Allied warplanes and Iraqi ground troops are increasingly isolating Islamic State militants in the captured city of Mosul, prompting Iraqi officials to push for a winter offensive to wrest control of the area months ahead of the previous schedule — and over American warnings. The ground campaign to retake Iraq’s second-largest city from the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS , is still likely many weeks away, American officials said. Its timing will depend on the pace of training for additional Iraqi ground troops to retake the city and for a holding force afterward, as well as sorting out a brewing dispute between Baghdad and Washington over whether Iraq is ready to carry out such a complex urban battle. The United States and its coalition partners have carried more than 660 airstrikes in Iraq, making it more difficult for the Islamic State to mass […]