WASHINGOTN (Sputnik) — In January, Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Col. Steve Warren estimated that the US-led coalition against Daesh would need to train at least ten brigades of Iraqi security forces to retake Mosul. Warren admitted it would take many months before the coalition could launch an offensive.
"It’s already started," Newsweek reported McGurk as saying in a speech on Wednesday at the American University of Iraq in Sulaimani. "It’s a slow, steady squeeze."
Last June, Daesh took hold of Mosul and seized the country’s largest dam, which is now at risk of collapsing and causing a major humanitarian catastrophe.
The US-led coalition has been launching airstrikes against Daesh positions in Iraq since August 2014. The terror group has occupied large areas of land in Iraq as well as Syria and proclaimed an Islamic caliphate there.
