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The Mosul Dam in northern Iraq, the fourth largest in the Middle East, is an immensely strategic asset, resource and target, as it captures the flow of the Tigris River, providing flood control, water and electricity to Mosul’s 1.7 million residents and to a large area in northern Iraq.
If the dam was breached, a floodwall up to 65 feet high would be released traveling southward down the Tigris River valley all the way to Baghdad, nearly 300 miles away and could result in a humanitarian, ecological and economic disaster of almost biblical proportions.
The dam was captured by ISIS forces on August 7 and its recapture has been a major objective of U.S. airstrikes and of Peshmerga and Iraqi forces during the past 10 days.
Over the weekend, U.S. bombers, fighter jets and drones carried out a total of 25 air strikes, hitting more than 30 ISIL vehicles and a checkpoint, followed by 15 additional airstrikes today.
It worked.
Today, in a news conference that also covered the Ferguson situation, the President had some good news. The New York Times:
President Obama said Monday that Iraqi special forces, backed by American war planes, had retaken a strategically critical dam near Mosul, the latest in what he described as a string of positive steps in halting the march of Islamic extremists across the country.
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“This operation demonstrates that Iraqi and Kurdish forces are capable of working together to take the fight to ISIL,” Mr. Obama said in remarks in the White House briefing room, using the acronym for the Sunni extremist group, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. “If that dam was breached, it could have proven catastrophic.”
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Still, Mr. Obama said, “This is going to take time; there are going to be many challenges ahead.” He said that the American military campaign would continue for the foreseeable future..
The recapture of strategically important Mosul dam from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is the government’s most significant success against the Sunni militants since they began their sweep through northern Iraq more than two weeks ago.
Chalk one up for the good guys.
Additional source: U.S. Defense Department
