, nearly collapsed twice in the past year despite more than $20 billion in U.S. training.

Baiji, 190 km (120 miles) north of Baghdad, has repeatedly changed hands since it was captured by the militants in a lightning advance through Sunni Muslim provinces last year.

Government forces and their Shi'ite militia allies, backed by U.S.-led air strikes, are facing Islamic State snipers, suicide bombers and roadside explosives in the area.

"The liberation of Mosul will have to be done by the Iraqi army and local tribes ... the Iraqi army will come from the south and Baiji is the first stumbling block as long as Daesh (Islamic State) is lodged there," said Joost Hiltermann, program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group.

Islamic State has been withdrawing exhausted fighters from Baiji and replacing them with fresh forces from the north via the towns of Hawija and Sharqat.

[keat]

Fifteen months, one refinery. So who's counting?

[DesertRhino]

A refinery? Blow it up. The SOBs either fry or leave. And they cannot get financial benefit from it.

This is a war,,,right?

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"The group's fighters there are estimated between the high dozens and low hundreds, according to Baiji mayor Mahmoud al-Jabouri and a source in the Iraqi army's command center for Salahuddin province where the town is located."

The above statement is all you need to know. So anywhere from 50 - 200 (if I can read into the above statement) of ISIS are holding off 6,000 regular Iraq military and who knows how many Shia militia. Perhaps the four or five fighters we have successfully trained (according to congressional testimony) would have made the difference!! People, this administration is not serious about the threat we are facing from ISIS.

When ISIS builds up enough forces, they are going for Bagdad, count on it. Their goal is the same goal as Prince Feisul after WWI. A united Arab (Sunni only) emirate stretching from Syria all the way through modern Saudi Arabia. The whole Arabian peninsula basically.

We can continue to collectively stick our heads in the sand over this but until we get more involved, it's not going to change.

[Vigilanteman]

People, this administration is not serious about the threat we are facing from ISIS.

Most of us figured that out when the ISIS thugs crowded into a convoy of unarmored Toyota pick-up trucks and cruised down the highway to Mosul last summer with no opposition in broad daylight.

[RushingWater]

We were involved in our Iraqi occupation attempt

[notdownwidems]

The Iraqi ‘military’ couldn’t pour p*s*s out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel.

[blueunicorn6]

You mean we give the Iraqi Soldiers billions of American Taxpayer dollars and they sit on their asses and do nothing?

Who do they think they are?

VA Executives?

[PGR88]

The next time the USA invades a country, we should do so with the explicit aim that we may be there for 100 years, and all state assets will belong to us. Not prepared to do that? Then don’t invade.

The fact that Americans have died only to have surrendered this territory and have Iraq come to such a state absolutely disgusts me.