Iraq liberates Mosul

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Mosul operation plan.jpg
Syria is east of Iraq says the Economist
US and Saudis agreed on (with whom?) allowing ISIS fighters to flee to Syria. Cartoon by iad tawil

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ISIS escape plan

  • US-Saudi agreement to allow ISIS retreat from Mosul - Iraqi News, October 12, 2016
  • How Iran closed the Mosul 'horseshoe' and changed Iraq war - Reuters, December 7, 2016
    The original campaign strategy called for Iraqi forces to close in around Mosul in a horseshoe formation, blocking three fronts but leaving open the fourth - to the west of the city leading to Islamic State territory in neighboring Syria.
    That model, used to recapture several Iraqi cities from the ultra-hardline militants in the last two years, would have left fighters and civilians a clear route of escape and could have made the Mosul battle quicker and simpler.
    But Tehran, anxious that retreating fighters would sweep back into Syria just as Iran's ally President Bashar al-Assad was gaining the upper hand in his country's five-year civil war, wanted Islamic State crushed and eliminated in Mosul.