In June 2014, Iraq’s second-largest city fell to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syriain a disastrous rout of the Iraqi army, condemning the residents of Mosul to three years of brutal occupation. By the fall of that year, the black banners of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s ISIS fighters were a mere eight miles from Baghdad after having marched through most of Anbar province.

Mike Nelson is a retired Army Special Forces officer and a member of the Atlantic Council’s Counterterrorism Project. He is formerly of the Institute for the Study of War and the National Security Institute. You can find him on x.com at @mikenelson586.

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