Is There Another Iraqi Civil War On The Horizon?

Daniel Davis, Politico: How Mosul’s Liberation Could Lead to Another Iraqi Civil War

ISIS may not be Baghdad’s biggest problem after all.

OUTSIDE MOSUL, Iraq -- On a trip to northern Iraq toward the end of August, I interviewed the Kurdish commander of the Peshmerga 7th Brigade, General Bahram Yassin, about the looming battle for Mosul. Speaking at his forward command post overlooking the leading ISIS defensive lines outside of Mosul, Yassin went into some detail about what he expects to happen when hostilities over this key city commence: hand-to-hand combat, human shields, entrenched ISIS fighters immune to airstrikes and all too happy to experience martyrdom.

ISIS has rigged buildings, roads, and other items to explode and planted IEDs in “virtually every road and every alley,” Yassin told me. “I expect that we’ll have to fight them, taking neighborhood by neighborhood, alley by alley, and sometimes house by house.” Since U.S. troops, artillery and air support will be involved, there could be American casualties.

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WNU Editor: A sobering assessment on how difficult the liberation of Mosul will be .... and what may be its aftermath.