By Emily Anagnostos and the ISW Iraq Team
The
Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) is rapidly consolidating control over eastern Mosul
following a major push from January 10 to 18. The ISF has extended its control
along the Tigris River and recaptured the University of Mosul, once ISIS’s
major logistical hub in the city.
The ISF is
nearing the end of operations in eastern Mosul after a major push from January
10 to 18 to recapture several remaining neighborhoods and the University of
Mosul. The Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), the ISF’s elite urban warfare
units, advanced two efforts to clear the University of Mosul and to extend the
ISF’s control of the Tigris River. The CTS officially announced control over the
university on January 15, after storming it two days
prior, and continued to advance north along the river bank, seizing two
additional bridges and key government
buildings on January 13.
Meanwhile, the
Iraqi Army (IA) and Federal Police are consolidating gains in northern and
southeastern Iraq. The Iraqi Army is advancing west along Mosul’s northern city
limit towards the remaining ISIS-held areas in eastern Mosul. Federal Police
and Iraqi Army units announced on January 14 full control of southeastern Mosul
with the recapture of Yarmjah and
the southeastern countryside with the recapture of Qiz Fakhri,
the last ISIS-held village on the eastern bank. The Federal Police announced
the same day the completion of its mission in
southeastern Mosul and that its units will return to the
southern axis in order to resume efforts to break into the Mosul airport and
southern military base. This effort will likely occur in synchronization as the
ISF cross the Tigris River into western Mosul, though no timeline has yet been given.
Recent reinforcements and increased Coalition advisors
enabled these quick advances, though it is also likely that ISIS did not resist
the ISF to the same extent as in the early stages of the city battle. The
destruction of the five bridges spanning the Tigris River by Coalition airstrikes has likely
limited ISIS’s mobility between east and west Mosul, hurting its ability to
reinforce and resupply its fighters in the east. Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff
Davis stated on January 9 that ISIS has resorted to makeshift means, including planks and cranes, to move people and equipment
into eastern Mosul. The ISF is therefore facing an enemy incapable of
regenerating its ranks as it takes losses. ISIS may have already withdrawn the
majority of its fighters from eastern Mosul, as well, in order to limit its
casualties in the face of growing ISF momentum.
ISF operations in western Mosul will require a change in tactic.
The block-by-block method of clearing eastern Mosul will not be effective in
the west because its infrastructure is not laid out by city blocks. ISIS will
use western Mosul’s narrow and winding streets to challenge less-experienced
ISF units, such as the Iraqi Army. The group may rely more on the city’s infrastructure
for static defenses, as it did in Ramadi, in order to stave of its imminent loss
of the city. Lessons learned from eastern Mosul, however, such as the need for cross-axis
coordination, will help the ISF rebuff ISIS’s defenses and ensure that
operations in western Mosul are smoother than the stop-and-go progress that
protracted operations in the east.
