Northern Iraq offensive (June 2014)

The Northern Iraq offensive (June 2014) began on 4 June 2014, when the Islamic State began a major offensive from its territory in Syria into Iraq against Iraqi and Kurdish forces, following earlier clashes that had begun in December 2013 involving guerillas.

The Islamic State and its allies captured several cities and surrounding territory, beginning with an attack on Samarra on 4 June, followed by the seizure of Mosul on 10 June, and Tikrit on 11 June. As Iraqi government forces fled south on 13 June, Kurdistan Regional Government forces took control of the oil hub of Kirkuk, part of the disputed territories of Northern Iraq.

The Islamic State called the battles of Mosul and Saladin Governorate "the Battle of the Lion of God al-Bilawi," ( ar, غزوة أسد الله البيلاوي) in honor of Abu Abdulrahman al-Bilawi.

A former commander of the Iraqi ground forces, Ali Ghaidan, accused Former Prime Minister of Iraq, Nuri al-Maliki of being the one who issued the order to withdraw from the city of Mosul.

By late June, the Iraqi government had lost control of its borders with both Jordan and Syria. Prime Minister of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki called for a national state of emergency on 10 June following the attack on Mosul, which had been seized overnight. However, despite the security crisis, Iraq's parliament did not allow Maliki to declare a state of emergency; many Sunni Arab and Kurdish legislators boycotted the session because they opposed expanding the prime minister's powers.

Background

Since December 2013, clashes involving tribal militias, Iraqi security forces, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have been occurring throughout western Iraq. In early January 2014, ISIL militia successfully took control of Fallujah and Ramadi, bringing much of Al Anbar Governorate under their control. Afterwards, the Iraqi Army began conducting an offensive against the Anbar region, the stronghold of ISIL, with the stated goal of bringing the region under government control. Prior to conducting this counter offensive, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki gave a controversial speech in which he charactized the military campaign as a continuation of the ancient sectarian war between "the followers of Hussein and the followers of Yazid", a reference to a 7th-century defining battle for Shi'ites, thereby alienating the Sunnis of Anbar who had prior collaborated with the Iraqi government.

The advances ISIL made in neighboring Syria—a source of their weapons—substantially strengthened their position. In early June, insurgents began to advance up over to central and northern part of Iraqi land following the Iraqi Army's capture in the Anbar industrial zone. At that point, they were still in control of most of Fallujah and Garmah, as well as parts of Haditha, Jurf Al Sakhar, Anah, Abu Ghraib and several smaller settlements in Al Anbar Governorate.

On 29 June 2014, ISIL announced a change of name to Islamic State, and declared a 'Caliphate' that includes Syria and Iraq. They then declared Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the Caliph and leader of all Muslims.

Cause

Some trace the beginnings of current offensive to the Syrian civil war which gave ISIL and other Sunni jihadi groups a cause and a battlefield when it looked like their campaign in Iraq was in decline while critics of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 believe the root of these events should trace back to unsuccessful nation-building as well as sectarian and ethnic division in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's removal from power. Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote that had Obama forcibly intervened in the Syrian civil war, it "could have stopped the carnage spreading today in Syria and in Iraq," while Fareed Zakaria, editor of ''Time'' and former Middle Eastern policy advisor for the Bush Administration, alleged that counterproductive western intervention in Iraq and Syria served to accelerate sectarian infighting in both countries and empowered radicals on all sides. The ''Financial Times'' described the conflicts spanning Iraq and Syria as religious wars akin to Europe's Thirty Years' War.

According to the Iraq's government critics, the pro-Shia policies of al-Maliki have been considered one of the main reasons of alienation Sunni Arabs and Kurds, which has played a significant role in the deterioration of security and the reemergence of Sunni extremists. Conversely, al-Maliki has accused Saudi Arabia of backing the militants of ISIL, who want to carve out a Sunni caliphate in the heart of the Middle East. This view was supported by writers in ''Foreign Policy'' magazine and ''The Daily Beast'' who asserted that the Saudi government, viewing the political ascendancy of Iraq's Shia populace as a threat, elected to provide the Sunni opposition with arms. Michael Weiss traces the origins of ISIL to Ansar al-Islam's infiltration of Iraqi Kurdistan through Iran prior to the invasion of Iraq, and further cites a variety of evidence to claim that Syrian officials intentionally abetted the rise of ISIL to damage the reputation of moderate Syrian rebels.

The Iraqi army which took responsibility for holding northern Iraq, collapsed when militants including ISIL and its allies, with less than 1,000 militants, attacked and seized Mosul and Tikrit easily. The Iraqi army ceded control of Kirkuk to the Kurdish Peshmerga. There are different reasons offered for this event. According to ''The Guardian'', one scenario is that the three Iraqi generals responsible for Mosul, Tikrit, and Kirkuk didn't want to fight for a state that wasn't working. According to ''The Daily Telegraph'', the other view is that the generals in the military headquarters of these cities had shared the same Ba'athist ideology and were the first to flee. Another scenario is that the Iraqi troops quickly realized they were no match for battle-hardened and ideologically motivated jihadis heading their way. A third theory is that the Kurds had long ago lost faith in prime minister Nouri al-Maliki's ability to serve either their interests or those of Iraq.

Washington Institute for Near East Policy analyst Michael Knights noted that mutual opposition to the Shia-led government allowed for an alliance between the hitherto ideologically opposed ISIL and secular Ba'ath influenced insurgents such as the Naqshbandi order. Coordination between both groups granted ISIL the assistance of underground networks of former military, insurgents, Sunni officials and tribal groups sympathetic to the Ba'ath era government, thereby allowing a relatively small number of militants to execute a "coup" in Sunni regions where the banned Ba'ath party still retains a degree of support. The presence of Naqshbandi, MCIR and other secular Sunni insurgent groups has therefore led to tribes and some Awakening Councils opposed to ISIL supporting the insurrection. Additionally, Knights reported that in the years preceding the insurrection, the Naqshbandi led by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri aggressively forged ties to elements of Sunni civil society opposed to the Maliki government, encouraged the establishment of protest camps at sites including Hawija and attempted to co-opt Sunni militia. The arrival of ISIS militants from Syria ultimately serving as the final catalyst behind a broader revolt.

Offensive

Assault on Samarra

On 4 and 5 June 2014, ISIL militants attacked and captured parts of the city of Samarra. The ISIL operatives blew up a police station south of Samara overnight, killing several policemen, before they advanced on the city in pick-up trucks, raiding checkpoints along the way. They entered the city from the east and west and quickly captured the municipality building, university and the two largest mosques. The insurgents had reached to within from the Al-Askari Mosque, which was defended by three security belts. Militants targeted command centres near the shrine. Soon, government reinforcements were sent from Baghdad and the military managed to regain control of the city, pushing militant forces out of Samarra. 12 policemen and several civilians were killed in the fighting, while an army official claimed 80 militants also died.

Fall of Mosul and push into Kirkuk

On 6 June, ISIL attacked Mosul from the northwest and quickly entered the western part of the city. The ISIL forces numbered approximately 1,500, while there were at least 15 times more Iraqi forces. The assault started at 02:30 in the morning when ISIL convoys of pickup trucks advancing from the west shot their way through the two-man checkpoints into the city. By 03:30, street fighting was raging in Mosul. In southern Mosul, five suicide bombers attacked an arms depot killing 11 soldiers. Two suicide bombers also killed six people in the village of Muaffakiya, near Mosul. Heavy fighting continued in the city the next day. Over the two days, 61 militants, 41 government troops and seven civilians were killed.

As the militants advanced they seized military vehicles and weapons and reportedly hanged soldiers and lit them ablaze, crucified them, and torched them on the hoods of Humvees. On the western edge of Tamoz 17 neighbourhood, police from the Fourth Battalion made a stand against the insurgents as government forces were order to form a defensive line to cordon off the besieged western Mosul neighbourhoods from the Tigris River.

While fighting raged in Mosul, on 8 June, a double bomb attack, including a suicide bomber, against the Kurdish PUK party office in the town of Jalawla left 18 people dead, most of them members of the Kurdish security forces. At the same time, ISIL advanced to the east of Mosul, capturing the Hawija, Zab, Riyadh, and Abbasi areas west of the city of Kirkuk, and Rashad and Yankaja to its south after government forces retreated.

By this time, insurgents surged into Mosul, sleeper cells hiding in the city had been activated and neighbourhoods rallied to them. The insurgents bombed a police station in the al-Uraybi neighbourhood and charged into the area around the Mosul Hotel, on the western bank of the Tigris, where a battle post was set up for 30 police SWAT members.

The next day, ISIL forces executed 15 security forces members captured near Kirkuk. Four days later, on 13 June, in the eastern part of the province, Kurdish military forces (Peshmerga) advanced and took the city of Kirkuk, after government forces abandoned their posts in the face of the ISIL offensive, expanding the Kurdish zone of control in Northern Iraq. Kurdish forces then awaited further orders before moving towards the areas controlled by ISIL. A Peshmerga spokesman said, "The whole of Kirkuk has fallen into the hands of Peshmerga, no Iraqi army remains in Kirkuk now." Ten tanks and dozens of Humvee vehicles that had been abandoned by the Army were seized by Kurdish forces.

By the afternoon of 9 June on Mosul's front, some 40 members of the Fourth Police Battalion were among the last local police fighting to hold back the jihadists in western Mosul. The rest had either defected or deserted. At 04:30 in the afternoon, a military water tanker, rigged with explosives, raced towards the Mosul Hotel where the policemen were stationed. The subsequent explosion wounded the battalion's commander, Colonel Dhiyab Ahmed al-Assi al-Obeidi, whose leg was ripped open by the blast. Other police officers then transported him by boat across the river. This attack broke the defensive line in the west of the city.

That night, generals Aboud Qanbar and Ali Ghaidan decided to withdraw across the river, leaving Lieutenant General Mahdi Gharawi, the operational commander of Nineveh Governorate, at his command post without any orders. Ghaidan and Qanbar's retreating convoy created the impression that Iraq's security forces were deserting and so Iraqi Army soldiers started to flee Mosul. The 2nd Division (Iraq) had deserted the city within a few hours and both Ghaidan and Qanbar arrived in Kurdistan the next day.

On the morning of 10 June, Gharawi and 26 of his men, who were still at the operation command centre in the western part of the city, decided to fight their way across a bridge to eastern Mosul. On the east bank, their five vehicles were set ablaze and after coming under heavy fire, during which three of the soldiers were killed, it was every man for himself, as Gharawi said. In the east, Gharawi and three of his men commandeered an armoured vehicle with flat tires and headed north to safety. The militants were in control of much of the city by midday on 10 June. The militants seized numerous facilities, including Mosul International Airport, which had served as a hub for the U.S. military in the region. It was thought all aircraft located there had been captured, including helicopters and jet fighters. The militants also claimed to had released at least 2,400 prisoners, after seizing police stations and prisons across the city. However, after the takeover of Badush prison near Mosul, ISIL separated and removed the Sunni inmates, while the remaining 670 prisoners were executed. At the end of 10 June, ISIL was considered to be in control of Mosul.

On 11 June, ISIL members seized the Turkish consulate in Mosul and kidnapped 48 Turkish citizens including the consul general, three children and several members of the Turkish Special Forces. Reports suggested the abductees were taken to a nearby militant base and were unharmed. An unnamed Turkish official confirmed the government was in contact with the insurgents, while Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held an emergency meeting with members of the National Intelligence Agency (MIT) and Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay to discuss the situation. The daring assault came a day after 28 Turkish truck drivers were abducted by militants while delivering fuel to a power plant in Mosul. Earlier that day, the governor of Ninawa Governate, Atheel al-Nujaifi, accused the military commanders that were in Mosul of abandoning the battlefield and fleeing from the city. The governor demanded that they be tried in a military court. He also stated that it was not just ISIL that captured Mosul but that other small militias had provided support in capturing the city. On 20 September 2014 the hostages captured on 11 June 2014 from the Turkish consulate in Mosul were released.

ISIL seized large quantities of US-supplied military equipment. It also freed thousands of prisoners, many of whom are likely to join the insurgency.

There were conflicting reports about the east bank of Mosul, which has a significant population of Assyrians, Kurds, Turkmens, Shabaks and Armenians, with some suggesting it was controlled by Kurdish Peshmergas while according to others it was ISIL-controlled.

Sources within the Iraq government allege that in the months preceding the assault, Ba'ath loyalists led by al-Douri had been in contact with disaffected Sunni officers who either defected or withdrew upon the ISIL-Ba'ath attack. While speaking to the charity Aid to the Church in Need, Chaldean Catholic Church Archbishop Amel Nona stated "Mosul's last remaining Christians had left now a city which until 2003 was home to 35,000 faithful."

Conquest of Baiji and Tikrit

On 11 June, insurgents advanced into the oil refinery town of Baiji, seizing the main court house and police station and setting them on fire. The militants, who were travelling in a group of around 60 vehicles, also took control of the Baiji prison and freed all the inmates. Local residents told members of the media that ISIL sent a group of local tribal chiefs ahead of them to convince the 250 guards at the oil plant to withdraw, while soldiers and police had been warned to leave as well. Later in the day, militants reportedly retreated from Baiji, either due to persuasion from local tribal leaders or due to reinforcements from the Iraqi Army's Fourth Armored Division arriving in the city. However, the next day it was confirmed ISIL was still in control of the town, except the refinery which was surrounded.

Continuing their offensive, on the evening of 11 June, insurgents took full control of the city of Tikrit, the hometown of former president Saddam Hussein and the second provincial capital to fall in two days. Local officials reported that checkpoints had been set up around the city, while at least 300 inmates had been freed from the city's prisons, many of them serving sentences under terrorism charges. Two police stations were burned down and a military base was captured. ISIL forces had also reached Samarra and were fighting government troops at the city's northwest entrance.

At this point, Iraqi government officials described the situation as a "strategic disaster" for the Iraqi government and army.

Advance towards Baghdad and into Diyala

On 12 June, ISIL continued their advance towards Baghdad, the capital and largest city of Iraq, moving into towns just an hour's drive from the city. It controlled parts of the small town of Udhaim, 90 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, after most of the army troops left their positions and withdrew towards the nearby town of Khalis in Diyala Governorate. ISIL also captured ten towns in Saladin Governorate, but not Tuz Khormato, Dujail, Balad, Samarra or Amirli. Samarra had reportedly become surrounded by ISIL forces.

Meanwhile, an Iraqi Border Patrol battalion stationed along the Syrian border in the western Anbar Governorate abandoned its positions in the face of advancing ISIL forces to break out to the relative safety of the Kurdish-controlled town of Sinjar in Nineveh. However, the convoy of 60 trucks and hundreds of border police were thrown into disarray and panic when a small force of ISIL vehicles attacked them en route. By the time Kurdish forces arrived, the police force had been completely routed, with an unknown number of killed and captured, while others fled into the desert, leaving all their vehicles behind. Only two policemen managed to arrive at Sinjar on foot.

In the early hours of 13 June, ISIL seized two towns in Diyala Governorate, after security forces abandoned their posts in Al-Sadiyah and Jalawla. Several villages around the Hamrin Mountains were also captured.Insurgents take two more Iraqi towns, Obama threatens air strikes
At the same time, Kurdish forces entered Jalula to secure offices of Kurdish parties in the town.

Government counter-attack

On 13 June 2014, Iraqi forces supported by elements of the Quds Force and Iranian Revolutionary Guards had gathered in the town of Samarra and claimed to have regained control of parts of Saladin Governorate, namely the town of Dhuluiyah. Journalists from Al-Monitor embedded in Mosul and Tikrit reported that repeated airstrikes by the government made ISIL militants depart from conspicuous positions within the cities. In their place, militants associated with the Naqshbandi Army and other anti-government groups led by former Ba'ath officers assumed the visible role of patrolling and administration. Militants were reported to have appointed former Ba'ath generals Azhar al-Obeidi and Ahmed Abdul Rashid as the governors of Mosul and Tikrit. Sunni militants remained in control of Tikrit and its strategically significant COB Speicher military base and air field. Insurgents in Tikrit were reported to be mining the roads leading into the city and positioning artillery to resist an anticipated siege.

According to ''The Guardian'' newspaper, the call to arms by the highest Shia authority in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, on 13 June mobilized in less than one day around a division of militiamen who, unlike the military, would not run from a fight with the insurgents.

On 14 June, Al-Maliki went to Samarra and declared "Samarra will be the starting point, the gathering station of our troops to cleanse every inch that was desecrated by footsteps of those traitors." There were conflicting reports about the situation of al-Dhuluiya, outside of Samarra. Government officials and state TV claimed that Iraqi security forces had taken control of the town, but security officials in Samarra and witnesses there told CNN the town was still under ISIL control.

The same day, the Iraqi military attacked ISIL forces in al-Mutasim, south-east of Samarra, driving militants out into the surrounding desert. Meanwhile, the bodies of 128 Iraqi soldiers and policemen killed in clashes with ISIL were received by medical staff in Mosul.

Also, it was reported that the Iraqi Army had killed seven Kurdish security forces in an airstrike in Diyala. Jabbar Yawar, the secretary general of the Peshmerga, said talks with Iraqi authorities were under way to ascertain what had happened. The next day, the military recaptured Ishaqi where the burned bodies of 12 policemen were found.

On 28 June, Iraqi forces launched an attack against the city of Tikrit.

Renewed ISIL advance

Late on 15 June, after repeated assaults, an insurgent assault, primarily led by the Naqshbandi Army and former Ba'athists, captured Tal Afar

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