The battle for Mosul is a ferocious struggle that has now been going on for 256 days, or two months longer than the battle of Stalingrad. The fighting between Iraqi government forces and Isis is much smaller in scale than in Russia 75 years ago, but is comparable in its savagery and the importance with which both sides regard the outcome of the battle.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is declaring “the end of the Isis state-let” as Iraqi forces capture the ruins of the al-Nuri mosque where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who may himself be dead, declared the caliphate three years ago. Isis wanted to avoid the humiliation of seeing the Iraqi flag replacing their own colours on the top of the famous minaret.
Wars in Iraq have seen many exaggerated declarations of victory since the US-led invasion in 2003, but this one has more substance than most, even if it is a little premature. Isis fighters still hold part of the Old City of Mosul where the ancient close-packed housing and narrow alleyways are ideal for their style of making war.
Whatever the precise moment when the last Isis resistance is extinguished in the city, the Islamic State as a geographical unit in northern Iraq and western Syria is being smashed up. It still holds some big enclaves in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, but it has lost almost its urban centres aside from Raqqa in Syria and Tal Afar west of Mosul. Isis is rooted in the five or six million strong Sunni Arab community in Iraq which has…