{"id":98344,"date":"2016-01-15T00:47:43","date_gmt":"2016-01-15T00:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2016\/01\/15\/this-is-the-pentagon-s-new-strategy-to-defeat-isis\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T10:22:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T10:22:42","slug":"this-is-the-pentagon-s-new-strategy-to-defeat-isis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/flashpoints\/2016\/01\/15\/this-is-the-pentagon-s-new-strategy-to-defeat-isis\/","title":{"rendered":"This is the Pentagon’s new strategy to defeat ISIS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

IRBIL, Iraq \u2014 The U.S. military headquarters here is outfitted with maps\u00a0showing a “forward line of troops” \u2014 a FLOT, in military-speak \u2014\u00a0that divides northern Iraq’s Kurdish region from territory held by\u00a0the Islamic State group. The line is precisely drawn, following the contours of specific roads and berms.\u00a0A mere\u00a040 miles west,\u00a0the terrain is pocked with trenches, fighting positions, razor wire and armed checkpoints. It’s like a scene from Europe during\u00a0World War I, one American official says.It’s a jarring change for the personnel who’ve spent much of their careers fighting on far more ambiguous battlefields. Steadily, though,\u00a0they are coming to grips with it as, during the past several months, the Pentagon and the White House have\u00a0fundamentally shifted their strategy for defeating ISIS. The way forward will mean potentially more key U.S. support troops on the ground to back friendly local forces who will wage the fight to retake ISIS-held territory.\u00a0The new plan calls for\u00a0fighting\u00a0the terror\u00a0group like a conventional enemy, relying on traditional military tactics such as maneuver-style warfare and attrition. This\u00a0has replaced last year\u2019s approach, dubbed the “Iraq First Strategy,” which was widely criticized as ineffective, especially after ISIS fighters seized the city of Ramadi in May.\u00a0Instead, the U.S. and its allies now intend to confront the extremist group and its force of about 30,000 fighters, targeting their strongholds and resources across Iraq and Syria\u00a0simultaneously.\u00a0\"IRAQ-CONFLICT\"

Iraqi government forces and members of Iraq’s elite counter-terrorism service carry the body of a comrade during battles with Islamic State jihadists in Ramadi on Jan. 1. The effort to retake Ramadi will serve as a blueprint for the broader campaign to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria.<\/span><\/figcaption>
Photo Credit: AFP\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption>Publicly\u00a0the Obama administration says its strategy to defeat ISIS has not changed significantly, but realities on the ground and discussions at home indicate\u00a0otherwise. Details about the shift\u00a0became clear during the past several weeks, after a\u00a0series of interviews that Military Times conducted\u00a0with top commanders in Iraq, senior defense officials in Washington and outside military experts keenly familiar with the Pentagon’s war plans.\u00a0Political considerations in Washington and Baghdad will limit the size of the U.S. force on the ground, so the campaign relies heavily on a dizzying patchwork of local ground forces \u2014 often with competing agendas\u00a0\u2014\u00a0moving in large formations to isolate and ultimately invade the two major ISIS strongholds: Mosul in\u00a0Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.\u00a0In Mosul, the plan calls for the Iraqi army to attack from the south, while the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga squeeze Islamic State forces from the north and east.\u00a0In Syria, U.S. forces will\u00a0support friendly militias in the\u00a0northeast as they push south toward the Islamic State’s defacto capital.\u00a0“Our campaign plan’s map,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter told soldiers at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, on\u00a0Wednesday, “has got big arrows pointing to both Mosul and Raqqa.”\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
<\/atype-video-jwplayer>
The Obama administration’s new plan to defeat the Islamic State group relies on a patchwork of local ground forces moving in large formations to isolate and ultimately invade Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

In a secondary front, the Iraqi army will\u00a0move west from Ramadi, the recently reclaimed capital of Anbar province, up the Euphrates Valley and toward the Syrian border.\u00a0Another key pillar of this\u00a0strategy requires\u00a0cutting off the Islamic State’s\u00a0primary supply line to the outside world by pressuring\u00a0Turkey to seal its border with Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new strategy coincides with the October appointment of an Army stalwart,\u00a0Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, former commander\u00a0of the First Armor Division,\u00a0as the first flag officer\u00a0to oversee all anti-ISIS\u00a0operations in both Iraq and Syria. “Before that, the senior guys on the ground were pretty much from the special ops community,” said retired Army Col.\u00a0Peter Mansoor, a former top adviser to U.S. commanders in Iraq who now teaches\u00a0military history at the Ohio State University.\u00a0“And now to put in someone who has a more conventional background \u2026 does signal that this is going to be a much more conventional fight than the [Obama] administration had first calculated.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Iraqi leaders have begun imposing restrictions on the size and scope of the U.S. military force in their country.\u00a0Factions within Baghdad\u2019s Shiite-led government are influenced by neighboring\u00a0Iran and thus oppose\u00a0expanding\u00a0the American military mission there.\u00a0“Iraq is proving to be a lot trickier than we thought,” said Michael Knights, a military expert with the the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.\u00a0“You\u2019ve always got the risk that you can unbalance the government if you do too much. …\u00a0We’ve learned that it can be a lot simpler operating in an environment where you have no sovereign government [like Syria] than to operate in a place where you\u2019ve got one, like in Iraq.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new battle plan has many potential pitfalls, of course. And there are no clear plans for ousting ISIS militants\u00a0from their strongholds in Syria west of the Euphrates River, where several rebel factions are fighting to overthrow\u00a0Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who\u00a0has been buoyed by Russian military forces that\u00a0have established an air base along\u00a0the Mediterranean coast. For the U.S. and its allies, Russia’s presence and activity in the region only further\u00a0complicates an already\u00a0convoluted pocket of Syria\u2019s five-year-old civil war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This campaign will take years to execute, officials say. But it is underway, both operationally and politically. Carter’s recent trip to the region, which included stops here in Irbil, Baghdad and Turkey,\u00a0set things in motion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By severing the ISIS supply line between Raqqa and Mosul, military officials hope to\u00a0carve\u00a0up the group’s territory into smaller pockets that can be defeated through isolation and attrition or direct assault.\u00a0This began with the November attack on Sinjar\u00a0in Iraq’s northwest. The fight was led by Kurdish peshmerga forces, with U.S. warplanes and combat advisers providing support. Their effort was\u00a0mostly successful, although ISIS continues\u00a0to move some people and supplies between the two cities using secondary roads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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November’s fight to retake Sinjar was mostly successful in disrupting the Islamic State group’s ability to shuttle people and supplies between its strongholds in Mosul and Raqqa, though they are still able to transit some secondary roads.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo Credit: John Bretschneider\/Staff<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It doesn\u2019t eliminate or cut off their ability to resupply,” Army Brig. Gen. Mark Odom, the top U.S. commander in Iraq\u2019s Kurdish region, told Military Times in December.\u00a0But those\u00a0secondary roads, some of them unpaved or in very poor condition, will be difficult for big tractor-trailers and tankers.\u00a0“Even the best roads,” Odom added, “don\u2019t support vehicle movement at more than 35 miles per hour,\u00a0and they are not going to support an increased amount of traffic. Both in terms of congestion and in terms of speed, those routes to the south present some real problems on the economy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. and its allies targeted these secondary roads with airstrikes Dec. 25 and 26, further degrading the transit routes.\u00a0Those strikes also targeted some roads around the Iraqi city of Tal Afar, another ISIS\u00a0stronghold\u00a0situated along the same Mosul-to-Raqqa route.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

It’s not yet clear when the assault on Mosul itself will begin. Some surmise it may not even happen this year.\u00a0But when it does the Kurds will be central to the effort. The peshmerga\u2019s forward line now surrounds about half the city to the north and east.\u00a0To incentivize them, Carter had a face-to-face meeting with Iraqi Kurdish officials in Irbil and promised to give them two brigade-size equipment sets. That includes weapons, tactical vehicles, communications gear and other supplies to outfit a fighting force of up to 4,400.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. battle plan acknowledges\u00a0that the peshmerga cannot be the primary invasion force, though. Mosul is a predominantly Sunni Arab city, where ethnic tensions would make Kurdish forces unwelcome.\u00a0Instead, the Kurds will help “encircle” the city, officials said.\u00a0Kurdish cooperation also will be vital for handling the humanitarian crisis that’s expected to\u00a0erupt as many of the estimated 700,000-plus civilians who remain inside Mosul flee the fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials estimate that between 1,500 and 10,000 ISIS fighters are entrenched in Mosul.\u00a0If the Kurds apply\u00a0pressure on the city’s north and east, ISIS would have to spread its forces more thinly across the city\u2019s entire perimeter, drawing manpower away from the Iraqi army forces coming up from the south, through the Tigris River valley.\u00a0The strategy calls for that Iraqi force to be a massive formation \u2014 likely more than 10,000 soldiers.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Kurdish forces will be central to the effort to retake the Islamic State group’s stronghold in Mosul, Iraq, but the Iraqi army will do most of the fighting inside the city.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

However, many experts question the Iraqis’\u00a0capability and will to fight, which poses complications for determining\u00a0the timeline.\u00a0First, the Iraqis will have to fight ISIS elements distributed throughout a 100-mile corridor stretching from Mosul south to Bayji. And any effort to sustain long-term supply lines will be vulnerable to ISIS\u00a0guerrilla-style suicide bombs and improvised explosive devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pentagon has acknowledged that\u00a0the Iraqis will need help.\u00a0“Reaching and retaking Mosul will not be easy, and it will not be quick. There’ll be many engagements in between,” Carter said Wednesday.\u00a0When he met with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi last month in Baghdad, the secretary promised\u00a0to ratchet up U.S. military support for these upcoming operations.\u00a0Specifically, Carter offered U.S. attack helicopters, critical for close-air support in a dense urban battlefield like Mosul.\u00a0He also offered to deploy a new cadre of ground-level U.S. combat advisers to embed with Iraqi army units at the brigade level, a move aimed at magnifying the effectiveness of U.S. airstrikes and real-time intelligence capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Iraqis declined such support for the recent fight in Ramadi, a clear sign that anti-American politics in Baghdad may limit the U.S. military\u2019s ability to operate inside Iraq.\u00a0As such, the U.S. will send more troops and helicopters only if the Iraqis issue a specific request.\u00a0So for now, it\u2019s a standing offer. “We’re prepared to do that and the government of Iraq knows we’re prepared to do that,” MacFarland said. “We’re prepared to say yes if requested.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By securing Iraq’s traditional border with Syria at al Qaim, the anti-ISIS coalition will cut off a potential escape route once the extremists are pushed out of their stronghold in Raqqa.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo Credit: John Bretschneider\/Staff<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. also is ready to help secure the Iraqi army’s supply line toward Mosul. “As the Iraqis move themselves farther and farther up the Tigris and Euphrates River valleys, pushing the enemy out of Iraq, sustainment becomes more of a challenge,” MacFarland said.\u00a0“… Your lines of communication are getting longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Nobody does sustainment, nobody does expeditionary operations better than the United States of America, so there are ways that we can help them with that.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the Iraqis will need to lock down their traditional border with Syria. To do that, security forces will have to clear out ISIS fighters as they push west from Ramadi to al Qaim.\u00a0“The next step is to continue clearance of the Euphrates River Valley,”\u00a0said Army Col. Steve Warren, a Baghdad-based\u00a0spokesman for U.S. and coalition forces battling ISIS. “Next stop Hit. Next stop Haditha.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once al Qaim is secure, friendly forces will be within striking distance of the lucrative oil production facilities that ISIS controls in Syria.\u00a0And this\u00a0would remove another option\u00a0for ISIS to retreat from Raqqa.\u00a0If successful, this part of the\u00a0plan also would isolate Fallujah, a notorious hotbed of jihadism on the outskirts of Baghdad. ISIS has controlled Fallujah for two years, which suggests that\u00a0any invading force will find heavy defenses and a sympathetic population.\u00a0Both U.S. and Iraqi military leaders dread the prospect of a block-by-block fight there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are currently about 3,500 U.S. troops deployed to Iraq and up to 50 special operations troops in Syria, defense officials say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S.\u00a0Special Forces teams entered war-torn Syria for the first time\u00a0in December to meet face-to-face with friendly militia leaders.\u00a0The meeting was to verify the militias\u2019 size, assess their capabilities and talk to leaders of the individual factions\u00a0about their own local agendas and how to align them\u00a0with the broader U.S. battle plan. For the planned assault on Raqqa,\u00a0the forces\u00a0receiving U.S. support have several possible approaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In Syria, U.S. firepower is hitting ISIS oil facilities southeast of Raqqa, not far from the Iraq border.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo Credit: John Bretschneider\/Staff<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the north, the militias are moving from the Kobani area, along the Euphrates.\u00a0In late December, they captured a key dam,\u00a0rolling back ISIS-held territory to about 70 miles from Raqqa. With control of the\u00a0dam and its bridge, they’ve also\u00a0cut\u00a0a key ISIS supply line to the area it controls\u00a0around\u00a0Allepo and Manbij.\u00a0And to the northeast, other militias\u00a0receiving U.S. support are mounting offensive operations in the Hasakah area, which sits on the Syrian side of that vital transit corridor between Mosul and Raqqa.\u00a0“In the coming weeks, you’re going to see significant fighting in that area as ISIL realizes that Shadadi is a key node in their lines of communications,” said Air Force Col. Pat Ryder, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American officials describe their relationship with these friendly forces as “transactional,” meaning the U.S. will provide weapons, ammunition, close-air support and other assistance if and when specific factions of the so-called Syrian Defense Forces show progress on the battlefield.\u00a0Meanwhile,\u00a0U.S. airstrikes continue to target\u00a0infrastructure affiliated with Syria’s oil production, a vital revenue source for ISIS. Most of these oil fields are in the lower Euphrates valley, southeast of Raqqa, not far from the Iraq\u00a0border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

As\u00a0in Iraq, the U.S. must consider ethnic identities\u00a0in their battle plan for Syria. Syrian Kurds, though reliable and effective allies, are not an ideal\u00a0invasion force for Raqqa, a Sunni Arab city.\u00a0That\u2019s why the U.S. encouraged the creation of the Syrian Defense Forces, an alliance publicly announced for the first time in October. U.S. officials frequently highlight the SDF’s non-Kurdish components, but the\u00a0true extent\u00a0of Arab support remains unclear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The U.S. has figured out that it wants Arabs to do the job” in Raqqa, said Aron Lund, a Syria expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Sweden. “They realize they need that. If they sent in this ultra-secular Kurdish group into a city of rather conservative Arab tribal groups, that would not work out very well.”\u00a0The U.S. has tried to “play down” the SDF’s Kurdish element and “make it into a multietchnic, multisectarian thing,” Lund added. “They see that as being the only way to take Raqqa.\u00a0But in reality, it\u2019s very clear that for the command and control for all of the offenses, the Kurds\u00a0are doing this. It’s the same Kurdish force doing the heavy lifting.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Foreign fighters who joined the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) to fight in their ranks against jihadists and Islamist rebels in northeastern Syria take part in a training session on April 29, 2015 in the south-west Syrian region of Ras al-Ain, close to the Turkish border. AFP PHOTO \/ UYGAR ONDER SIMSEK (Photo credit should read UYGAR ONDER SIMSEK\/AFP\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, have attracted foreign fighters eager to battle jihadists and Islamist rebels in northeastern Syria. Here, men train last April in Ras al-Ain, close to the Turkish border.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo Credit: Uygar Onder Simseki\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raqqa is a focal point of the new campaign\u00a0not only because it is a political stronghold for ISIS but because it is geographically central, and seizing it would fracture the group\u2019s existing territory. It’s also a primary route for shipping oil\u00a0into black markets in Turkey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They are trying to cut up the Islamic State\u00a0into islands of control,” Lund said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200bIt’s unclear exactly how much influence the\u00a0U.S. has in this region, however. Lund believes officials\u00a0are “moving ahead piecemeal, trying to put pressure on the Islamic State and thinking as they go.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If we do this, what will happen?\u00a0Is there a road we can cut? Is there a village we can take? Is there an oil field we can dislodge them from?” he said. “The hope is that with enough pressure, the support for the Islamic State will crack.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Islamic State’s\u00a0lifeline to the outside world \u2014 for money, weapons and people \u2014 runs through Turkey’s porous southern border.\u00a0Convincing the Turks to seal off that area is central to the new strategy.\u00a0A rocky alliance between Washington and Ankara got an important boost\u00a0in July, when the Turks began allowing U.S. combat aircraft to fly from Incirlik Air Base, putting ISIS\u00a0safe havens in Syria within easy reach.\u00a0And now the U.S. is leaning on the Turks to do more. “The single most important contribution that their geography makes necessary is the control of their own border,”\u00a0Carter noted while speaking to Military Times and other media traveling with him in December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most important\u00a0border zone is\u00a0near the city of\u00a0Marea. This so-called Marea line is a\u00a0part of ISIS-controlled territory in Syria.\u00a0Many experts say this region is not a priority for Turkey, which for years tacitly supported ISIS in its fight against Assad. “The Turkish government has not shown\u00a0the inclination nor the ability to interdict any of this,” said Christopher Harmer, an analyst with the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.\u00a0“If part of the U.S. strategy is that Turkey is suddenly going to crack down on the border, that\u2019s unrealistic.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. is pressuring Turkey to crack down on ISIS activity on its side of the border.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo Credit: John Bretschneider\/Staff<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the Turks may change their priorities as the U.S. military empowers Syrian Kurdish forces, known as the YPG. Turkish\u00a0leaders have been engaged in a decades-old conflict with its own Kurdish minority and do not want to see the Syrian Kurds expand.\u00a0For now, the U.S. has agreed not to support Syrian Kurdish operations west of the Euphrates River.\u00a0However, if Turkey fails to seal off its side of the border, the U.S. could move to help the YPG try to\u00a0block ISIS in that zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The border is going to get cut one way or the other, either by the Syrian Kurds or Turks,” Knights said.\u00a0“If Turkey wants to maintain any type of non-YPG controlled Syrian border area, it’s probably going to have to play ball with the U.S.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. battle plan includes few details for the ISIS strongholds west of the Euphrates River, including Aleppo. Assad still holds\u00a0large swaths of territory there, as do groups linked to al\u00a0Qaida. Russia also is active in that region, and without a\u00a0major ally on the ground, the U.S. has few good options.\u00a0Bottom line: Any major American-backed operation in northwestern Syria\u00a0would have several unknowable second- and third-order effects.\u00a0“We just don\u2019t know,” Knights said,\u00a0“if we\u2019d be doing more harm than good.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Iraqis, meanwhile, will need to lock down their traditional border with Syria. To do that, security forces will have to clear out ISIS fighters as they push west from Ramadi to al Qaim.\u00a0“The next step is to continue clearance of the Euphrates River Valley,” \u00a0said Army Col. Steve Warren, a Baghdad-based\u00a0spokesman for U.S. and coalition forces battling ISIS. “Next top Hit. Next stop Haditha.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once al Qaim is secure, friendly forces will be within striking distance of the lucrative oil production facilities that ISIS controls.\u00a0And this\u00a0would remove another option\u00a0for ISIS to retreat from Raqqa.\u00a0If successful, this part of the\u00a0plan also would isolate Fallujah, a notorious hotbed of jihadism on the outskirts of Baghdad. ISIS has controlled Fallujah for two years, which suggests that\u00a0any invading force will find heavy defenses and a sympathetic population.\u00a0Both U.S. and Iraqi military leaders dread the prospect of a block-by-block fight there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. battle plan includes few details for the ISIS strongholds west of the Euphrates River, including Aleppo.\u00a0That’s the eye of the storm in\u00a0Syria’s five-year-old civil war. The Assad regime is holding large swaths of territory. Groups linked to al-Qaida hold some ground. And Russia maintains a large airbase and is concentrating its airstrikes in support of Assad’s forces west of the Euphrates.\u00a0For now, the U.S. has promised\u00a0Turkey not to give the Kurds military support for operations west of the Euphrates River, which gives the Pentagon no major ally on the ground in that area and greatly restricts its military options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bottom line: Any major American-backed operation in northwestern Iraq would have many unknowable second- and third-order effects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We just don’t know if we’d be doing more harm than good,” Knights said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the greatest questions that remain\u00a0is\u00a0timing. U.S. military officials have been talking about Mosul for months, while saying little about Raqqa.\u00a0But Raqqa may emerge as a more achievable near-term goal. “I bet you Mosul is going to prove difficult and that maybe we end up doing Raqqa first. The target is not as hard as Mosul,”\u00a0said Knights, who was a member of a military advisory group in Iraq a few months ago. “I think it\u2019s something we can do in the first half of 2016,\u00a0whereas I don’t think Mosul really is.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But another unknown is the true depth of ISIS support in these cities. Many U.S. officials hope that once an invasion force arrives, armed resistance will erupt inside these cities and help expedite the extremist group’s defeat. “I do think that when the Islamic State starts to lose control over these areas, it could happen pretty quickly,” Lund said. “If they start to weaken and can’t pay their fighters and can’t protect their fighters, then some of them might split off and become neutralized. I don’t think we\u2019ve seen much of that yet. There are certainly a lot of groups that would probably like to rise up against the Islamic State, but they don’t see that as a viable option. If the U.S. is able to bring a force to that region of Arabs and Kurds and others, with an air of inevitability, then maybe that calculus would change.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That raises this question: What happens when \u2014 and if \u2014 ISIS is defeated? Who will control these two\u00a0conservative Sunni Muslim cities?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mosul is\u00a0home to many former Baathist military officers and Islamic extremists. “The sort of people who stand up and liberate Mosul are likely to be al\u00a0Qaida,” Knights said. “That is the reality of it. It\u2019s going to be interesting to see who takes over the city.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American veterans of the previous Iraq war warn that a counterinsurgency phase may follow the collapse of ISIS’s\u00a0statelike institutions.\u00a0“There will be a lot more conventional aspects to the fighting, but it doesn\u2019t negate the need to control the population once conventional operations are over,” Mansoor said. “So the force on the ground should not disregard the\u00a0lessons\u00a0of\u00a0the past 13 years.”<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/atype-video-jwplayer>
Military Times Pentagon correspondent Andrew Tilghman explains how the fight against Islamic State militants is expected to evolve in the year ahead.<\/figcaption><\/figure>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It involves a lot of old-school war fighting and could require more Americans on the ground to support unproven 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