The Islamic State group (ISIS / Daesh / ISIL) has released a video of their militants digging tunnels in Iraq in what appears to be a preparation for the upcoming siege of Mosul.
Mosul, Iraq’s second city, has been held by ISIS since the summer of 2014.
Preparations to retake it, however, are being undertaken by the Iraqi Army and Kurdish militia.
The ISIS video an edited and shortened version of which is provided by the AP doesn’t name Mosul directly but it has been released by the group’s Nineveh governorate, which includes Mosul, and has pictures of the city.
The video has a defensive and somewhat downbeat tone that shows a marked contrast with earlier ISIS propaganda, which tended to emphasize aggression and military success.
It was not possible to determine with certainty that the tunnels in the video are really in the Mosul area or were filmed in some other parts of Iraq or Syria.
As many as 10,000 ISIS fighters are thought to be in the city, which had a pre-war population of about 2.5 million.
S/SH 11
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