For U.S. and Obama, Mosul campaign is calculated risk

Peshmerga forces advance in the east of Mosul to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul

ASIA: Iraq and the United States have launched a crucial battle to liberate the city of Mosul without determining how its volatile region will be governed once Islamic State militants are ejected, U.S. and other officials said.

U.S. officials acknowledge gaps and risks in the plan for Mosul, amid worries that defeat of Islamic State in its de facto Iraqi capital could give way to sectarian score-settling and land grabs in the country's ethnically mixed north.