“We think anywhere from 3,000 to 4,500 ISIS fighters are in Mosul. It’s a mixture of Iraqi and foreign fighters,” US-led coalition’s spokesman Air Force Col. John Dorrian said.
However, Saudi fighter of ISIS, Abu Azzam al-Muhajir, told ARA News they have at least 7,000 fighters in Mosul, the ISIS main bastion in northwestern Iraq.
“Over 7,000 fighters are ready to defend Mosul,” he said.
“Also, there are still 500,000 civilians living in Mosul, and they will not accept to return to the central government’s authority” al-Muhajir told.
The US-led coalition said it will continue to attack ISIS in Mosul. “They show no signs of really trying to leave Mosul at this point. Really, what they’ve done is they’ve continued to dig in, build elaborate defenses and so we’re really ready for a tough fight there,” Colonel Dorrian said.
"Another ISIS source told ARA News that group has cordoned all the roads to Nineveh and has completed almost 80 per cent of their project to build trenches around Mosul, which are filled with crude oil. Moreover, they have put concrete cement near the entrances of the city’s neighbourhoods."
“The Iraqi security forces have been well trained to do urban style warfare. That’s one of the things that we’ve done for refit. We are expecting ISIS to have a mixture of Iraqis and foreign fighters. They do continue to flow in and some of them are fixed in place there,” he added.
The US-led coalition official said that at least 8 to 12 brigades of the Iraqi army will march on Mosul.
We also expect the Iraqi police to be involved, because they’re going to be a part of the effort to maintain security once areas have been liberated, to hold those areas so Daesh [ISIS] can’t re-infiltrate,” Dorrian said.
“We think it’s going to be a very large battle. We do expect the Kurdish Peshmerga to be involved, although the details of their involvement are still being worked out. And we also expect there to be tribal forces involved,” he concluded.
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