, which suffer isolation due to US raids and besiege of Iraqi forces, despite US warnings months ago from the scheduled date for that attack.
The newspaper quoted US officials as saying that a ground raid to restore Mosul city, Iraq's second largest city still has many weeks, according to schedule, and that the timing of the raid is subjected to the speed of training additional Iraqi ground forces to restore the city, and also strength training to restore the city after controlling it, and also depends on the solution to the growing conflict between Baghdad and Washington on the readiness of the Iraqi army to carry out such a complex battle.
The newspaper pointed out that the United States and its allies have carried out more than 660 strikes in Iraq, which make it difficult for ISIS to gather a large number of fighters in one place or traveling in convoys, and that more air and ground strikes made it difficult for the organization to re-furnish itself with supplies and enhance the strength of armed men in Mosul, which was dominated last June when it moved from Syria, making it one of its headquarters.
But according to US officials quoted by the newspaper, there is no evidence that ISIS terrorists lost their fighting spirit, as there are still thousands of them, despite the air strikes and ground raids carried out by the Iraqi army and Kurdish Peshmerga forces.
The newspaper found that even if the Iraqi army succeeded in excluding terrorists organization of the territory inside Iraq, that strategy will not be effective in dealing with the safe havens of the organization inside Syria, adding that the Iraqi campaign success to address the organization will exacerbate the situation across the border if the militants in Mosul and other Iraqi cities decided to return to Syria, as Obama's plan to arm and train the moderate rebels suffers from severe weakness.
The newspaper pointed out that any military campaign to restore Mosul at the beginning of 2015 will push President Obama to think to make a decision on whether US military advisers will leave the relatively safe driving centers in Iraq, where they work and join the Iraqi and Kurdish troops on the front lines of a tough battle in the urban areas.
It pointed out that the advice provided by American military advisers are limited to one brigade only within the Iraqi army, and it is also unclear what the circumstances in which the White House will allow US advisers to accompany Iraqi units on the battlefield or request the implementation of air strikes as hinted by Chief of Staff of the US Army.
The newspaper said that US and Iraqi officials had confirmed earlier that planning is underway for the implementation of large-scale military campaign to drive ISIS out of Iraq that the raid begins in the spring of 2015, but these new indicators on a raid on Mosul early next year show that the efforts may be faster from what he thought.
The newspaper quoted US officials as saying that the former military campaigns in Iraq's urban areas indicate that the restoration of Mosul involve a bloody fight in the streets, as happened in Fallujah in 2004, noting that the success in Mosul largely depends on the extent of Iraq's new Shiite-led government's ability to win the support of the local police, which belongs mostly to Sunnis, as well as the Kurdish fighters and Sunni tribesmen.
Gen. Lloyd Austin, who served in Mosul within the US forces and said that the city is a rugged land, "so you must be careful that we have the appropriate capacity to restore the city."
The Newspaper noted that the achievement of the Iraqi army to series of military victories in Baiji , Jurf al-Sakher and other cities supplied them with some confidence, and get them to put pressure on the Americans for their support in launching a major operation in Mosul faster than planned.
However, US officials in Baghdad stress that the Iraqi army still lacks the necessary logistics capabilities to combat, and that the initial Iraqi force that offers advice to American soldiers consists of nine Iraqi brigades and three Kurdish brigades.
These officials also refers to the lack of enough local Sunni forces to take control of Mosul to expel militants from them.
The newspaper said that the United States instead, urges Iraqis to press ahead with a plan to create units and National Guard, composed in the basis of the local forces, but Parliament did not vote yet on a draft resolution in the light of opposition from some Shiite leaders, as well as having a feeling that those efforts will stumble probably for some time.
The newspaper pointed to growing calls by some leaders to allow Iraqi forces consisting of Shiite forces and Kurdish troops to enter the populated areas with Sunnis in Mosul and Tikrit, and how those calls were received by Washington's opposition, fearing that deepened sectarian divisions and may be worthwhile spark a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites.