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tweakabelle -> Mosul is liberated: IS routed (7/10/2017 8:49:39 AM)
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Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi has announced the recapture of Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, from the thugs of IS. The Guardian reports:
"Iraq’s prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, has declared victory over Islamic State forces in Mosul after nearly nine months of bitter fighting to displace the extremist group from the city where it proclaimed its “caliphate”.
Thousands have died, nearly a million residents have fled, and swaths of the city have been reduced to ruins during the gruelling campaign, including the ancient al-Nuri mosque and minaret that were one of its best known landmarks.
Victory in Mosul is still both a strategic and symbolic milestone for Iraqi fighters backed by US-led coalition forces, however, and sparked celebrations across the country, including in Baghdad where proud and relieved Iraqis took to the streets, waving the national flag in exultation.
The city had been the last major urban stronghold Isis held in Iraq, and defeat there pushes the group back towards its insurgent roots, leaving the militants with just a handful of towns and stretches of sparsely populated desert under their control.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/09/iraq-announces-victory-over-islamic-state-mosul
Sadly this doesn't mean the end of IS, but is a severe setback for the Islamist thugs. IS's other major city, Raqqa in Syria is also under attack with Kurdish and allied forces securing a bridgehead in the city, which is likely to see a long drawn out urban war to unseat the last remaining citadel of IS's "caliphate". The liberation of Raqqa is only a matter of time as IS faces overwhelming forces arrayed against it, but it took almost 9 months to liberate Mosul.
Even as IS is routed on the battlefield, the Islamist ideology will live on, and we are likely to see an increase in guerilla tactics in Syria/Iraq and suicide attacks in Europe. How then can the vicious Islamist ideology be defeated? Are we doomed to live with IS's atrocities for the foreseeable future?
Your thoughts .....
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