{"id":317254,"date":"2017-07-14T02:37:16","date_gmt":"2017-07-14T01:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/us-commander-predicts-weeks-more-of-fighting-in-liberated-mosul\/"},"modified":"2017-07-14T02:37:16","modified_gmt":"2017-07-14T01:37:16","slug":"us-commander-predicts-weeks-more-of-fighting-in-liberated-mosul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/us-commander-predicts-weeks-more-of-fighting-in-liberated-mosul\/","title":{"rendered":"US commander predicts weeks more of fighting in \u201cliberated\u201d Mosul"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>US commander predicts weeks more of fighting in \u201cliberated\u201d Mosul<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Bill Van Auken<br \/>\n    <br \/>13 July 2017<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>Gun battles continued to rage and air strikes sent plumes of smoke rising over Iraq\u2019s devastated second largest city Wednesday, more than 36 hours after the country\u2019s prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, proclaimed victory in the nine-month US-backed siege of Mosul.<\/p>\n<p>The top US commander in the US interventions in Iraq and Syria, Gen. Stephen Townsend, told Pentagon reporters via a video call from Baghdad that fighting in the city could go on for weeks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMake no mistake, this victory alone does not eliminate ISIS, and there\u2019s still tough fighting ahead,\u201d Townsend said. \u201cThere are still pockets of resistance in Mosul, holdouts, and hidden IEDs that will take weeks to clear.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added that there remained \u201ca lot of mopping up and back-clearing to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>These terms are military euphemisms for a continuation of the killing and destruction that has left tens of thousands of civilians in Mosul either dead or wounded and driven over 900,000 from their homes.<\/p>\n<p>There are growing indications that the \u201cmopping up\u201d being carried out by Iraqi security forces and sectarian militias operating with the aid and guidance of US Special Forces \u201cadvisers\u201d involves a campaign of revenge assassinations and terror against anyone believed to have collaborated with ISIS during the three years it controlled Mosul, as well as against the families of suspected ISIS members and supporters.<\/p>\n<p>Iraqi security forces have been dragging away men and boys seeking to escape the city. The <em>Washington Post<\/em> described a \u201cscreening station\u201d set up in an old fairground on the eastern bank of the Tigris River where \u201cdozens of men sat in rows last week and waited for judgment.\u201d The&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2017\/07\/13\/mosu-j13.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 US commander predicts weeks more of fighting in \u201cliberated\u201d Mosul By Bill Van Auken 13 July 2017 Gun battles continued to rage and air strikes sent plumes of smoke rising over Iraq\u2019s devastated second largest city Wednesday, more than 36 hours after the country\u2019s prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, proclaimed victory in the nine-month US-backed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-317254","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}