According to a recent press release from the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service, six neighborhoods on the eastern fringe of Mosul were liberated on Nov. 4. The new gains against the Islamic State group came amid the ground assault that began in the city on Oct. 17 when Iraqi and coalition forces advanced with ground troops.

Mosul holds important strategic value in the war against the Islamic State group as the largest city controlled by the group. It is also a reminder of the swift collapse of Iraqi forces in northern Iraq during the Islamic State group’s rapid expansion in 2014. Even the Islamic State group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who had been exceptionally silent in recent weeks, released a rare audio message in light of the Mosul assault, rallying the Islamic State group’s forces to hold the city against the group’s various enemies.

Looking closely at the members of the coalition assault on Mosul, the city’s liberators are far from fully united. In terms of the major constituent groups attacking the city, Kurdish peshmerga from the Kurdistan Democratic Party are leading the northern advance on the city. Kurdish forces aligned with the KDP have been the backbone of resistance to the Islamic State group in northern Iraq. However, in the past, peshmerga have focused primarily on liberating Kurdish towns taken by the Islamic State group and generally avoided Sunni Arab communities. Therefore, while Mosul is of strategic importance, it was unlikely that peshmerga would have tried to liberate Mosul on their own. Kurdish forces have been trying to balance military gains in a move for greater autonomy in post-civil war Iraq, but with budget shortfalls plaguing the Kurdish region of Iraq for months as well as recent internal political divisions, the semi-autonomous region has been pushed closer to Baghdad’s leadership in a bid for U.S. and Iraqi aid and support.

Mosul Control Oct. 31-Nov. 3, Courtesy of the Institute for the Study of War

Iraqi government forces are largely leading the assaults on the city, approaching en masse from the southeast. The Iraqi government forces consist of two main groups, namely the Counter Terrorism Service and the Iraqi army. While both have been working to eliminate the Islamic State group, the CTS has historically been the better-trained division of Iraqi security forces. It was set up by the U.S. military in 2007 as a quasi-ministerial organization, separate from the Ministries of Defence and Interior. The Iraqi military is commanded by the Ministry of Defence and has been rigorously trained by foreign military advisers following the retreat and destruction of the army in northern Iraq during the expansion of the Islamic State group in 2014-2015. Most international military assistance and expeditionary groups are attached to the formal Iraqi military as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, an international coalition against the Islamic State group led by the U.S. military. Besides leading the assault, government forces will lead the occupation of the city, and many predict that this will involve protracted urban warfare.

Last in terms of Iraqi liberating forces, there are several militia groups augmenting the assault on the city. Although there are Sunni militia groups assisting in the fight, Shia militias have conducted the bulk of operations against the Islamic State group and compose most of the militia forces organized loosely by the government under Popular Mobilization Units. Despite some umbrella government organization, the groups are largely self-governing. In the battle for Mosul, PMUs have played a lesser role in the city’s liberation compared to other recent fronts, as some feared Shia militias would slaughter the Sunni population of Mosul in the process of liberation, as was alleged of Shia militias in the liberations of both Tikrit and Fallujah. Some militia groups are backed by Hezbollah and Iran, with different goals to the U.S. sponsored coalition.

The ultimate liberation of Mosul will be at least a month-long affair with the battle for Fallujah having taken about the same amount of time. While Mosul lacks Fallujah’s more radical Sunni zeal, given the amount of resources the Islamic State group has devoted to the city it is unlikely that the Islamic State group will retreat to bases in Syria. The battle for Mosul stands to harken the end of the Islamic State group as a major semi-state actor in Iraq and the upcoming reconciliation of post-war Iraq. Given the divisions the Iraqi civil war has driven between Iraq’s Kurdish, Sunni Arab and Shia Arab populations, post-war reconciliation will be difficult, especially given the continued instability in Syria. One can expect to see major settlements underway in Iraq this winter, likely including re-negotiating Erbil’s relationship with Baghdad, de-mobilizing the PMUs and sentencing former members of the Islamic State group.