ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

The recently released ethnographic map of the Iraqi city of Mosul, controlled by the ISIS terrorist group, explains the military developments in the area. This week Iraqi security forces (ISF) have easily sieged the Kurdish village of Gagjali in Mosul’s western outskirts (some sources even describe Gagjali as a Mosul neighborhood, but it is not true). This sucess allowed pro-government media outlets claim a rapid success in the operation to liberate Mosul and to ‘forecast’ significant advances in the coming days. But ‘signficant advances’ have not been made. This situation can be easily explained if somebody wants to take a look at the ethnographic situation in the city. In its propaganda ISIS aims mostly the Suni Arab population of Syria and Iraq. And Kurds are a minority among the terrorist group’s members. This is why some initial success by ISF is expected in the western Kurdish populated outskirts of the city. However, when the ISF reaches the first non-Kurdish (non-Assyrian or ...

The KPV heavy machine gun, which is actively used by terrorists of the Islamic State (IS) group and the Peshmerga forces against each other, has become one of the most brutal weapons during the Iraqi war. A member of the Kurdish Peshmerga with the KPV heavy machine gun (Photo: Reuters) The KPV heavy machine gun, designed to shoot down aircraft, is one of the most brutal weapons that is used by both sides of the Iraqi war: by soldiers of the Iraqi Army and fighters of the popular forces, as well as by terrorists of the Islamic State (IS) group . The 14.5×114-millimeter KPV, whose weight is about 50 kilograms, is not as pervasive as the smaller DShK heavy machine gun, but, nonetheless, it is a big and extremely dangerous threat for the Peshmerga forces and the Iraqi Army during their offensive on the city of Mosul. Dozens of KPVs were seized by IS terrorists in Syria and Iraq and mounted onto their pickup trucks that allowed to increase mobile and intermediate range firepower of the ter...