London: Islamic State will likely attempt more terror attacks and morph into a counter-insurgency group as it faces the loss of its Iraqi stronghold in 2017, the US spokesman for the global coalition has warned.
Speaking to journalists at Whitehall, Colonel John Dorrian conceded that the battle for Mosul had become protracted but declared: "the Iraqis are going to liberate Mosul, that is fact."
"It will happen it's just a matter of time," he added.
Once Mosul is reclaimed the global coalition will then turn its attention to taking back Islamic State's last stronghold and its so-called Syrian capital - Raqqa.
But Colonel Dorrian said Islamic State would continue to be a threat in 2017, despite suffering major losses in territory, weapons, fighters and finances in 2016. He called on global coalition countries, including Australia, to continue its commitments to fighting Islamic State, once the nature of the battlefield changes.
"ISIL still has taken root in other places around the world so this is a necessary but insufficient step - the taking back of these two big cities," he said.
"When these two cities are taken away...we expect Daesh to continue to devolve into terror style attacks, counter-insurgency style group as we've seen various groups fight in the past," he said.
"It's important that our 68 partner international coalition remain focused even once those cities are taken back."
Australia has committed about 780 personnel to the Middle East as part of what Defence calls Operation OKRA. Around 400 are part of the Air Task Group which carries out airstrikes. The remaining 380 are part of the ground-based special operations and Taji task groups which help train local and specialist forces as well as carry out kinetic and drone strikes.
Colonel Dorrian said depriving Islamic State of its land capitals would reduce its ability to attract fighters, finances and produce propaganda but not completely.
"There will still be dangers and in 2017 we will have to continue putting pressure on them," he said.
Colonel Dorrian pointed to an app Islamic State has produced which teaches young children to learn the alphabet as an example of the type of propaganda the global coalition needs to urgently stop.
Instead of learning basic literacy, children are taught the names of weapons, like grenades and earn points to blow up Western landmarks including with airlines.
The full page advertisement included in Islamic State's second issue of its propaganda magazine Rumiyah identifies London's Big Ben clock tower, New York's Statue of Liberty and France's Eiffel Tower as potential targets. The ad says the app can be played on Apple's iPhone or a smartphone running Google's Android platform.
Mosul would challenge US army
Iraqi forces have launched a fresh advance on Mosul in Iraq after a two-week lull in fighting.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had vowed the city would be recaptured by 2016, a promise that is now clearly out of reach. The Iraqi army is mainly comprised of Shia Muslims while the population of Mosul is almost exclusively Sunni.
Colonel Dorrian said Iraqi forces were intent on securing the city in a way that would lead to a sustainable liberation, contributing to the slower rate of progress being made.
"They've conducted themselves in a manner that I think all Iraqis should be proud of because rather than taking the gloves off and doing it in a scorched earth [manner] they've prioritised the protection of civilians from the campaign and they've tried to limit the amount of collateral damage that they've used," he said.
Colonel Dorrian said Islamic State had two years to build "elaborate defences" in the city including trenches, underground tunnels, barbed wire and booby traps.
"They use human shields, they hide inside buildings and try to conduct attacks with snipers so you think about an advancing force on the street, not only will they advance up the street, they have to go into every building all the way up to the top and all the way down to the bottom to find any tunnels that are there where the enemy might pop up," he said.
"Any army including the United States army, would find this a challenging task. And it would be slow-going in trying to protect civilians which we all agree must be done."
Aleppo has distracted Russia
The global coalition is not fighting in Aleppo, where the civil war in Syria that has raged since 2011, last week ended with the Russian backed Assad regime recapturing the city.
Russia this week announced it had brokered with Turkey country-wide ceasefire for Syria, notably without the involvement of the United States. Several US-backed ceasefire plan broke down earlier this year with all sides accusing each other of violating the pact.
Colonel Dorrian predicted there would be no lasting peace in Syria following the regime's victory, a claim also recently made by Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.
"The manner in which that regime forces have taken Aleppo have delayed the inevitable which is that the regime forces, really created a situation where they don't have a future there. It's a not a sustainable future," he said.
And he said Russia and Syria's focus on Aleppo had distracted them keeping a hold of the symbolically important although not strategically significant city of Palmyra which Islamic State recently retook.
"Since that time the Coalition has destroyed 14 tanks, two artillery pieces, an air defence artillery piece that was taken by Daesh. We did this in the interests of ensuring that those capabilities would threaten us or Turkey or our partner forces."
