The Economist tries to get it right. The center of Ramadi is indeed under ISIS control.
That's "ISIS" as an acronym for Islamic State Is Shxt.
What matters most in Iraq goes to three things:
-- The Sunnis in Syria and in Iraq are now terrified of the ISIS fighters. This is a reversal of the situation on the ground a year ago. Rejection of their Wahhabi/Salafi message is running close to 100%
-- Every Sunni tribe in Anbar Province now opposes ISIS publicly. After taking hundreds of murders from ISIS fighters all over the province, the earlier welcome the tribes put out has been replaced by what amounts to passive resistance.
-- Mosul is surrounded. The section between Sinjar and the Baiji/Tikrit area on the western side of Mosul needs to be beefed up. Reinforcements were sent up out of Baiji on Tuesday. Even with light protection there, ISIS has made no effort to break out from Mosul. (Refer: the Battle of Stalingrad during WW II for a parallel decision.)
Syria is not that different:
-- The Sunnis in Syria have also been taking murders from ISIS. They are extorted for young men and for money. Their vehicles are confiscated. Their banks are robbed. Rape and torture are reported widely.
Palmyra had been surrounded by Nusrah and ISIS forces since 2012. They went in and took over the town administration so today its a news item. Before this they came in and shopped for food. The file pics of the antiquities there -- now in the hands of barbarians -- make a compelling story.
The Economist does try to tell the story broadly, but they are limited by their sources: the United States Department of Defense and the front org, Institute for the Study of War.
Here is the map The Economist copied over from DoD/ISW:
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and the Coalition with corrections:
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Mosul is pretty much surrounded.
What you see with coalition and ISF sources is somewhat different. The big story is that Mosul is now surrounded pending completion of the Sinjar-to-Tikrit/Baiji linkage.
The big area east and north of Baghdad was cleared out in 2014. That ISIS force was an army of substantial size. Altogether 5,000 fighters. Half of the army that invaded and took Mosul in June, 2014. They lost 700 at Amerli and over a 1,000 if you include the dam fights. The rest of them spread out and were defeated in groups of 100 here, 300 there.
ISIS expected the locals to help out; that failed. Tactically, they never learned to respond to artillery.
ISIS raiders/psychopaths have now killed easily ten times as many Sunnis as Yazidi/Shi'ia/Christians combined. You would have a hard time finding one Sunni tribal leader who backs ISIS.
Not so good for Perpetual War. Surround-and-annihilate does just what it says. (Also makes for effective graffiti.)
Text from The Economist article reflects disparities between the last year's actions and what U.S. DoD puts out. Below the fold for examples. You can see the Ad Biz mentality at work rolling out Perpetual War propaganda.
Let's look at Ramadi:
Ramadi, some 110km (70 miles) west of Baghdad, is the capital of Anbar, Iraq’s largest province, and was the last remaining city held by the government in the Sunni-dominated region. IS had occupied parts of the sprawling city for many months, but retaining control of government buildings there was a key part of plans to reconquer the province. In the event, the Iraqi army fared no better than when it fled Mosul, Iraq’s second city, last June, again leaving large quantities of military hardware behind. A wave of suicide trucks punched through Ramadi’s defences, and sent the men who held them running.
...IS still continues to attract foreign and local fighters. Its deployment of convoys of suicide bombers in 15-tonne trucks renders futile attempts to hold fortified lines. It is pushing forward again in Anbar, the heartland of Iraq’s Sunni tribes, and therefore fertile ground for IS, which has drawn much of its support from Sunnis fearful of and marginalised by the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad. And it is also gaining ground again in Syria, on May 20th storming Palmyra. The fear is that it will destroy the site of one of the world’s treasures, a Roman-era city, as it has done to other pre-Muslim antiquities.
The Economist
Never a mention that Palmyra had been surrounded since 2012. Nusrah could have rolled into the city any time they wanted. The city was not a military strong point.
The bit about "15-tonne trucks" represents an upgrade for ISIS suicide-bombers. That's also more like the vehicle used for the revenge bombing in 1982 at the Marine BLT Barracks in Beirut. Different explosive asset. They're also blowing up checkpoints and bunkers, not whole parts of cities.
In Ramadi the ISIS attack took one building complex. The Government Center:
And this neighborhood:
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in 2014.
ISIS got a police armory at the GC. That's the "American weapons" stash. And the workers at the GC retreated with losses held to 15 dead fighting a 200-man attack group.
The Economist reports in text that ISIS had been cleaned out in the area east and north of Baghdad. That did not get transferred to the map. That's a difference of more than 5,000 ISIS fighters, overall, between what is living and what's been killed by the coalition.
The coalition, itself, is reported as a combo of 40 Shia militias. In the Tikrit operation there were Popular Mobilization/Hashid al-Shab fighters from at least 40 local units. They were organized for the battle to three field commands. Command expected an artillery battle since ISIS had captured dozens of heavy guns and more tanks. Didn't happen -- the ISIS fighters are simply too stupid to operate artillery over sustained actions.
At the same time, Sunni tribes were integrated for Tikrit and the surround-phase Mosul operation. All that was worked out earlier at Jurf al-Sakhar.
To repeat: ISIS has been killing Sunnis, mainly, for most of a year. The group at Sinjar murdered 300 to 700 civilians including non-Sunni Yazidis when they retreated back east to Tal Afar. Women and children, the most of it.
Down in Anbar they have killed Sunnis by the thousands. Not a week goes by that ISIS doesn't carry out another slaughter of Sunni civilians.
They are psychopaths. They came to ISIS because they wanted to kill people. To live out historic slaughters. That's what they do.
It's not Mosul in 2014. Nobody in Ramadi, nobody in Palmyra is out waving flags yelling "GO ISIS !!" They're scared shxtless of these freaks.
Saudis and their GCC Wahhab/Salafi co-freaks can throw money to this shxt till the oil runs out. And it's not going to change what they have done, all to try to kill the Assads and their Alawite tribe.
Their stupid obsessions have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent/noncombatant Muslims. If there's a Hell, they earn it day by day. And they have made lasting friendships/alliances form up between Sunni and Shi'ia tribes -- by providing a common enemy -- that had not formed up over the centuries.
Sunni terror of ISIS freaks is not good for Perpetual War.
They are freaks.
The Wahhabi/Salafi Imams can get away with faked spirit visitations. We've all seen "Ghost" and Whoopi playing Oda Mae Brown. They pervert Islam with similar fakery. But when they go off playing at war and a caliphate, they are way over their heads.
Is it good for John McCain, the Muslim Brotherhood guy?
Whatever.