Talk:Fall of Mosul

What the heck is that image on the frontpage? Turquoise sky?
It looks like the most photoshopped thing ever, Im fairly confident I saw that very picture but with a normal blue sky earlier back when this happened. Parts of the sky are literally cropping into the vehicle and lampposts. Can´t we find a better one?83.252.116.25 (talk) 13:50, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Level of planning
I don't feel like editing the article when it involves what some editors might call speculation or "original research", and revert the changes.

"al-Bilawi blew himself up as if he thought that it would prevent an attack." The referenced article clearly says that it was General Gharawi who hoped it would prevent an attack.

"ISIL commander Abu Abdulrahman al-Bilawi was killed near Mosul that day." The source: "He was killed on 5th June 2014 in Mosul." This was a day before the attack. The source for the previous quote says he was killed on 4 June.

Now for the speculative bit. The first source says that "In late May, Iraqi security forces arrested seven members of militant group Islamic State in Mosul and learned the group planned an offensive on the city in early June." This is the first I have seen that indicates this attack was planned significantly in advance, though this quote (written by a reporter who apparently interviewed Gharawi, so two possible sources of errors) does not say how large the planned attack was. Despite this information, the same article says that on 6 June, checkpoints still only had two soldiers each.

The article about the IS's finances in 2014, which reviewed information gained from the analysis of al-Bilawi's documents like USB thumb drives by the Iraqi government, implied that he was found because a senior member of the IS (formerly ISIS) finally cracked after a month of "interrogation", possibly meaning torture. It also said that after he revealed information, this person said "you don't know what you've done, Mosul will be an inferno next week". This implied that the actions the Iraqi government took as a result of obtaining information were somehow responsible, and necessary, for events in Mosul.

As mentioned in the source for the second quote above, the IS termed the operation, or possibly certain parts of the operation, "Bilawi Vengeance". This phrase or caption was used on the pictures of the ~1700 members of the Iraqi military (air force recruits) who were killed by the IS, several days after Mosul and nearby areas were captured.

So, was an operation of this magnitude planned before al-Bilawi was killed? 2601:600:8500:B2D9:E8F5:E27A:C82E:376E (talk) 15:14, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Contradiction about al-Bilawi's Death
The article states that he both killed himself by blowing himself up and that he was killed. The source for the first does not use a name and refers to "Islamic State's military leader" blowing himself up on the 4th of June. The source for the second uses his name explicitly and says he was killed on the 5th. Could the first be referring to a different individual? Or perhaps our sources contradict each other? In the later case we should either mention the contradiction or look for additional sources. Sjrct (talk) 02:42, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

500 or 1,500 Jihadists?
In 2015-10-26 Al Jazeera quoted Martin Chulov as saying, "5 to 600 ISIL forces drove their drove their trucks into the city of Mosul. Six divisions of the Iraqi army, roughly 120,000 men, melted like the snow", per.

Is the source cited in this article for 1,500 ISIL forces any more credible than this report from Al Jazeera?

Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 22:52, 4 September 2022 (UTC)