Iraqi army needs Kurds' help to retake Mosul: Zebari
Date
12/30/2015 6:04:27 AM
(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Iraq's Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari speaks during a news conference in Baghdad February 26 2015.Reuters/Khalid Al-Mousily
By Maher Chmaytelli and Ahmed Rasheed
BAGHDAD: The Iraqi army will need Kurdishfighters' help to retake Mosul the largest city under thecontrol of Islamic State Iraqi Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebarisaid with the planned offensive expected to be verychallenging.
Mosul 400 km (250 miles) north of Baghdad has beendesignated by the government as the next target for Iraq's armedforces after they retook the western city of Ramadi.
"Mosul needs good planning preparations commitment fromall the key players" Zebari a Kurd said in an interview onMonday in Baghdad.
"Peshmerga is a major force; you cannot do Mosul withoutPeshmerga" he told Reuters referring to the armed forces ofIraqi Kurdistan an autonomous northern region close to Mosul.
The mostly Sunni city had a population of two million beforeit fell to the militants last June in the first stage of theirsweeping advance through northern and western Iraq.
The battle of Mosul would be "very very challenging"Zebari said. "It will not be an easy operation for some timethey have been strengthening themselves but it's doable."
Given the extent of the area that needs to be secured aroundMosul during the attack the army may also need to draw insupport roles on local Sunni forces and possibly the Shi'itePopular Mobilisation he said.
The Mobilisation known in Arabic as Hashid Shaabi is aloosely knit coalition of Iran-backed Shi'ite militias set up tofight Islamic State. It was barred from the week-long battle toretake Ramadi to avoid tension with the Sunni population.
The retaking of Ramadi by Iraq's army marked the first majorsuccess of the U.S.-trained force that initially fled in theface of Islamic State's advance 18 months ago.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Monday that IslamicState would be defeated in 2016 with the army planning to moveon Mosul. "We are coming to liberate Mosul and it will be thefatal and final blow to Daesh" he said in speech praising thearmy's "victory" in Ramadi.
Retaking Mosul would effectively mark the end of thecaliphate proclaimed by Islamic State in adjacent Sunni areas ofIraq and Syria according to Zebari.
"It's there where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared hiscaliphate" he said referring to the group's leader. "It isliterally their capital."
The Iraqi Kurdish president Massoud Barzani discussedplans for the liberation of Mosul with Lieutenant General TomBeckett Britain's senior defence adviser in Septemberaccording to Kurdish TV Rudaw.
Reuters