AMMAN, Jordan — With a few shoves of a battering ram, a wooden door flies open and a line of Iraqi troops file into a five-story tower with guns raised. The next ten minutes are a frenzy as men shout commands, which are frequently drowned out by bursts of gunfire, and smoke grenades pour thick green smoke into the air.
All adversaries are dead by the end of the mission. But unfortunately, the lone civilian in the building also has been shot once in the stomach.
Luckily, the victim is just a photo taped to the bulletproof wall, and the operation was simply a training exercise meant to advance the skills of the participating Iraqi officers.
The battle, for today, is just practice. But by the end of the year, some of these troops may take part in the fight to retake Mosul — Iraq’s second-largest city and the de-facto headquarters for Islamic State terrorists in the country.
"I think they are ready to execute missions," said Jordanian special operator Lt. Col. Naser Lutfi-Arabiyat, who has spent the last six weeks training non-commissioned officers from the Iraqi army and ministry of interior on basic squadron- and platoon-level tactics.
"We trained them how to lead and how to train their soldiers, how to fight, how to plan and how to sustain," he said.
The course — executed by the Jordanian military at its King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center (KASOTC) compound — is officially spearheaded by NATO, which hopes to build a more stable, permanent cadre of squadron leaders. Over a period of six weeks, 28 NCOs participated in a mix of classroom and live training meant to increase their weapons expertise and ability to maneuver in small groups.
Defense News was invited by NATO to witness training events on the ground Sept. 28 at the state-of-the-art facility in Amman. Over the course of a morning, Iraqi soldiers practice dismounted and mounted operations in exercises where fellow countrymen acted as pretend enemies. Troops demonstrated proper weapons handling, driving, and building-clearing techniques in short live-fire exercises conducted in a mock village — one of several simulated urban environments at the training ground.
At a graduation ceremony the following day, KASOTC director Col. Ahmad Kaiber acknowledged the real-world danger facing the officers. "I know some of you are going to a real operation, and I hope you are safe," he told them in Arabic.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has vowed to retake Mosul, which has been under ISIL control since 2014, by the end of this year. Speaking to international press on Sept. 26, Jawad al-Chlaihawi, the Iraqi ambassador to Belgium, acknowledged that the timetable for the assault had not yet been set in stone.
"The decision to retake Mosul will be taken when the situation is right," he told reporters through a translator.
The escalation of training activities by the West may suggest that date is near. The United States is increasing its presence in preparation for an offense on Mosul, announcing on Wednesday plans to add about 600 more troops to Iraq to train and assist the Iraqi army and local militias.
For its part, NATO has focused its efforts on longer-term, institution-building programs, which it hopes will boost Iraq’s chances of long-term stability. Along with the NCO training, the organization is funding a number of courses at KASOTC that teach civil-military cooperation, combat casualty care and countering improvised explosive devices in urban and residential spaces.
Once Mosul is liberated, the international community needs to be prepared for a "substantial" humanitarian crisis in Iraq, a NATO official explained Monday on the condition of anonymity. There also will be a requirement for enhanced intelligence operations, as the Islamic State likely will seek to augment recruitment and operations elsewhere, including in Europe.
"Mosul is key, and the coalition and Iraqis have been steadily positioning, squeezing and preparing for the Mosul operation. Daesh has also been preparing for this for two years, so it will not be easy," the official added, using the Arabic nickname for the Islamic State.
KASOTC trainers suggested that some of the Iraqi army and ministry of interior participants — while proud of their military and prepared to fight for their country — lacked knowledge of some fundamental tactics, techniques and procedures. Most students arrived at the center with only low- or mid-level competency, and at the outset of training activities in Jordan, the Iraqi NCOs struggled with basic command and control, Lutfi-Arabiyat told Defense News.
"They don’t work like a small unit," he said of the Iraqi force’s initial performance. "We trained them how to deal with five guys in a small squad, how to divide responsibilities and duties to execute the mission."
By the end of the course, most of the participants reached a "very good" and sometimes "excellent level." Three officers, who came in with a decade-plus of experience, are now advanced enough to become trainers, he said.
"We made them think in a different way. Leadership. That was the goal," he said.
Iraqi troops breach a doorway during a Sept. 28 training exercise in Amman, Jordan. The class of 28 noncommissioned officers finished the six-week NATO program a day later.
Photo Credit: Jake Tupman/NATO Channel
Another challenge facing the Iraqi forces is equipment, which Lutfi-Arabiyat called a "mixed bag of nuts" encompassing weaponry from both US and Russian stocks.
"To be honest with you, they have lack of experience on weapons," particularly with guns used by the US military, he said. "They are professionals at AK-47s" or other Eastern weapons, but have less practice with M4 rifles operated by the US Army and Marine Corps. The troops also only had "weak experience" with sniper rifles and had trouble using the scopes properly.
Based on the initial observation of this first-ever type of NATO training, Lutfi-Arabiyat said he revised the curriculum to give the students more time practicing shooting and weapons handling, nixing some of the physical training instead.
Future training will likely incorporate radios, but communications gear can be sparse or nonexistent in the field. Radios usually are not used by Iraqi soldiers at the squadron level, he said.
"They are not really connected," he said.
Valerie Insinna is Defense News' air warfare reporter. She previously worked the Navy/congressional beats for Defense Daily, which followed almost three years as a staff writer for National Defense Magazine. Prior to that, she worked as an editorial assistant for the Tokyo Shimbun’s Washington bureau.
