Events are developed and confrontations between the elements of the (state regulation) and the security and military forces in the area of Qayyarah area in the province of Nineveh, within the Sector Nineveh operations are escalated And the nature of the events are characterized with the fast US attendees to the event area after control (Qayyarah base) and the announcement of the US Department of Defense to do habilitation and ready for use to start the operations to liberate the city of Mosul and send a force numbering 560 soldiers and officers and American consultants to Iraq to strengthen their presence and the development of strategic plans and provide advice to the security and military forces and Kurdish forces concentrated there and complete preparations to begin the first steps toward the city of Mosul.
The rapid US presence in the vicinity and the center of Qayyarah base has its obvious connotations and its strategic objectives that can be read within the following:
- To abort the Iranian expansionist role and hegemony and the military influence of its organs and its leaders in an attempt to reach the Qayyarah base and control it and then move towards the city of Mosul.
- To foil steps and actions that sought by the militias of the popular crowd to take part in the advancement from the junction Baiji through the international road that links between the district Sharqat-Qayyarah and reaching to the surroundings of the military base of Qayyarah to concentrate with counterterrorism forces .
- to control the Qayyarah base means to re-control of 90 square kilometers north of Baiji down to the base noting that it is a distance of a very tactical importance to secure the advancement of military units toward its goals in Qayyarah area and its outskirts.
- to tighten the control over the district of Sharqat and surround it militarily considered to be fallen militarily from a strategic point due to its location within the range of artillery of Iraqi forces surrounded by advanced columns of the military and security troops managed to split the region from Hawija and the district of Qayyarah.
5.Reaching to the center and the area around the city of Mosul has formed an extension about (65) square kilometers, that it is one of the most important goals for the military operation the United States seeks to lead it par excellence .
The strategic importance of the district of Qayyarah
- the center of Qayyarah is the main headquarters and constitute the command control of the Wilayat Dijlah- Tigris of the organization of state and it is one of the main strongholds located to the south of the city of Mosul.
- there are many foreign and Arab fighters in Qayyarah from (North Africa and eastern Syria, Chechnya and Afghanistan) where there were immigrants in it – the so-called (Dabiq Army) that belongs to the military formation of a state regulation.
3.the district of Qayyarah contains an important oil wells and old refinery and the strategic places to store weapons and equipment in Qayyarah base in addition to extensive residential neighborhoods that could be used as human shields by its fighters.
- the Apache aircrafts used by the United States for the first time in the liberation of Mosul operations in air strikes to places and the headquarters of the leaders and fighters of the organization in the district of Qayyarah and its suburbs and the center of the city of Mosul and surrounding areas.
5 the loss of state regulation of Qayyarah means losing the Wilayat Dijlah (state of Tigris) after losing the Wilayat of the Al-Jazerah in the operations of withdrawals done in the areas and districts of Anbar province seized by the organization in previous battles.
- the loss of the district of Qayyarah exposes the (state regulation) to a financial loss estimated at 2-3 million dollars a month because of the loss of oil wells contained in the land of Qayyarah.
These advantages of the district of Qayyarah constitute a major factor and a central axes and an important starting point for the task to complete military plans to ensure the speed to control the axes of the towns and villages and weaken the organization movement and paralyze its abilities and then complete the pivotal goals to reach the main goal of the restoration of the city of Mosul.
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies