The Americans don’t trust the Iranians, the Iranians covet Iraq, the Sunnis and Shia have been at each other’s throats for 1,000 years and the Kurds prefer to be left alone.
(FOX)- As coalitions go, the one pieced together to dislodge ISIS from its Iraqi stronghold in Mosul is an odd one. For now, its members are working together, but uneasy alliances and divergent motives could be tested as fighting intensifies, experts told FoxNews.com.
“The Mosul offensive is being led by the government of Iraq and we, the coalition, are providing support by training police and military,” Pentagon spokesman and U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Adrian Rankine-Galloway told FoxNews.com, repeating the official line of all parties.
Coalition forces, including Iraqi Army soldiers, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, Iranian ground troops, Shia militias and U.S. advisers, have freed outlying villages as they encircle the city ISIS captured more than two years ago. The black-clad jihadist army has ruled the city since it overran Iraqi Army soldiers in an assault that humiliated Baghdad and underscored the need for more training.
With the recent deployment of more than 600 troops, the U.S. has nearly 5,000 men and women on Iraqi soil and some 200 advisers deployed alongside Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers.