US-led coalition can give air support to Shiite Hashd forces in Iraq

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The US-led coalition against ISIS can provide air support to the Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi forces, the coalition’s US spokesman said, after the Pentagon had opposed aiding those Iranian-backed paramilitaries.

Speaking in a Rudaw TV interview, John Dorrian also said that ISIS fighters are increasingly younger and their car bombs lack armored protection, proving the group is losing recruits and resources.

The spokesman said that the coalition could provide air support for the Hashd al-Shaabi, which is also known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), when they are partnered with the Iraqi army.

“We have conducted strikes all over Iraq and we continue to target the enemy anywhere that they can be found,” Dorrian said. “In many cases the Popular Mobilization Forces are partnered with the Iraqi security forces, the army and the police, and in these incidents we can provide support directly to those forces and all of these strikes help with advance.”

Dorrian’s comments signaled a change in position, following the Pentagon’s announcement in late November that the coalition would not provide air support to the PMF, which is one of the components fighting in the Mosul battle, alongside Iraqi forces.

Asked about Denmark’s decision to pull out its F-16 fighter jets from the global coalition, Dorrian said the Danes still remain part of the coalition, currently supported by 68 countries. 

“I wanna correct that point: Denmark continues to be a troop contributing nation,” Dorrian said.  “They rotated their F-16s out of the fight, this was a schedule rotation, and we were all planning for it, and we all knew it is going to happen. They continue to contribute forces, though, for the training mission, and they also have a plan to add additional forces for the removal of explosives,” he said, indicating Denmark may be sending in de-miners. 

More than seven weeks after the launch of the Mosul offensive by a combination of Iraqi security forces, the Kurdish Peshmerga and the PMF, Dorrian said the indications on the ground are that ISIS is losing fighters and resources.

“What we have begun to see is that the forces they are using -- fighters that are confronting the Iraqi security forces -- sometimes they are younger fighters,” Dorrian said.

“Sometimes they are using vehicle-borne improvised devices without the same type of up-armoring that we saw in previous battles, and this is because they are beginning to run out of fighters and they are beginning to run out of resources,” Dorrian added. 

But he warned that the fight ahead is tough, noting that it might take a few more weeks or another couple of months for Mosul to be clear of ISIS.

The Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has repeatedly said that his forces will recapture Mosul before the end of the current year. 

On Wednesday, Iraqi security forces faced stiff resistance in Mosul's southeastern district of al-Salam, about 1.5 km from the Tigris River that divides the city, when ISIS militants overran a hospital. The coalition conducted an airstrike against the hospital, based on a request from the Iraqi army.

Asked about civilian casualties from the strike, Dorrian told Rudaw “we are not exactly sure.”

“We saw no civilians observed in the area, we are not exactly sure. But we did not observe any civilians in the area and we conducted the strike in the interest of protecting the Iraqi Security Forces from firing that Daesh (ISIS) was doing from that building,” he said. 

Asked whether or not the coalition knows the location of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Dorrian said they did not, but would act instantly as soon as he is located.

“We do not have his exact location, if we did he would be struck and killed immediately,” he said.