Everyone was shocked and worried about the meteoric rise of ISIS and how they managed to capture so much territory in so little time while also facing little resistance from governmental forces in Iraq and, less so, Syria. While the territory ISIS controls hasn’t grown by much and has even retracted in some places, countries around the world noticed how quickly regional governmental forces collapsed in the face of the ISIS assault and how some units retreated before fighting had even begun. The effective abandonment of so much military technology and hardware has given ISIS fighters some dangerous new toys while also allowing them to build morale and their control over captured territory. Because of the embarrassing abilities of Iraqi soldiers, one of the cornerstones of the US-led western effort against ISIS is the training of Iraqi troops to higher standards so that they can fight effectively against ISIS forces.
As news arrives detailing how the Kurds (the only group that has been able to stymie ISIS so far) have taken around 80% of Kobane back from ISIS troops, news also arrives of US soldiers beginning to train Iraqi forces. On December 27th, one of the most important parts of Operation Inherent Resolve began as training for 4 newly-recruited battalions began at a base north of Baghdad. With another group having started training a few days before that, the new battalions are going to be trained in the latest military tactics in an attempt to take land back from ISIS.
The training regimes are a 6-week intensive course and all of the new recruits have been interviewed and vetted in an effort to prevent extremists from infiltrating the units. The vetting process will also hopefully go far towards preventing any more green-on-blue attacks which is when local forces turn on American and western advisors and kill them and any others they can. A total of 12 brigades are planning on being trained by US advisors; 9 are from the Iraqi army and security forces and the other three are going to be Kurdish peshmerga units. Hopefully these highly-trained, motivated, and disciplined brigades will be able to join the fighting soon and put an end to ISIS and all of its atrocities.
If you’d like to read more, the link is here.
