BAGHDAD — Pentagon chief Jim Mattis was in Baghdad Tuesday to show US support for Iraqi forces as they pressed an assault on Tal Afar, the Islamic State (IS) group’s last major bastion in the country’s north.
Mr. Mattis flew in for talks with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and other top officials, as well as Massud Barzani, president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, saying he wants to help keep the regime focused on eradicating IS jihadists.
“Right now our focus is on defeating ISIS inside Iraq, restoring Iraqi sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Mr. Mattis told journalists ahead of his trip to Baghdad, using an alternative acronym for IS.
Iraqi troops, supported by the forces of a US-led international coalition, routed IS in Mosul in July after a grueling nine-month fight for Iraq’s second city.
On Sunday they launched an assault on Tal Afar, once a key IS supply hub between Mosul — around 70 kilometers (45 miles) to the east — and the Syrian border.
In the desert plains around Tal Afar, convoys of tanks and armored vehicles could be seen heading Monday for the jihadist-held city, raising huge clouds of dust.
Mr. Mattis would not make any predictions on the fight.
“ISIS’ days are certainly numbered, but it’s not over yet and it’s not going to be over anytime soon,” said the US defense secretary.
Iraqi forces “fought like the dickens in Mosul, (it) cost them over 6,000 wounded, somewhere over 1,200 killed,” he noted.
Yet that comeback restored the confidence of the Iraqi security forces after their shock loss of Mosul to Islamic State group in 2014.
Mr. Mattis stressed that retaking Mosul would not have happened “without… Abadi’s steady hand reconstituting that army, that was so shattered in 2014, an army he inherited.”
But the comeback also leaned crucially on extensive training, planning and firepower support from the US military.
The future of that support still must be settled, and there will be resistance from Shiite militia and Iranians, said Nicholas Heras, Middle East Security Fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington. — AFP
