How did the United States Army respond to the rise of the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria , also known as ISIS in 2014 . What unique tactics and procedures were used in operation , inherent resolve that eventually led to the defeat of ISIS . For answers to these questions and more insights . Welcome to the U . S . Army history and Heritage podcast , the official podcast of the United States Army Center of Military History . The Center of Military History , writes and publishes the army's official history , manages the US Army Museum enterprise and provides historical support throughout the U . S . Army . Mhm . Hello everyone and welcome to the United States Army history and Heritage podcast . I'm lee Reynolds , the strategic communications officer for the Center of Military History . In this episode , I'll be speaking with CMH historian Dr Mason Watson about his new pamphlet , the conflict with ISIS , which tells the story of operation inherent resolve . From june 2014 to january 2020 . Welcome Mason and thanks for joining me . Thank you lee , it's great to be here . Well , let me just tell our listeners a little bit about you . So , Dr Mason W Watson is a historian at the center of Military History where he specializes in contemporary US military operations and the history of the Iraq war . He joins CMH in 2017 as a graduate research assistant and worked for more than a year as a member of C . M . H . S World War One centennial commemoration committee . He co authored a commemorative brochure on the second Battle of the Marne in 1918 . Mason holds a . B . A . In history from the College of William and Mary and an M . A . And PhD in military history from the Ohio State University . All right , Mason . So what am I missing about you , your background ? Well , that that summed it up pretty well . So when I , you know , the main thing is my my PhD , I did that in military history , but specifically in the history of of World War One . So it dealt with the controversy surrounding british generalship and strategy on the western front . So when I came to CMH II joined CMH as a graduate research assistant back in 2017 and I it made a lot of sense for me to join and work on the the centennial commemoration and I had the opportunity to co author a pamphlet on , as you mentioned on the Battle of the Marne . And uh and from there I managed to uh to transition to doing Iraq war history . So it was an entirely new field for me , but I think it's a very interesting one and an important one . So I'm I'm I'm fortunate to have the opportunity to do that here at same age . So how did you start your transition ? How did you just jump in and learn about o I F in the Iraq war . That's a good question . I had the opportunity to spend uh around a year working as a assisting um uh Mark Reardon , one of our at that time , one of our senior historians as a as a research assistant on a project dealing with advising and assisting the Iraqi Army . Uh So he was covering a period going back to 2000 and three . Uh So working on that , it actually it made a lot of sense for me to transition from that topic to once that project was concluded . Working on operation inherent resolve , which also was from the army's standpoint , uh to a large extent and advise and assist mission . Alright , Yeah , and we're gonna get into that . So this is it's a it's a pamphlet , it's about 83 pages of narrative and I think what about 100 and 17 pages total ? Uh Well like it's got some really good maps and images in it . So I think people are gonna it's uh would really enjoy reading this And it's called the conflict with ISIS Operation Inherent Resolve , June 2014 to January 2020 . So , before we get into the details , just give us a little overview about what this covers . Yeah , so as the name suggests , it deals with operation inherent resolve . So it's it's attempting to be a history of the entire operation um and which I should note upfront is ongoing . So we had to choose an end date , January 2020 ended up making sense for reasons I can go into uh in a little bit . But uh so the thing about operation inherent resolve basically what this is , is it's actually history of the unit that that executed this mission which is a combined joint task force operation , inherent resolve . Um And now every iteration of this formation has been built around a U . S . Army headquarters element for the most part core headquarters and has been commanded by a U . S . Army uh Lieutenant general . So the the idea was to tell the story of this uh of this organization and how it executed the mission to defeat the Islamic state . And in order to tell the story more fully , the the the monograph goes into detail about how ISIS came to the point where it control A large territory , territory , about the size of Kentucky and and rolled over . Um you know , approximately 11 million people . Uh And and so the it's a really um a really interesting story of how that that was finally rolled back and and and eliminated . And so the the ultimate conclusion uh is uh you know , the the so the self proclaimed caliph of IsIS abu bakr al baghdadi Is killed in a US raid in late 2019 . And finally in 2020 we have the withdrawal from Syria is at least partially complete and in Iraq things are sort of are winding down so that that made sense as an endpoint . All right , well , good and like I said , we'll get into some more of the details here in a few minutes . But for the listeners to you know , we're calling this ISIS the Islamic State of Syria . Yes . Uh yeah , the acronym is a source of confusion , ISIS is I define it as the Islamic state of Iraq and al Sham . So it's incorporating an Arabic term there . Um , it's important to talk about this a little bit upfront because all right listeners may have heard of Al Qaeda in Iraq . That was uh , yeah , A Q I . Yeah , that was that was sort of one of the most dangerous insurgent groups that the U . S . Forces faced uh , during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn and that actually went through several different names and ultimately re brands is The Islamic State of Iraq in 2006 . Now , for Simplicity's sake , in this monograph , I just refer to it as A Q I prior to its transformation into the so called Islamic State of Iraq and Al sham in in 2020 13 . And to be truly accurate , It actually further transforms into it just drops its regional designation and just calls itself the Islamic state in 2014 . Um , but I'm just going with the the what the what the U . S . Military calls it , which is ISIS , which is ISIS , right ? And it's and so because I know , I remember during that timeframe , I think President Obama used to refer to it as Isil , but it's the same organization . That's correct . Yeah . Isil was was the the acronym of choice for for awhile . That's right under under President Obama . Uh and that that sort of went by the wayside because it didn't really catch on popularly . Uh and so again it it simplifies things to just call them ISIS usually when , you know a history book or in this case it's a pamphlet or what you're calling a monograph . And um when that comes out , it's usually like , You know , 10 , 20 years after an event . This is pretty quick . You guys turn this around pretty quick . So so why is this pamphlet coming out now ? And is this actually part of a larger series of things ? Yeah . Well , so I'll answer your second question first and that , yes , this is part of a larger series . Currently it's the second entry in , in a series of what we're now calling monographs on the U . S . Army operations in Iraq . Uh the the other one that's out is uh dr nick schlosser's volume on the surge on the Iraq surge in 2000 and 7 , 2000 and eight . Um , and so this the timing for this just worked out that we had that CMH had someone who could write it and me um and that we had the sources for it . Uh and so given all that , it made sense to uh you know , why wait is sort of the the question . Um , and so uh and so we went ahead and uh and did this . Well , one of the things and I think that's so important to get something like this as quickly as we have it is that we do center of military history , tries to help inform current leaders and using these valuable lessons learned that you'll see and hear can help current decision making . Yeah , I I do think it's very important to have just to have a basic narrative setting out what the facts were . So that ideally army leaders or policy policymakers can read it and drive lessons from it , but it's important to kind of set the record straight . Uh and and hopefully what I've accomplished here is doing that in a in a readable , Let's get into the details . Um you know , we do encourage people to get the monograph to read this . Like I said , it's 83 pages of narrative . So it's um it's people can get through it , but I want to go through some of the highlights . But before we get into the details , let's backtrack a bit . How was ISIS able to gain strength and take over ? About a third of the territory of Iraq ? So give us the strategic setting . Um I guess prior to 2014 . Sure . Yeah , that's a that's a good question . And the the answers as as with almost everything with ISIS is pretty complicated . Uh So as I was saying that the organization that ISIS grew out of a q I had fought against US forces in Iraq for since literally going back to 2000 and three uh by 2000 and 10 , they were they were more or less defeated . That we had killed uh one leader after another . Um and they were reduced to uh to a pretty low level of operations . um now something happened in 2011 that gave them an opportunity to uh to to make a comeback . And that is the the outbreak of the civil war in Syria across the border . Uh now that was in full swing by by 2012 , by early 2012 . And it left this large semi governed area in the eastern part of Syria , which is just perfect for a terrorist organization , like like A Q . I . And it also the dynamics of the Syrian civil war benefited A Q . I . And that it was it saw a predominantly Sunni uprising that is Sunni arab uprising against a regime that was oriented more towards Shia Syrians . The actual the Syrian regime is dominated by Alawites , which are that's a debated lee a sect of Shia Islam . And they also enjoyed support from Iran . So that galvanized , you know , Sunni opinion in Syria and A Q . I recognized an opportunity to to to uh take advantage of this um uh Civil War two . And in the ungoverned spaces in Syria to build up a new organization to to to kind of start over . And so In 2012 , 2013 , A . Q . I is able to do that . They actually have a sort of front organization in Syria called the Al Nusra front . Um And In 2014 , meanwhile , in Iraq , the government of Nouri al Maliki , the Prime Minister of Iraq had been Prime Minister since 2006 . He without us influence us forces present in the area because the United States forces withdrew in 2011 , was it ? That's correct , yeah . So once once the U . S . Forces had withdrawn in 2011 , Al Maliki doesn't really have any check on on some of his worst instincts . Um And uh he engages in in a degree of sectarian oppression of of of Sunni Iraqis . Uh And so there is a base of of disgruntled Sunni Arabs in Iraq . Um that uh that ISIS is a Q . I is able to to um used as a source of manpower And in early 2014 , ISIS shocks the world by capturing Fallujah in Iraq . The insurgency in Anbar uh is now again active . Um And by june the ISIS is able to launch an attack on the northern Iraqi city of Mosul . Now , Mosul is a A big city with about 1.5 million inhabitants . It's defended by two entire Iraqi divisions And ISIS with about 1500 fighters in pickup trucks , is able to route the Iraqi army out of the city and take it over . And uh This shows the extent to which the Iraqi Army had deteriorated after after we had left . Uh now of course we spent about $25 billion Army . So that in short is at that point , it was clear that the Iraqi government had limited means to combat this organization . Uh and that ultimately prompts our intervention . Now , we don't Send troops in in June 2014 . An immediate response to this , not combat troops and we don't begin actually shooting at ISIS until August when a a second wave of isis offenses in northern Iraq starts up . But then , so how did operation inherent resolve come about ? When did it start ? Yeah , so , operation inherent resolve Technically begins in October of 2014 . So , airstrikes against ISIS start in August and have retroactively been considered part of inherent resolve , but it isn't actually formally organized as operation inherent resolve until october So what was the purpose when we put together operation inherent resolve ? Um what was the purpose ? The mission of that operation ? Well , in in President Obama's words , the the idea is to degrade and destroy the Islamic state . So it's it's very much targeted specifically at ISIS , which is significant because the operation inherent resolve does extend into Syria . So I should also specify that geographically operation inherent resolve is dealing with Iraq and Syria specifically . Now , I I should say that that ISIS as an organization has a worldwide presence uh and uh its activities and say Libya for example , don't um don't actually our efforts to counter them . Don't fall under operation inherent resolve . Right ? And then so when when the operation starts , is it just the United States ? I mean clearly we're working with the Iraqis I would imagine . But who was involved in this operation ? Nation States , yeah , so uh many of many of the old many many U . S . Allies familiar U . S . Allies are involved in this operation um France and the United Kingdom get involved right off the bat pretty much uh actually british special operators down there in Iraq Even in August of 2014 . But it's in in September when the French and the British start bombing ISIS . We also the entire oi our coalition is massive . It has uh you know , dozens of countries involved , not all of them contributed directly militarily , but a lot of the gulf states were involved . Jordan was involved is involved . So it's it's a very broad coalition . Uh it's not uh it's not just unilateral us actions against ISIS . All right , so let's let's talk about the U . S . Response then what units leaders who was in charge of all this and who is participating . So when when operation inherent resolve began uh or I should say actually before it began in June 2014 . Uh what happened was US Army Central which was commanded by Lieutenant General James terry sent in a small headquarters element under Major General Dana Pittard to to just uh to set up in uh you know the the green zone in Baghdad uh and establish some kind of framework for command and control . Uh and by october when inherent resolve formally starts it therefore is is naturally US Army Central that gets selected to stand up a new organization which is combined Joint Task Force operation inherent resolve . C . J . T . F . O . I . R . And I mean there is somewhere out there an explanation for what inherent resolve actually means or why that that name was chosen . Uh I don't , you know I I quoted in the monograph uh whatever you know it works I guess it's not perhaps the most inspiring name . Um But at any rate C J . T . F O IR is stood up in october under under U . S . Army Central . So U . S . Army Central of course still exists . James Terry is simultaneously the commanding general of U . S . Army Central and of O IR . Uh So that places some strain on that organization later on . Ah We have dedicated U . S . Army Corps Headquarters , go and serve as the foundation for C . J . T . F . O . Ir . With the third Corps under Sean MacFarland coming in in 2015 . He of course had a lot of experience in Iraq and in 2016 the 18th Airborne Corps and then the 18th Airborne Corps and the third Corps alternate back and forth for a while serving as the headquarters . So let's talk about troop strengths and because this wasn't really another surge . Um Yeah . So how would you describe the operational tactical role of the army or what we like to call the T . T . P . S . Tactics , techniques and procedures ? What was what was unique about this operation as compared to let's say oh I . F . Operation Iraqi freedom . Sure . Yeah . So this is very very different from O . I . F . In terms of the scale of the U . S . Presence on the ground in Iraq . Uh basically how it worked throughout is that you have this core headquarters serving as the higher headquarters for the entire operation . Under that would be a single division headquarters . The first one was the first infantry division under under at that time . Major General Funk . Um And uh and under under that would be a single brigade combat team . Now I mean it's important to emphasize that none of these had their entire strength actually present in theater . Uh And that's the conventional side of things , there's also heavy involvement of of special operations forces but in no sense do we have a large number of US troops going around on the ground ? Because the the nature of this mission is not that the U . S . Is doing the fighting that we're doing the fighting ourselves uh when it comes to actually closing with and and and and fighting ISIS the people doing that are our allies or our partners the Iraqi security forces . So the Iraqi army , uh and um in Syria , several different organizations which I can go into that situation is complicated . Um But primarily what we're doing is for our ground troops advising and assisting um the Iraqis for example , uh and doing targeting for american airpower and later for surface to surface fires . Um So there's no there are no U . S . Battalions closing with maneuvering around and fighting against ISIS . And um what were the biggest challenges that that the the americans are our allied forces faced in this situation ? Well , this is uh it's the biggest challenge is probably working with it with the limitations of our partners . I mean , uh you can you can see that probably if we if we just put an entire full strength brigade combat team on the ground um in 2014 , you could , you could think , well probably they could have just retaken Mosul that year , right uh and liberated it and we'd be done this would but of course , uh this would not have totally solved our ISIS problem . And that solution was not acceptable to the Iraqis who are , you know , justly proud of their own sovereignty and and not eager to relive the days of Operation Iraqi freedom . Um And it wasn't it wasn't an option that appealed to the U . S . Government . Uh one of the key achievements of President Obama's tenure as president had been to to end or wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan . So he was not obviously going to be eager to to restart them . So that meant working with the limitations of our partners um for the Iraqi security forces , like I noted , They had been on the brink of defeat in 2014 entire divisions and in fact five entire divisions had , had essentially ceased to exist because they were defeated by ISIS or just because they fled a mix of both . They they had not been in good shape even before ISIS attacked . Um but the result of it was that we sort of had to rebuild the Iraqi security forces . So that took a lot of time and again in Syria , we had an issue where we did not , unlike in Iraq , we did not have a national government there that was willing to serve or ready to serve as our partner , that we would be willing to partner with um the US policy towards the regime of Syrian . President Al Assad was was that assad was illegitimate , that he had to step aside as as President of Syria . So we were obviously not going to be supporting him and that left us in a situation of trying to find acceptable allies to fight on the ground against ISIS in Syria . So , explain how this happens , you know , so inherent resolve Starts basically October of 2014 . We had people there a little bit earlier . Um but bring us bring us through how how did we win back or help the Iraqis to win back their territory . Sure . So , uh it again , it took time 2015 . We see the first in Iraq counter offensives that are taking back significant territory . So remember at the end of by September 2014 , ISIS had managed to take over about a third of Iraq . So most of Anbar province , most of Ninawa province uh in a in parts of other provinces , the northern and western part of Iraq . Exactly , exactly , including incidentally , basically the entire border with Syria , right ? And and of course they have this base area in Syria that were that we need to get at . Uh So , uh ISIS in fact kind of surprised us in early 2015 , in May 2015 because they ended up not being even though we've been bombing them heavily uh since August 2014 , they were still able to launch a major offensive and capture Ramadi uh in in May and at the same time , almost simultaneously they captured the city of Palmyra in Syria . So , in retrospect , this is probably the high point of ISIS . But at the time it looked like , wow , this organization that we've been uh that we've been degrading for for months is still on the offensive . It sort of was a shock . Well , as as as we were helping the Iraqis um was Iran or any other country also re arming and training and advising ISIS uh Iran is heavily involved . Not on the side of ISIS now that the there's a weird situation , a weird dynamic in Iraq where the Iraqi military has to foreign backers or to kind of sets of alliances that it's that it's part of there's the US led coalition with Operation inherent resolve and there is a Russian Iranian Syrian regime coalition . Okay . Uh so Iran in the United States actually shared a common enemy in ISIS . And so the the in response to the initial shock of ISIS taking Mosul , the the prominent Shia cleric and in Iraq called for volunteers to stop ISIS from getting to Baghdad . And so this led to the creation of an organization called the Popular mobilization forces which was an agglomeration of essentially Shia militias . And Iran was heavily involved in this organization and supporting it and advising it . So , coming together to defeat the common enemy there . Yeah , yeah , yeah . Well , uh so throughout the throughout operation inherent resolve . Uh the United States has the difficult task of trying to to deal with with Iran's involvement and kind of minimize it or redirect it because the thing about the popular mobilization forces in these militias uh is that they many of them were the same organizations that had at one time fought against US forces in Iraq . Uh and moreover , they had also committed atrocities against Sunni Iraqis . Now , our vision , the United States vision , the coalition's vision for victory in Iraq over ISIS was always that reconciliation between Sunni and Shia uh now . So preventing the PMF from having heavy involvement in liberating Sunni areas was a very important objective because when they did often there would be indiscriminate killings of civilians that would follow , which would just further push Iraqi . Sunni Arabs towards supporting ISIS . How did we eventually start pushing the ISIS back ? When did that start happening ? Yeah , so , so things really start turning around in 2015 , we uh the Iraqi security forces with our with our help launch an offensive to retake Ramadi . As I said , after the after ISIS had taken it by december , they had pretty much liberated the city . It takes a long time . This this gives us a hint of just how long this whole thing is going to take because they yeah , they start this offensive in july and it's only in december that the Iraqis are finally in there raising the Iraqi national flag on the on the on the roof of the of the provincial headquarters . Yeah , it does see , you know , door to door uh brutal urban fighting . Well , that's that's an important thing to to to note , right , because this is a basically it's a conventional battle , right ? Uh what we've been doing for the most part after the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003 had been counterinsurgency or irregular warfare , stability operations generally . Uh And uh and that's sort of a different animal from what we're seeing here in in Iraq in 2014 , 2015 , 2016 where ISIS is holding territory , they have basically a semi conventional force on the ground , right ? They have , you know , battalions , they've got companies , uh they're they're holding buildings there , they have artillery , you know , they have indirect fire assets , They even can go into this a little bit , They even have a kind of air force . Uh so they're they're very much a conventional opponent , although they use lots of unconventional methods . You know , the characteristic weapon that ISIS employed is the vehicle borne improvised explosive device . Okay , the vivid , so this is this is essentially it's a car bomb with armor on it . And this is not a new thing . It's a common something that we would have seen a lot of in in terrorist attacks on civilians . Right ? Uh but what ISIS did with them is it used them in a in a tactical role on the battlefield , which is kind of new . And what it's been likened to is basically it's their version of a precision guided munition . So they would use V bids to spearhead attacks . And then they had essentially , I mean , basically shock troops who would follow up these attacks and take over and and take ground . This is this is incidentally what what ISIS had done in Ramadi . I mean , it had detonated more than , you know , more than a dozen of these things and each one had more explosive power than the bomb used in Oklahoma city in uh , in the 90s . These are massive things . Uh , and as you might imagine , it's very demoralizing to be on the receiving end of this sort of thing . Which helps to explain why the Iraqis had so much trouble dealing with them . But to go back to your question anyway , uh , Ramadi is liberated by the end of 2015 . For the most part , it takes a little bit longer to to actually root out some , some , you know , uh , the remnants of ISIS is forced in the city , Fallujah is liberated in in the summer of 2016 . And then we get onto the big thing , which is Mosul . Taking that back has always been the main objective of the campaign . Uh , and this is a massive battle , right ? It lasts from October 2016 through July 2017 you know , so it's it's nine months . Um , and it involves Nearly 100,000 Iraqi soldiers . Uh , so it's really on a it's on a very large scale . It's a very bloody battle . The Iraqis suffer about 8000 casualties , including about 1200 soldiers killed in action in in the course of liberating Mosul . And and of course , we play a very prominent role in this in providing fire support and advising the Iraqis and fire support . You mean artillery , mortars , air , yes , yes , all all of the , all of these , but we didn't have actual tactical troops on the ground outside of advisors , uh when it comes to conventional forces . No , uh yeah , we did have plenty of advisers on the ground and during the battle of Mosul actually , uh we uh the rules of engagement change pretty significantly in december of 2016 when under General Townsend um C J T . F . O IR issues a tactical directive that allows US advisers to accompany Iraqi forces forward close to the actual battle . Now , until this happened , the the basically US advisers had been tethered to to secure bases so they were kept very far away from from from combat . And you know , it's it's apparently it's very hard to advise people over telephone . Uh you know , we have drones up that they could observe . Oh yeah . And in fact our drones were in since the Iraqis became almost dependent on them , not just to see ISIS but to see their own troops . Uh So the Iraqis sort of relied on on our drones to know where their own forces were on the battlefield . And did the american rules of engagement change ? You mentioned , It's December 2016 , but we had to change in the presidency in 2017 . Did that affect the rules of engagement on the ground ? Yeah , that's a good question . So like like I said it , the tactical directive predates the uh the incoming of the trump administration . Uh So the trump administration , you know , um at that time , Mattis was the Secretary of Defense the First Secretary of Defense . Um , and he had a vision for the war with ISIS that was slightly different from , from what had been his predecessor was Ash carter . What had been under under carter , um , where he was emphasizing annihilating ISIS as opposed to , um , uh , you know , inflicting a lasting defeat on them or destroy , you know , it's it's sort of a , uh , just a difference in terminology . Um , but certainly we see , and I can't say that this is entirely the result of the change in leadership in the White House . Um , but in , in Mosul , in uh , yeah , so half of more than half of the battle takes place after trump becomes president . Um , we , uh , we don't let ISIS escape . Okay . In previous battles , we generally left or we , we had had the , the Iraqis had done this themselves , left an avenue for ISIS to to retreat to leave the city , which kind of benefits everyone , you know , so it avoids urban combat is incredibly bloody and , and , uh , and damaging to the city , damaging to every everyone . Um , in Mosul , we didn't do that . We totally sealed ISIS in and then they ended up fighting to the , basically to the last fighter . Um , and , uh , so That , that does happen in in 2017 . And that is sort of a new thing , but also , and that's maybe why it took a little bit longer to defeat them in Mosul . Yeah , absolutely . In other battles ISIS would eventually reach a point where they realize that they're not going to win and they decided that it would be better to live and fight another day . And they were generally able to make arrangements with our allies with the Iraqis or the Syrians that we were supporting to do that . I would note quickly , they did that in Fallujah in 2016 . Uh at least they they managed to get a convoy of troops of fighters out of the city . Uh And we picked up on that pretty easily using I . S . Are using intelligence , surveillance and reconnaissance . Um and then we just blew up the convoy . Uh And uh and I mean , it invited comparisons to the , you know , the highway of death in the Gulf war . Yeah . Um and so it was a pretty significant defeat for ISIS there . So even though um they could they could escape , that didn't mean that they would necessarily be allowed to to to just go away and fight again . So , Mosul , we've gotten Mosul now and then what's the next steps ? So almost simultaneous with Mosul , we have operations in Syria . So , IsIS is kind of capital is the city of Raqqa , which is in Eastern Syria . It's on the Euphrates River . Um And we're working with an organization called the Syrian Democratic Forces to kick ISIS out of Raqqa . Now , the SdF is an interesting organization . They did not exist when o IR began Uh huh . Their predecessors existed basically . It's it's built around the largest element of the Sdf is the the Y P . G . The people's protection units . It's a Syrian kurdish organization and we supported The Y . P . G . uh when they were fighting in Kobani . And this was back in 2014 and early 2015 , ISIS launched a major offensive against the city of Kobani which is on the border between Turkey and Syria . And uh and ISIS actually ends up taking very severe casualties there because of our the sort of air support that we provided to the Y . P . G . But we were we were reluctant to ally much more closely with the Y . P . G . Because and this is where Syria just it gets very complicated but they have close ties to the PKK which is a an organization that the United States designates as a terrorist organization . Okay . Uh and uh so ultimately they proved to be the most effective force fighting ISIS in Syria . And they also , and this is key . They were one of the few forces on the ground in Syria that was willing to do what we wanted , which was fight ISIS but not really fight against the Syrian regime . It was not part of our policy to to directly support forces fighting against the Syrian regime . Uh There's some nuance to that that we don't need to go into . Yeah . Yeah it it gets very complicated when you're dealing with Syria . Um But at any rate the sdf incorporates the Y . P . G . But it kind of keeps um it's it's satisfied . It's satisfactory from every angle essentially . Uh And with support from from um coalition special forces they're able to launch an offensive to take back Raqqa and they do this basically at the same time that that the Mosul fight is playing out and this is another massive battle . Uh And Raqqa is a smaller city than Mosul but it's left utterly devastated . But at the end of it ISIS no longer has their two most important cities and they're essentially left just a small sliver of territory in the Euphrates river valley inside of Syria . And uh and so at that point uh liberating this last area becomes the main objective . Um And uh and that takes until March 2019 to accomplish working mainly with the sdf . Um And that brings ISIS is uh you know , self proclaimed caliphate to an end . What you take this book through January of 2020 . So what's what do you cover there towards the end in the book ? Yeah . So I I go beyond the end of the you know what is some kind of sometimes called the physical caliphate . Um because we have we have interesting things going on with our kind of abortive withdrawal from Syria that Trump initiates actually starting in December 2018 and then he kind of Restarts it in in October of 2019 . Then we have the the the raid that results in the death of Al Baghdadi ? Um And then finally we have something very interesting in Iraq which is the air strikes that kill Qasem Soleimani , the Iranian uh leader of the the codes for us and And also at the same time , one of the leaders of the the popular mobilization forces . So that happens in early 2020 , which served as , you know , that was that that served as a kind of ending um for for the monograph . Well , great . Um a lot of , a lot of information we've covered here , but I know there's a lot more details in the book . So this is really a good teaser for anybody that's really interested in what took place . But I understand that you're working on an even larger book , we call this a pamphlet or a monograph . Um So what's what's next for you ? Well , yeah , so that's right . This is sort of the what this is is the foundation for my next project which I'm currently working on , which is a much longer uh more detailed account of operation , inherent resolve . Um and uh as you might imagine since this is so recent , uh most of the official records are still classified , so it's being ran on the classified level . Um so that , you know , the idea behind these monographs is that uh it's it's important to get something out sooner rather than waiting the years it will take to to write the big book . Is there anything that we didn't cover that , do you think is important for people to know about ? Yeah , I mean , one thing that we didn't touch on is Russia's involvement in this whole thing , which given what's going on in Ukraine is is interesting . It's sort of a taste of of what was to come uh because , you know , Russia intervenes in Syria in 2015 to support the Syrian regime . Uh , and they're fighting their battles there in Syria at the same time that we're fighting in Mosul and Raqqa . The battle of Aleppo is is taking place while we're fighting in Mosul . Um and uh so we we have uh we kind of learned how to to deal with uh you know , very close contact with Russian forces in the air and even on the ground . I mean , as you might imagine that the skies over Syria where were very , you know , they were busy . We have we have U . S . And coalition aircraft , we have Russian aircraft , we have Syrian regime aircraft . The potential for some kind of incident was pretty high and it's actually a pretty remarkable achievement by the folks involved in deconfliction um for o ir that that nothing uh that , well , I shouldn't say nothing , but very little happened in the air at least between us and Russia . We did actually have a shoot down of a Russian of , sorry , of a Syrian regime fighter . Uh So uh like I said , there there was some friction there and on the ground . Um there's actually and I talked about this in the in the monograph um the Wagner group which is a private military company of Russian origin , that is as we see today fighting in Ukraine . Um They , a force composed mainly of Wagner group mercenaries launched a ground assault on an outpost where U . S . Special operators were Present . Um and so there's a ground battle in February 2018 between involving us , special operators shooting at Russian citizens . Uh and uh and it ends very badly for for the Wagner group with I think at least 200 dead . Uh but it shows that uh I think it's it's an interesting sort of preview of of what we're seeing today . Very interesting . And but but thank you so much , some great information here on your your monograph conflict with ISIS operation , inherent resolve , June 2014 to January 2020 . But before we close it's time for our segment ? I call you a trivia . A piece of significant trivia that I'm hoping will wow the audience . So , is there some piece of trivia that you can share with me about the conflict with ISIS . So , I I think this sort of illustrates just the intensity of the of the combat that was taking place on the ground . Um So during the during the battle for Raqqa uh in 2017 , there was one battalion and and you know , I I'll have to ask for your forgiveness . It's actually it's a marine artillery battalion fighting under under operation inherent resolve . Um but it fired here No less than 35,000 artillery rounds in a period of five months in support of this , in support of this battle . And this is this is of course one unit at the same time , we have air strikes and other ground based artillery uh and uh just to put that in perspective into perspective , that's actually more artillery rounds that were fired in the the opening invasion of Iraq in 2000 and three . Uh so I hope that that will give some sense of , you know , this is this is large scale ground combat . Thank you so much mason for your discussion insights today about your monograph the conflict with ISIS and we look forward to more of your work in the future . And if anyone wants to get a copy of the conflict with ISIS and learn more about army history in general , I encourage you to explore our website at history dot army dot mil . The pamphlet is available as a free pdf download or it can be ordered for free if you're part of the Department of Defense , but anyone can order and purchase it from the government publishing office , just go to history dot army dot mil and you'll see it there . So , if you want to experience army history every day . Then please visit our social media sites on facebook twitter and instagram and please join us every week on this podcast for more in depth discussions as we cover topics from all eras of U . S . Army history examining battles , soldier experiences , equipment , weapons and tactics . Thanks for joining us today on the United States Army history and Heritage podcast for the center of Military history , I'm lee Reynolds and until next time we're history . The views expressed in this podcast reflect those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views policies or opinions of the U . S . Army or Department of Defense . For more information about the army's proud history and heritage , go to history dot army dot mil .