the Levant offensive in the north of Iraq, it was reported that ISIL ""took the weapons stores of the 2nd and 3rd [Iraqi army] divisions in Mosul, the 4th division in Salah al Din, the 12th division in the areas near Kirkuk, and another division in Diyala (the 5th Division)," said Jabbar Yawar, secretary-general of the Kurkish Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs. Reuters reported that the 5th Division (Iraq), located in Diyala Governorate, was by October 2014 reporting to informal "militias' chain of command," not to the Iraqi Army, according to several U.S. and coalition military officials. A much later report from Small Wars Journal said that in "..2013 and 2014 the 7th Division of the Iraqi Army, 99% Sunni, fought IS virtually alone, until it was almost completely destroyed." The October 2014 Reuters report quoted Lieutenant General Mick Bednarek, Chief of the Office of Security Cooperation, in Iraq from 2013 until July 2014, as estimating that "the army has only five functioning divisions ... whose fighting readiness ranges between 60 and 65 percent." Michael Knights wrote in 2016 that the rebuilding from the mid-2014 disaster had been steady but "very slow". "By January 2015 a fair number of brigades had been salvaged and a couple of new brigades were built but the overall frontline combat strength of the ISF was halved due to attrition in the manning of each brigade. [U]nits were weaker and many were too demoralized or lightly equipped to do more than hold in place. A year later, by January 2016, significant progress has been made in terms of available forces albeit largely by shuffling around personnel and raising around a dozen new and very small 1,000-strong brigades." The new 15th and 16th Divisions have been identified, which appear to comprise some of the new brigades that Knights mentions, including the 71st, 72nd, 73rd, 75th, and 76th. Structure The Iraqi Army began the Anglo-Iraqi War with a force of four divisions. A fifth was formed in 1959. By the outbreak of the Iran–Iraq War, the force had grown to nine divisions. By 1990, with wartime expansion, the force had grown greatly to at least 56 divisions, making the Iraqi army the fourth largest army in the world and one of the strongest in the Middle East. After the defeat in the Persian Gulf War in 1991, force size dropped to around 23 divisions, as well as Republican