On Thursday, US military officials publicly outlined details of their plans for a spring offensive against ISIL, and retake Iraq’s second largest city as early as April.
However, many within the Pentagon privately questioned whether the plan might work, The Daily Beast reports.
"I really doubt it is going to happen that soon,” one military officer told the American news reporting website Friday on condition of anonymity. "And if it does, it will take months.”
Several other US military officers told The Daily Beast that the Iraqi forces were not ready to take on the ISIL Takfiri terrorists. They claimed that many of the Iraqi army’s largely Shia troops would not risk their lives to win back a Sunni city.
Pentagon official believe that the planned offensive to retake Mosul would be much harder than the 112-day battle to win back the small northern Syria city of Kobani.
While Kobani was almost abandoned when the US-led coalition intensified its airstrikes there to retake the border town, the heavily-populated city of Mosul is arguably the capital of the ISIL group in Iraq, according to the report.
"They will fight for Mosul. This is not like Kobani, which was peripheral,” one US military official told the Daily Beast.
"They will fight to the last drop of blood defending Mosul, and for them this battle could define their existence. Losing Mosul means a final defeat for Islamic State in Iraq,” a retired army general living in Mosul told Reuters last month.
A senior US Central Command official said Thursday the "shaping" for the spring offensive is currently underway. A total force of up to 25,000 Iraqi troops are expected to participate in the battle. Three brigades of Kurdish Peshmerga forces will take part as well.