ERBIL, Kurdistan Region--The Iraqi Army will need the assistance of the Kurdish Peshmerga for the long anticipated liberation of Mosul, Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari recently told Reuters. "Mosul needs good planning, preparations, commitment from all the key players," the finance minister said. "Peshmerga is a major force; you cannot do Mosul without Peshmerga," he insisted. However it will be a "very, very challenging," battle Zebari warned given the fact that ISIS have "for some time been strengthening" their positions in Mosul. But it will nevertheless be doable. Iraqi military leaders have vowed that Mosul--ISIS's stronghold in Iraq--will be the next target after the liberation of Ramadi. But their Kurdish counterparts insist that the Peshmerga forces will only play an assisting role in any offensive to recapture the city. Kurdish leaders, including President Masoud Barzani, argue that they will stay away from Iraq's sectarian war and don't want to be seen as occupiers by going beyond the borders of the Kurdistan Region. Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi vowed that Mosul will soon be liberated and that ISIS will be defeated in 2016. "We are coming to liberate Mosul and it will be the fatal and final blow to Daesh," he declared. Abadi reasoned that ISIS will end when they are forced from Mosul since, "It's there where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his caliphate. It's liberally their capital."
