A U.S. commander’s year on the front line against ISIS in Iraq and Syria

SINCE AUGUST 2016, LIEUT. GENERAL Stephen Townsend had commanded Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led military coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. It was a key year in the operation to “degrade and destroy” ISIS, at the center of which was the liberation by the Iraqi military of Mosul, Iraq’s second city,