The outcome of the investment of the Hajin pocket seemed perfectly clear: As in Raqqa and Mosul, U.S. backed forced would slowly but surely reduce the pocket in grinding urban warfare until all of its Islamic State defenders were dead or captured.
War has a way of throwing wrenches into the gears of things that seem perfectly clear.
A few days ago, the Islamic State remnants in the Hajin pocket launched a series of counterattacks that were at least moderately successful, even allowing them to overrun a local refugee camp and took as many as 130 families hostage before the SDF forced them back. In other places the Islamic State appears to have overrun and taken SDF positions. Some even got far enough to attack a post on the Iraqi border. There was even a reappearance of some of the improvised armor vehicles the Islamic State used in earlier stages of the war, despite unquestioned allied in-theater airspace control.
Every black rifle below represents an Islamic State counterattack:
At least some of those positions the Islamic State took seem to have been retaken, but the situation right now is unclear and fluid.
Jerry Pournelle used to say “In war, everything is very simple, but simple things are very difficult.” The Islamic State may be all-but-dead as a territory-holding entity, but it’s not dead dead yet..
Tags: Hajin, Iraq, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jihad, Military, Syria, Syrian Democratic Forces