Al-Khudhair told Rudaw that many ISIS militants have left Salahaddin and Anbar and congregated in Mosul now “where the group is reorganizing them for the showdown with the Iraqi army,”
He said that Mosul will be the last and biggest battle with ISIS, adding that agreed with the coalition spokesman in Iraq Col. Steve Warren that it will be a long and bloody battle.
Al-Khudhair feared in the meantime heavy civilian casualties and urged Iraqi security forces to designate corridors to help people escape to safety once the fighting is underway.
Iraq’s Shiite and Sunni leaders have indicated in recent weeks that the offensive against ISIS in Mosul will take place sometime this year, most likely in June.
Mosul has been ISIS’s stronghold in Iraq since June 2014 when its militants attacked from Syria and routed out the Iraqi army and government institutions.
The group has lost much of its territory to Iraqi forces in Salahaddin and Anbar and to the Kurdish Peshmerga in the northern front in the last two years.
US special envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition Brett McGurk told the Washington Post Tuesday that most ISIS militants are now flocking into Libya as their new hub after their recent losses in the region.
