‘They will never let go’
A long convoy of Humvees, trucks and troop carriers moved slowly through the countryside to the south of the city of Kirkuk, ferrying dozens of Iraqi special forces. Their target was a string of hideouts used by Islamic State militants in the rough terrain of hills and lowlands crisscrossed by canals and long-dried seasonal river gullies, or wadis as they are called in Arabic.
In the lead vehicle sat the commanding officer, a young lieutenant-colonel, Ihab Jalil, with a clipped moustache and hazelnut-coloured eyes. He charted the routes of the convoy on his tablet. At the same time, switching between three radio sets, he talked to the pilots of two helicopters that circled over the convoy, scouting the road ahead.
The night before, Jalil, the commander of the Kirkuk regiment of the Iraqi Special Operation Forces (Isof), had gathered his men at their base and briefed them on the mission: “Our intelligence reports say that Daesh [Isis] fighters are based in the mountainous
