Attempts by ISIL fighters trapped in the Iraqi desert city of Mosul to shuffle men and supplies between the two halves of the city bisected by the Tigris River has led to a record number of ISIL-operated boats of the ragtag ISIL "navy" being sunk by American and allied aircraft.
Unable to use roads heavily reconnoitered by aerial drones, ISIL or Daesh fighters have taken to the water with apparently little success. The allied coalition reported a huge spike in sinkings along the river as ISIL desperately tries to build its defenses against the upcoming ground attack on Mosul.
The U.S. military is planning an offensive against Mosul, a Sunni city, in stages. In early October, the Iraqi Army and its militia allies will retake northern Nineveh province from ISIL with the final battle in Mosul at month-end. Experts believe the rising number of aerial attacks supports the upcoming effort by the U.S. and Iraq to retake Mosul.
The allies sank 50 assorted boats on September 14 and 16, and the total number of ISIL boats sunk in September to more than 100. Those strikes occurred near the towns of Qayyara and Sultan Abdallah that lie along the Tigris River south of Mosul. The boats are forcibly taken by ISIL from the fishermen that own them and pressed into ISIL service.
One military analyst said ISIL is going to try and move fighters up and down the river when it defends Mosul. The stepped-up allied campaign to destroy any boat plying the Tigris seeks to prevent ISIL from using the river to deploy its forces.
Since it runs directly through Mosul, the Tigris is a convenient "road" that facilitates the deployment of troops and supplies.
The massing of U.S., Iraqi and militia forces for the attack on Mosul continues. This September, the number of US troops in Iraq rose from 4,000 to 4,460 in preparation for the campaign against Mosul.
Mosul had a population of two million in its metropolitan area before ISIL seized the city in June 2014. Mosul is probably defended by 4,000 ISIL fighters, who are turning the city into a killing zone packed with IEDs and booby traps.