Tactical Lessons From Mosul — Infantry Skills Matter Fight against ISIS has proceeded to the city of Mosul. Advance of the combined forces of Iraqi army, Kurdish Peshmergas and Shiite militias has grinded down to a near standstill as ISIS has fallen back and into the streets of Mosul. Why the coalition is unable to decisively crush the numerically inferior ISIS units defending the city? ISIS tactics outside Mosul While ISIS is often described as an insurgency, its tactics are actually a mix of conventional warfare and guerrilla tactics with a splash of extreme brutality and suicide attacks. When ISIS attacked Iraq, it used guerrilla cells set up in advance to cause chaos among the Iraqi security apparatus and then took over the territory with fast moving motorized units. Now that the Islamic State has been pushed on the defense, it continues to use a very deadly mix of tactics. Some units continue to operate as terrorists cells, fading into the population and h...
News and analysis from security and warfare related topics with the focus mostly on Russia and Scandinavia. Occasional de-tours to the current hot spots around the world can be expected. -Petri Mäkelä