Brigadier General Hajar Ismail, director of coordination and relations at the Ministry of Peshmerga, talks to Gwyn Winfield about what is likely to happen after Mosul falls


What came next


GW: Firstly can you give us an update on the current status of the fighting in Mosul? HI: There is major fighting on the west side of Mosul. Currently ISIS holds ten districts in the old town, which is difficult for Iraqi security forces as the streets are narrow and they cannot use their Humvees and tanks. The other problem is that there are 200,000 civilians in residence who are being used as human shields. ISIS selects buildings, forces the civilians inside them, and then puts two to three snipers on the top; they start fighting the coalition forces with the aim of getting them to target the building so they can use the pictures on social media and say, ‘look they are killing the civilians!’ That is not the case however, they are the ones killing the civilians by using them as human shields. They are also using chemical attacks. Day by day they lose land, and we believe that the more this happens the more they will use chemical weapons (CW) against security forces. We expect the fighting to become more difficult


GW: What agents are they using? Is it mustard or chlorine? HI: It is a mix.


GW: Previously it has been fairly small amounts, more of a nuisance than a serious attempt at CW usage. Is that still the case? HI: It is still the same.


GW: Is this because they are running out, or do you think they are stockpiling for a major counter- offensive? HI: They are suicidal, so if they think this is the end they will use a big chemical attack, and this will affect them and the civilians as well. I believe they will start using more chemicals inside Mosul. If the Iraq security forces control Mosul it is not the end, especially when you go outside the city into open areas where there are villages, and they still control small cities like Tal Afar. They will withdraw to these and do terrorist activities later.


GW: Are there any offensive opportunities to disrupt their chemical capability? Anything that won’t release agent? HI: It is a big problem, there are a lot of civilians inside the city and the Iraqi security forces are trying to control the areas step by step. Sometimes they need to use masks and suits to protect their forces but really it is difficult knowing how to deal with CW attacks once the fighting is inside the city.


GW: In terms of developing the peshmerga CBRN capability, you now have a lot of experience in CW activity, but what are you looking to develop? You have your Chemical Company, but


traditionally this includes elements such as biological detection, that are unnecessary in the current conflict. How are you looking to shape your capability, will it be unique to the peshmerga? HI: No nation has historically had chemicals used on them as often as the Kurdish people and today – even very recently - chemical weapons have been used on them 20 times [NB. BG Ismail is commenting about a long tenure of use, rather than through volume Ed.]. We know it is important to have a chemical defence unit and a CBRN defence unit within the Kurdish regional government (KRG) forces, so now we have a company and a plan to improve it. We will train the company and


provide it with equipment, and we thank the coalition forces for the equipment and training they have provided. It is still not enough to train all the peshmerga soldiers and officers, so even though they are attending different courses they still need detection and protection equipment and we are planing to have a lab for them. In the future the company will become a regiment and the US is helping us to have a specialised unit within the Kurdistan Ministry of Interior, a CBRN unit, which also need more training and kit.


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