(ISW) The nice people at the Institute for the Study of War, have knocked out their latest situation report on the state of affairs inside Iraq.
ISIS launched waves of counter-offensives and spectacular
attacks across Iraq after operations in eastern Mosul resumed on December 29.
The attacks were widespread and hit highly secured areas, including Baghdad and
the shrine cities of Najaf and Samarra. ISIS also attempted to sever the main
highway running from Mosul to Baghdad by attacking locations north of Baiji.
The attack pattern is similar to ISIS’s attacks in the week after the Mosul
operation launched on October 17, when ISIS struck targets in Kirkuk, Sinjar,
Rutba, and Samarra, and in the week after the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF)
breached Mosul’s city limits on November 1, when ISIS launched major attacks in
Tikrit, al-Alam, Samarra, and Shirqat. The most recent attacks from December 29
to January 5 underscore that ISIS will react to major phase changes in Mosul by
launching wide-spread attacks with the intent to spread ISF thin, force it
to reallocate units away from northern operations, and undermine political
legitimacy in Baghdad. The attacks demonstrate that, despite its losses in
Mosul, ISIS is capable of reopening old fronts, such as in Sinjar which it lost
in November 2015; penetrating deep behind the frontlines, such as Kirkuk City;
and retaining access into highly secured areas, such as Baghdad and Samarra.
Continued minor attacks in the Euphrates River Valley also suggest that ISIS
may be reviving networks in historical support zones. ISF and Coalition can
reasonably expect that ISIS will launch a similar wave of attacks across Iraq
when ISF reaches and crosses the Tigris River in Mosul.
