WASHINGTON — As Iraqi security forces train to eventually retake the city of Mosul from as many as 2,000 IS militants currently digging into defensive positions, Baghdad is stocking up on counter-IED vehicles to help clear the roads for its troops.
The Baghdad government has struck a $73.5 million deal with Charleston, S.C. company Critical Solutions International (CSI) and its partner DCD Protected Mobility, to provide an undisclosed number of Husky 2G mine detection systems.
The Husky, which was named one of the US Army's top ten most innovative technologies of 2010, has been used by American and European allies in Iraq and Afghanistan for several years.
While Iraqi and Peshmerga forces have been fighting their way through small villages in the Mosul region for weeks and are working with the US-led coalition to direct air strikes on IS supply routes into the city from Syria, few doubt that the road into the densely-packed city will be laced with roadside bombs looking to slow or stop the advance.
"For sure, ISIS is using IEDs" Lt. Gen. John Johnson head of the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) told Defense News in a recent interview.
"Most of these violent extremist networks use IEDs as the principal weapon to try to achieve their goals" he added. "Certainly, they have snipers, small arms, rockets, and those kinds of things. But if you look at the kinds of weapons they have that might achieve a strategic impact—be it a terrorist attack or with vehicle borne IEDs—they are using IEDs to get that stuff done."
IS fighters recently used an Iraq Army M113 armored troop carrier as a vehicle-borne IED to attack an Iraqi army position, in just one example of what could await Iraqi and Pesh forces as they make their push toward Mosul.
There are currently about 3,200 Iraqi army forces going through US-run training centers in Iraq, building on the 2,000 or so already trained, a CENTCOM official said last week. They are being trained by about 2,600 US troops at five training bases throughout the country, along with smaller numbers of Canadian, UK, Spanish, Danish and German special forces assisting in the effort.
The United States and allies have also given Iraqi forces about six brigades worth of equipment during the last several months.
And in order to give those forces the ability to call in more precise airstrikes once they make it into Mosul, the US may send forward air controllers to call in strikes from the front lines.
Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard of the Kuwait-based Third Army recently told Defense News that there may in fact be "a limited need" for these troops to be deployed, even while there is currently no current requirement for their deployment.
"That really should not be necessary," he added. "I personally lead our first forces in Iraq from June to November, what we are doing is advising and assisting," he said.
Canadian military leaders have already acknowledged that their special forces in northern Iraq have engaged in several firefights with IS fighters, and have called airstrikes in on targets on which they had visual contact.
CENTCOM estimates that it Baghdad will be able to mass about 20,000 to 25,000 Iraqi and Peshmerga troops to move on Mosul this spring, a number that accounts for about half of the entire 48,000-strong Iraqi army.
