‘Positive indicator’ in Iraq’s Mosul, US focused ‘on the east side’

An American general in charge of the ground forces for the so-called US-led coalition allegedly against Daesh (ISIL) speaks of a “positive indicator” in the fight against the Takfiri terrorists in control of Iraq’s second largest city.

The militants are running out of resources, which is evident in the lower effectiveness their operations, US Army Major General Joseph Martin told Reuters Monday.

"They've got a finite amount of resources that are on the eastern side and the fact that their capability is waning indicates that those resources are starting to dwindle," he said. "I see the commanders' reporting coming in and I see the exquisiteness of their SVBIED (suicide vehicle borne improvised explosive device) system, the sophistication of their SVBIEDs continuing to get lower and lower, the boom of the different IEDs continuing to have a lower yield - all tell me that the enemy's capacity is diminishing over time. We see that as a positive indicator."

The general who took up his post in mid-November added that he was unaware about the amount of arms stored by the group.

"They've had two years to prepare for this defense and so I don't know how much stuff they have stored inside mosques, inside of schools, inside of hospitals," Martin said during a phone interview from the Iraqi capital Baghdad, over 400 kilometers to the north.

On October 17, Iraqi army soldiers, supported by Hashd al-Sha’abi fighters and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, launched a joint operation to retake Mosul from Daesh terrorists.

The Iraqi forces’ advance has, however, been slowed down due to the presence of hundreds of thousands of civilians, many of whom are prevented from leaving Mosul by Daesh.

Martin (pictured above) also asserted that although the group is getting weaker, could still pose a threat.

"As they lose capacity, they never cease to amaze me at the level they will take their despicability. They have done some things during the course of this campaign that I thought, 'It surely can't get any worse than that'," he said.

US warplanes have been conducting airstrikes against Daesh in Iraq since August 2014. Some Western states have also participated in some of the strikes in Iraq.

Currently, the coalition’s "our focus principally is on the east side" of the city, Martin said, further claiming that "in terms of timeline, we're on Iraqi time. This is going to take some time."

The advance in Mosul fight been slowed down due to the presence of hundreds of thousands of civilians, many of whom are prevented by Daesh from leaving the city.

"There's in excess of 200,000 buildings," Marin said while comparing Mosul to Philadelphia "Let's say that there's six rooms in each building ... That's 1.2 million rooms that they've got to contend with and make sure that are clear. That's 1.2 million rooms that they've got to discriminate between the enemy and the civilians that live there."

The Daesh Takfiri terrorists were among militants initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government.

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