Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced this week that
the end of the Battle of Mosul is nigh. The back of its resistance has been broken even though ISIS suicide bombers and mobile sniper teams continue to inflict staggering losses on Iraq's military. The local population too has suffered grievously. Civilians have been held as human shields and slain by the dozen while trying to escape across the frontline. And the fates of tens of thousands more darken with each passing day.
This week Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's encircled forces denied their opponents a symbolic victory by
blowing up the Great Mosque of al-Nuri. The site, with its famous leaning minaret, had stood for 845 years - until Thursday. It was on the steps of this very mosque that al-Baghdadi had declared his fleeting caliphate; the decision to destroy it is a perfect distillation of ISIS's cynicism and heresy. The fate of al-Baghdadi himself remains unclear, although the Kremlin is
adamant that he was killed in a Russian Air Force bombing three weeks ago.
The media has paid far less attention to the siege of Raqqa across the border in Syria. But after spending months surrounding the city, the mixed Kurdish-Arab forces of the SDF and YPG have finally penetrated its defences. And as has been the case right across the so-called caliphate, the emirs of Raqqa have retreated (this time, south to Deir ez-Zor).
So what happens next? The thrust to dislodge ISIS from its remaining footholds along the Euphrates has revealed the incompatible aims of regional players. Turkish-backed militia have fought US-backed Kurds en route to Raqqa. Iranian and Iraqi Shia militias (who are tangentially allied with the regime and are soon to be released from the Battle of Mosul) will drive West and undoubtedly also brush up against the Kurds. And when Raqqa itself falls,
competing interests will run aground at Deir Ez-Zor.
Already these tensions are boiling over, with deadly results. The Assad regime, emboldened, is sending more troops to the south and encroaching upon territory held by CIA-backed rebels. Clashes are occurring more frequently, as are interventions by the US Air Force. This week an American warplane
shot down a Syrian jet, risking a conflagration. Bashar al-Assad's Russian backers responded by declaring that any coalition aircraft flying west of the Euphrates would be tracked by their anti-aircraft missile batteries. The threat certainly worked on the Australian contingent who stopped flying over Syria forthwith.
An extraordinary number of countries are bombing Syria from the air right now. Cruise missiles fired from Iranian military bases and Russian naval vessels crisscross Syria's airspace. The inbound flow of weaponry is matched only by the outbound flow of displaced people. Whatever happens next, we hope cool heads prevail, but it's hard to harbour confidence for a peaceful humanitarian outcome for Syria and Iraq's civilians.
