Mystics & Statistics

Duration Estimate II

Retired Major General “Spider” Marks was on CNN this morning. He did not buy into the estimate of Mosul being taken in two-three months.

I suspect the duration will be driven by three or four factors:

  1. How serious of a fight ISIL puts up in the areas in front of and around Mosul. I don’t think they will, as this is where they are going to get unfavorable exchanges and take considerable losses. So far it does not seem like they are putting up that serious of resistance.
  2. How many people they decide to leave behind in Mosul. In the Second Battle of Fallujah (2004) the insurgents may have left behind less than a thousand fighters. Don’t have the stats at hand for the other battles. I would be surprised if they leave more.
  3. How aggressive the Iraqi Army is. How hard do they work to finish this off. There is probably a trade-off between time and casualties, so there is a reason to take their time. On the other hand, political leaders usually prefer quick victories.
  4. What is their level of competence.

Duration Estimate for Mosul

OK…..someone published a duration estimate for Mosul: Mosul Estimate

Not sure a Peshmerga Brigadier General is supposed to be providing this information to the press, but I assume it comes from some of their planning.

The main points:

  1. “The Battle to recapture Mosul from ISIS could take two months….”
  2. “…said it would likely take two weeks for advancing forces to enter the city….”

So, a two-week advance and a six-week mop up. This actually sounds pretty reasonable, so I will avoid any “home before the leaves fall” references.

Lots of other articles on that page on Mosul, so certainly worth perusing.

By the way, this is the Peshmerga Brigadier General, Sidwan Barzani, who also happens to be a nephew of the Kurdish president and a telecommunications millionaire: Millionaire commander protects Kurdish capital

 

 

Battle for Mosul II (continued)

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Washington Post article: kurds-pause-in-mosul-offensive-say-iraqi-army-will-advance

I gather there is some agreement negotiated in advance as to who is going to move into Mosul and who is not.

The Iraq Army’s 9th Division is reported on the outskirts of the town of al-Hamdaniyah (also known at Bakhdida), south of Mosul. This town is some 51 kilometers (32 miles) southeast of Mosul. Interesting place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakhdida

The Federal Police reached the village of al–Houd, east of Mosul.

The Kurdish Peshmerga (operating to the east of Mosul) say they pushed the front line back 8 kilometers (5 miles). Their front line is now 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Mosul.

The most interesting paragraph in the article: “Turkey says the troops are training Iraqi fighters to help retake Mosul, and that they are there with the permission of the Iraqi government. Baghdad denies it granted permission and has ordered the Turks to withdraw — a call Ankara has ignored”

 

Battle for Mosul II

Day 2: One news channel last night claimed that the clearing of the city could take up to six months. That seemed excessive.

Basically, with ISIL being outnumbered and not having any real armored forces or artillery, they really have no way to contest the ground outside of Mosul. Like most of these other operations, I suspect that getting to and isolating the city won’t take that long (maybe a week or two). I also suspect that the majority of the ISIL fighters will withdraw and they will leave a holding force in Mosul. This is how these fights have happened several times before. Then there is a city-clearing operation, which is basically a mop-up operation. This could drag on for a while, depending on how aggressively it is pushed. The Second Battle of Fallujah in late 2004, primarily done by U.S. Army and Marines, took about six weeks. The Second Battle of Tikrit in 2015 also took around six weeks. The Battle of Ramadi in 2015-2016 took over ten weeks. The latest Battle of Fallujah in 2016 lasted about five weeks. Granted Mosul is bigger, but I can’t envision it will be that different. How many fighters is ISIL going to sacrifice to a lost cause?

Anyhow, article de jure on the war: Mosul offensive

Battle for Mosul I

I gather it is day 1 of the Battle for Mosul. A CNN article on the subject: Mosul operation begins

A couple of things that caught my eye:

  1. CNN reporter witnessed an advance of “…about 6 kilometers towards the city, with sporadic fighting erupting as they encountered pockets of ISIS fighters”
  2. “But on the whole, he said, Peshmerga commanders felt they were encountering less resistance than they had expected.”

The rest is material that has sort of already been reported.

Also, on MSNBC their reporter in Irbil was stating that the Kurdish Peshmerga were “within striking distance” of Mosul, but I believe they already started pretty close to Mosul to begin with.

 

Its Started

It has started, or at least they have announced they have started: Iraq announces start of offensive to retake Mosul

Would not be surprised if it was underway before they announced it. I suspect it will take longer than three days. We shall see if it will take longer than three weeks. I am assuming at this point, that it will be successful.

Of course, success does not mean peace, but it is definitely an improvement.

Dabiq Falls To Free Syrian Rebels

(The Guardian)
(The Guardian)

The Sultan Murad group, a Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel militia backed by Turkey, announced today that it had captured the town of Dabiq in northern Syria, following the retreat of Daesh fighters. Part of Operation Euphrates Shield, initiated by Turkey in August following a Daesh suicide attack on the city of Gaziantep, FSA forces have cleared a section of Syrian territory north of Aleppo with the aid of Turkish tanks, aircraft, and special operations forces.

Dabiq’s fall is significant for Daesh’s self-proclaimed caliphate, given the role accorded to the city in the group’s propaganda. In hadith, or sayings attributed to the Prophet Mohammad, Dabiq was to be the location of the final battle between Muslims and infidels before Doomsday. Daesh featured Dabiq prominently in its messaging and used it as the title for its sophisticated online journal. Several American and British aid workers were executed there.

“The Daesh myth of their great battle in Dabiq is finished,” Ahmed Osman, head of the Sultan Murad group, told Reuters.

The fall of Dabiq is the latest in a succession of military defeats Daesh has suffered this year, including losing control of the historic city of Palmyra and much of the territory it had controlled in northern Syria. Iraqi forces retook Fallujah and most of Anbar province, and the beginning of a long-planned operation to free Mosul in northern Iraq appears imminent.

Russia Plans for $40 Oil

Part of the drama of the Russia budget shortfalls is that they kept making budgets based upon an unrealistically optimistic predictions of oil prices. This forces them to revise their budgets rather drastically during the year. It appears they have finally accepted that oil prices are going to be around $40 a barrel for a while and have planned their budget accordingly: Russia budget oil price

A few points:

  1. This is for the next three years and even though oil is currently at $50 a barrel.
  2. There current budget deficit is 3.7% of GDP and is expected to remain above 3% for next year. To put this in perspective the U.S. has had a budget deficit greater than 3% a year from 2008 through 2013.
  3. Cash reserves were $91.7 billion in September 2014…now expected to be $15 billion at the end of this year.
  4. Energy now only accounts for 37% of all government revenues, vice the 50% it used to be. I gather that this is because energy revenues have precipitously declined, not because they have developed other significant sources of revenue.

 As the article notes at the end: “Eurasia Group analysts say the government is still opting for more austerity rather than genuine economic reform.”

 

Fifth Column in Mosul

A previous post on 29 September noted that there were 1,000 “resistance fighters” in Mosul, which if true, would create a pretty significant Fifth Column: More on Mosul Offensive

A recent article originally in Reuters claims that 58 of them were rounded up by ISIL and executed (by drowning): ISIL Crushes Mosul Rebellion

So there are either 942 “resistance fighters” left…..or……..

Anyhow, hard to really know what is going on. The Reuters article in an exclusive based upon what “residents and Iraqi security officials” said.