Islamic State leader Baghdadi abandons Mosul fight to field commanders, U.S.
and Iraqi sources say
美国跟伊拉克的消息说IS首领抛弃了他在摩苏尔战场上的指挥官
By Isabel Coles, John Walcott and Maher Chmaytelli | MOSUL, IRAQ/WASHINGTON
U.S. and Iraqi officials believe the leader of Islamic State, Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi, has left operational commanders behind with diehard followers to
fight the battle of Mosul, and is now hiding out in the desert, focusing
mainly on his own survival.
美国跟伊拉克的官员相信IS的首领Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi已经抛弃了仍然在死命抵抗的
摩苏尔战场上的指挥官们，目前正躲在沙漠里只关心自己的生命。
It is impossible to confirm the whereabouts of the Islamic State "caliph",
who declared himself the ruler of all Muslims from Mosul's Great Mosque after
his forces swept through northern Iraq in 2014.
在2014他扫荡北伊拉克后，要确认这个在摩苏尔大清真寺宣称他自己是所有穆斯林统治者
的"哈里发"的行踪是不可能的。
But U.S. and Iraqi intelligence sources say an absence of official
communication from the group's leadership and the loss of territory in Mosul
suggest he has abandoned the city, by far the largest population center his
group has ever held.
但美国和伊拉克情报来源说，他缺席了集团的领导官方通讯，并失去大量摩苏尔领土意味
着他放弃了这个城市，这个城市迄今为止是该集团所拥有的最大的人口中心。
He has proved to be an elusive target, rarely using communication that can be
monitored, and moving constantly, often multiple times in one 24-hour cycle,
the sources say.
情报来源说，他被证实是个难以捉摸的目标，很少使用能被监控的通讯设施，并且频繁的
移动，通常在以24小时作为周期的时间内移动多次。
From their efforts to track him, they believe he hides mostly among
sympathetic civilians in familiar desert villages, rather than with fighters
in their barracks in urban areas where combat has been under way, the sources
say.
根据他们努力的追踪他，他们相信他现在藏身在熟悉的沙漠村庄的和谐的市民之中，而不
是跟他的战士一同待在战争持续进行的城市的军营里。
ISOLATED孤立
At the height of its power two years ago, Islamic State ruled over millions
of people in territory running from northern Syria through towns and villages
along the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys to the outskirts of Baghdad in
Iraq.
伊斯兰国在两年前的权力最高时，统治了数百万人从叙利亚北部通过沿着底格里斯河和幼
发拉底河谷的城镇和村庄一直到伊拉克的巴格达郊区。
U.S.-backed Iraqi forces began an operation five months ago to recapture
Mosul, a city at least four times the size of any other the group has held.
The biggest battle in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, it has been
slow going, in part because hundreds of thousands of civilians remain in
harm's way.
美国支持的伊拉克部队在五个月前开始行动，重新夺回摩苏尔，这个城市的规模至少是该
集团任何在其他国家规模的四倍。自从2003年美国领导入侵伊拉克以来，伊拉克的最大战
役一直缓慢，部分原因是成千上万的平民仍然处于危险之中。
The 100,000-strong Iraqi force fully captured the eastern half of Mosul in
January, and commanders began an operation to cross the Tigris and take the
western half last month. Progress has since been steady and the coalition
says its victory is now inevitable, which would dismantle the caliphate in
Iraq.
10万强大的伊拉克部队在1月完全占领了摩苏尔东部地区，指挥官开始了一次行动，穿越
底格里斯河和上个月西部。自那以来，进展稳定，联盟说，它的胜利现在是不可避免的，
这将拆除伊拉克的哈里发。
The intelligence sources point to a sharp drop in Islamic State postings on
social media as evidence that Baghdadi and his circle have become
increasingly isolated.
情报来源指出伊斯兰国家在社交媒体上的帖子急剧下降，这证明Baghdadi和他的圈子(?)变
得日益孤立。
Baghdadi himself has not released a recorded speech since early November, two
weeks after the start of the Mosul battle, when he called on his followers to
fight the "unbelievers" and "make their blood flow as rivers."
Baghdadi自从在摩苏尔开打后2周召唤他的跟随者与这些"不信仰者"战斗并"让他们血流成
河"。到了11月初就没有在释出任何新的录音演说。
Since then, sporadic Islamic State statements mention attacks carried out by
suicide bombers at various locations in Iraq and Syria, but place no
particular emphasis on Mosul, despite the city being the main center of
fighting.
从那时起，零星的伊斯兰国家声明提到在伊拉克和叙利亚各地的自杀炸弹客进行的攻击，
但没有特别强调摩苏尔，尽管城市是主要的战斗中心。
Neither Baghdadi nor any of his close aides released any comment on the fall
of the eastern part of the city in January.
巴格达迪和他的任何密切助手都没有在1月对秋天的东部发表任何评论。
The group's presence on Telegram, a social media network that had become its
main platform for announcements and speeches, has tapered off. The coalition
estimates that Islamic State activity on Twitter has fallen by 45 percent
since 2014, with 360,000 of the group's Twitter accounts suspended so far and
new ones usually shut down within two days.
该集团在Telegram（一个已成为其宣布和演讲的主要平台的社交媒体网络）的存在已逐渐
减少。联盟估计，Twitter上的伊斯兰国家活动自2014年以来已下降了45％，其中360,000
个Twitter帐户已暂停，而新的Twitter帐户通常在两天内关闭。
"GAME IS UP" IS的游戏结束了
In what is likely to be a major symbolic victory for the U.S.-backed Iraqi
forces, they are now closing in on the area around Mosul's Great Mosque on
the western bank of the Tigris, where Baghdadi proclaimed his caliphate.
美国支持的伊拉克最具胜利象征的是他们关闭了摩苏尔大清真寺的西岸，那里就是
Baghdadi宣称他是哈里发的地方。
More than half of the 6,000 jihadists left to defend the city have been
killed, according to Hisham al-Hashimi, the author of the book "World of
Daesh", who also advises the Iraqi government. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for
Islamic State.
根据Hisham al-Hashimi，“世界的Daesh”的作者，离开的6000名圣战者中有一半以上被
杀害。他还向伊拉克政府提供建议，Daesh是伊斯兰国的阿拉伯语首字母缩写。
U.S. commanders sound upbeat and say the battle for the city is now in a late
stage.
美国指挥官听起来很乐观，说这座城市的战争现在已经是晚期了。
"The game is up," U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Matthew Isler told Reuters
at the Qayyara West Airfield south of Mosul, adding that some of Islamic
State's foreign fighters are trying to leave the city.
“游戏结束了，”美国空军准将马修·伊斯勒在摩苏尔南部的Qayyara西机场告诉路透社
，并补充说，一些伊斯兰国的外国战斗机正试图离开这个城市。
Those left behind to fight, mostly Iraqis, are putting up a "very hard fight"
on the tactical level but they are no longer an integrated force, as
coalition air strikes took out command and control centers, car bombs and
weapon caches, he said.
他说，那些被遗留在战斗中的人，主要是伊拉克人，在战术层面上正在进行“非常艰苦的
战斗”，但他们不再是一个综合力量，联盟空袭击中指挥和控制中心，汽车炸弹和武器缓
存。
"They have lost this fight and what you're seeing is a delaying action," he
said.
“他们失去了这场战斗，你看到的是一个拖延的行动，”
Although the loss of Mosul would effectively end Islamic State's territorial
rule in Iraq, U.S. and Iraqi officials are preparing for the group to go
underground and fight an insurgency like the one that followed the U.S.-led
invasion.
虽然摩苏尔的丧失将有效地结束伊斯兰国在伊拉克的领土统治，但美国和伊拉克官员正在
准备与该团体转入地下并游击，就像美国领导的入侵方式。
The "caliphate" as a state structure would end with the capture of Raqqa, its
de facto capital in Syria, possibly later this year.
可望在今年晚些时候在Raqqa（IS在叙利亚的实质首都）捕获"哈里发"作为结束。
Raqqa is far smaller than Mosul, but mounting operations against Islamic
State in Syria has been trickier than in Iraq, because the group's many
Syrian enemies have mostly been pre-occupied fighting among themselves in a
civil war since 2011.
Raqqa远远小于摩苏尔，但在叙利亚对伊斯兰国家的行动比在伊拉克更加棘手，因为该集
团的许多叙利亚敌人自2011年以来在内战中大部分是预先占领的战斗。
Nevertheless, Islamic State has faced setbacks in Syria over the past year
against three main foes: U.S.-backed Kurdish and Arab militias, the
Russian-backed Syrian army, and mainly Sunni Muslim Syrian rebels backed by
Turkey.
但是，在过去一年中，伊斯兰国在叙利亚遭遇了三个主要敌人的挫折：美国支持的库尔德
人和阿拉伯民兵，俄罗斯支持的叙利亚军队，主要是土耳其支持的逊尼派穆斯林叙利亚反
对派。
"The inevitability of their destruction just becomes really a matter of
time," said Major General Rupert Jones, deputy commander for the U.S.-led
anti-Islamic State coalition, adding that the group's leadership was now
focused on little more than survival.
美国领导的反伊斯兰国联盟副指挥官鲁珀特·琼斯少将说，他们被摧毁是不可避免的，
只是时间的问题。他说，该组织的领导层现在只注重生存。
The last official report about Baghdadi was from the Iraqi military on Feb.
13. Iraqi F-16s carried out a strike on a house where he was thought to be
meeting other commanders, in western Iraq, near the Syrian border, it said.
关于Baghdadi的最后一份官方报告是2月13日从伊拉克军方发来的。伊拉克F-16型飞机对
一座房子进行了攻击，据说是他正在伊拉克西部与叙利亚边境附近与其他指挥官见面。
Baghdadi, an Iraqi whose real name is Ibrahim al-Samarrai, is moving in a
remote, mostly-desert stretch populated exclusively by Sunni Arab tribes
north of the Euphrates river, according to Hashimi.
Baghdadi是一名伊拉克人，其真名是Ibrahim al-Samarrai，正在进行一个偏远的移动，
主要是沙漠的延伸，由幼发拉底河以北的逊尼派阿拉伯部落居住。
The area stretches from the town of Baaj, in northwestern Iraq, to the Syrian
border town of Albu Kamal on the Euphrates.
该地区从伊拉克西北部的Baaj镇延伸到幼发拉底河叙利亚边境城镇Albu Kamal。
"It's their historic region, they know the people there and the terrain;
food, water and gasoline are easy to get, spies are easier to spot" than in
crowded areas, he said.
他说：“这是他们的历史地区，他们知道那里的人们和地形;食物，水和汽油很容易得到
，间谍更容易发现”比起在拥挤的地区。
The U.S. government has had a joint task force to track down Baghdadi which
includes special operations forces, the CIA and other U.S. intelligence
agencies as well as spy satellites of the National Geospatial Intelligence
Agency.
美国政府已经成立了一个联合特遣部队跟踪Baghdadi，包括特种作战部队，中央情报局和
其他美国情报机构以及国家地理空间情报局的间谍卫星。
But Baghdadi seems to have learnt the lessons from the 2011 capture and
killing of Osama bin Ladin, and relies on multiple couriers and not just one,
unlike the al Qaeda founder, say U.S. intelligence sources.
但Baghdadi似乎已经从2011年捕获和杀害Osama bin Ladin(宾拉登)中学到经验教训，并依
靠多个信使，而不只是一个，不像基地组织的创始人。
He also switches cars during trips, a lesson learnt from the 2011 drone
strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an al Qaeda figure in Yemen.
他还在旅行期间切换汽车，这是从2011年无人机在也门攻击中杀死Anwar al-Awlaki中学到
的教训。
Baghdadi has not publicly appointed a successor, but Iyad al-Obaidi, also
known as Fadel Haifa, a security officer under former dictator Saddam
Hussein, is known to be the de facto deputy, according to Iraqi intelligence
sources.
根据伊拉克情报来源，巴格达迪没有公开任命继任者，但Iyad al-Obaidi，也被称为
Fadel Haifa，前独裁者Saddam Hussein下的安全官员，据称是事实上的副手。
More than 40 leading members of the group have been killed in coalition air
strikes, but the insurgency is likely to continue even if Mosul is captured
and Baghdadi and his aides are killed, according to Iraqi security experts.
该组织的40多名领导成员在联军空袭中被杀害，但根据伊拉克安全专家的说法，即使摩苏
尔被捕，巴格达迪和他的助手被杀害，叛乱仍可能继续。
"There will be other commanders rising because the structure of the
organization remains," said Fadhil Abu Ragheef, an Iraqi security expert
specialized in IS affairs.
伊拉克安全专家Fadhil Abu Ragheef说，"还有其他指挥官兴起，因为组织的结构仍然存
在。"
(Reporting by Isabel Coles in Mosul, John Walcott in Washington and Maher
Chmaytelli in Baghdad; writing by Maher Chmaytelli; additional reporting by
Mohammed el-Sherif in Cairo and Kylie MacLellan in London; Editing by Samia
Nakhoul and Peter Graff)
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-baghdadi-idUSKBN16F1DF
http://tinyurl.com/h6koqku
太长了 翻到有点肚烂XD