Nils Henrik/Demotix. All rights reserved.
The United States looks back on over a year of combat operations against the Islamic State. The cancer of ISIL, left festering in Syria, metastasised with hideous speed throughout the Sunni Corridor in Al Anbar province and sped on technicals (pick-up trucks mounting heavy machine guns, anti-aircraft cannons or recoilless rifles) to take the ancient Arab city of Mosul, even as the Iraqi units assigned to defend it melted away, deserting en masse. In their wake, mass executions, beheadings, rape and despoilment.
Shocked out of ambivalence with the unexpected fall of Iraq’s second city, President Obama ordered Operation Inherent Resolve, a coalition of fifteen nations dedicated to supporting the Iraqi people and military and combating ISIL through the provision of equipment, training and air support to the Iraqi Army. Operations began in Iraq on 15 June 2014 and in Syria on 22 September.
