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8 November 2016

Israeli intelligence agencies see downside in Mosul


Shi'ite militias launch offensive to seal off western Mosul. Photo from Twitter/Reuters 

Israel’s intelligence agencies are closely monitoring the advance on the ISIS bastion in the Iraqi city of Mosul, and they are not optimistic about the outcome either for Iraq or themselves. 

A report issued Sunday by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), a security think tank, predicts a long siege and sectarian bloodbath in Mosul and an increased likelihood of ISIS attacks on Israel and its vulnerable neighbor Jordan. 

“This fear on Israel’s part is based on an assessment that conditions exist in Jordan that can turn significant portions of the population into Islamic State supporters,” said Shlomo Brom, formerly the director of the Israeli army’s strategic planning division. “The uniqueness of the Islamic State phenomenon lies in the fact that it expanded beyond the borders of one Arab state, both in its ideology and its operations.” 

Citing ISIS activity in Kirkuk, al-Rumba and Sinjar, the ITIC report says that “terrorist attacks and guerrilla warfare can be expected to continue in other arenas to divert attention and resources from the campaign for Mosul and to raise the morale of ISIS’s supporters in Iraq and Syria and beyond.” 

Israel’s connection to the Mosul area traces back to the British Mandate period before the proclamation of the state, when a pipeline ran from the oil fields in Kirkuk through Jordan to the port of Haifa. The assumption is that ITIC reports are based on human, signal and open source intelligence. 

Israel has long maintained a policy of providing covert military assistance to Kurdish groups, and in the past decade extended increased humanitarian aid to the both Kurds and Yazidi Christians in northern Iraq. 

The updated ITIC assessment for Mosul concludes that the conquest will take months with ISIS resisting the advance by using hit-and-run tactics to compensate for the larger forces assembled against them. 

Like Hamas in Gaza, ISIS has dug a substantial network of tunnels to stage surprise attacks and abduct invaders while they blend into the civilian population, who they use as human shields. 

The report raises doubt about the ability of a heterogeneous coalition carrying out the attack on Mosul to effectively conduct itself “the morning after” conquest of the city. 

Sunday, as Shiite militiamen said they were sending some 15,000 fighters to join the battle, the ITIC warned religious factionalism will complicate the “liberation” of Mosul. 

“Overcoming the massive tangle of religious-sectarian rivalries between the city’s Sunni residents and the Shiite Iraqi regime is likely to impede rebuilding of the city, managing daily life for its large population and the establishment of a functioning local services,” the report says. 

Israel’s army has tended to downplay the threat of ISIS military activity in Syrian parts of the Golan Heights and in the Egyptian Sinai since they are largely directed at Cairo and Damascus instead of Tel Aviv. 

But the country’s intelligence agencies are more sensitive to the ISIS threat. Over the past two years, ISIS has made its influence felt in Gaza and the West Bank and successfully recruited several dozen Israeli Arabs. 

Just as the assault on Mosul began, Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, announced the arrest of an Arab-Israeli couple who had joined ISIS. In the indictment brought before a court in Haifa last week, the agency charged 41-year-old Wissam and 30-year-old Sabarin Zabidat on felony counts of illegal travel to an enemy state and enlisting in ISIS. 

Court papers include interrogation transcripts from Wissam Zabidat who said he underwent military training and indoctrination with ISIS in Iraq. 

According to the service, Wissam participated in “operational activity in the framework of guarding Daesh [ISIS] installations close to the combat zone and participated in raids on Iraqi Army positions.” 

During one such raid, he was wounded in the foot and was evacuated to an ISIS hospital in Mosul. Following the injury, Sabarin took to social media to contact her family in Israel and arrange for ransom funds to escape the caliphate. 

“It should be emphasized that the phenomena of Israelis leaving for Syria and Iraq is grave and dangerous,” said a Shin Ben spokesman.

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