Iraqi soldiers gather to go battle against Islamic State militants south of Mosul , Iraq, June 15, 2016. REUTERS/Stringer
Nancy Youssef, Daily Beast: U.S. Can’t Find ISIS Prisoners
Captured ISIS fighters should be an invaluable source of intelligence in the fight for the terror group’s Iraqi capital. But U.S. forces have only questioned ‘a handful’ of them.
It’s the most important battle in the war against the self-proclaimed Islamic State to date: the fight to retake Mosul, the terror group’s Iraqi capital. But so far, the U.S. military does not know how many ISIS fighters have been taken prisoner, a senior defense official explained to The Daily Beast.
Iraq’s security forces have allowed the U.S. military to interview fewer than “a handful” of detained fighters under Iraqi control since the Mosul offensive began in mid-October, a U.S. defense official told The Daily Beast. The official could not say if any of those detainees were captured before the Mosul offensive, or after it began.
“We do occasionally get access to detainees that the Iraqis capture,” a second defense official said. “But it’s rare.”
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WNU Editor: I guess many within the Islamic State know that if they are captured .... they will be executed .... so why surrender. The same for the Iraqi Army .... surrender means execution .... so why surrender. This is a testament on how brutal the fight for Mosul has become, and I suspect that when it is finally over .... there will not be many Islamic State fighters left alive to provide any valuable information to American intelligence.
