DAESH seeking alliance with Qaeda: Iraq’s vice president
Forces fight door-to-door in Mosul
US Army Spc Dan Decker, 23, from Somerset, Kentucky poses with an artillery shell on his base, east of Mosul on April 17. Decker, from the 82nd Airborne Division’s C Battery, 2nd Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment is part of the team responsible for firing artillery in support of Iraqi forces battling Islamic State militants in Mosul. (AP)
BAGHDAD, April 17, (Agencies): Islamic State is talking to al-Qaeda about a possible alliance as Iraqi troops close in on IS fighters in Mosul, Iraqi Vice-President Ayad Allawi said in an interview on Monday.
Allawi said he got the information on Monday from Iraqi and regional contacts knowledgeable about Iraq.
“The discussion has started now,” Allawi said. “There are discussions and dialogue between messengers representing Baghdadi and representing Zawahiri,” referring to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi and Ayman al Zawahiri, the head of al-Qaeda.
Islamic State split from al-Qaeda in 2014 and the two groups have since waged an acrimonious battle for recruits, funding and the mantle of global jihad. Zawahiri has publicly criticized Islamic State for its brutal methods, which have included beheadings, drownings and immolation.
It is unclear how exactly the two group may work together, Allawi said.
Islamic State blazed across large swathes of northern Iraq in 2014, leaving the Iraqi central government reeling. Baghdadi declared a caliphate over the territory the group controlled from the al-Nuri mosque in Mosul the same year, which also became a point of contention with al-Qaeda.
Last October, Iraqi security forces and Shi’ite volunteer fighters, commonly referred to as the Popular Mobilization Units teamed up with an international coalition, including the United States, to drive Islamic State from of Mosul and the areas surrounding the city.
Pushed
The group has been pushed out of the half of Mosul that lies east of the Tigris River, but Iraqi soldiers and their allies are now bogged down in tough fighting in the narrow streets of the Old City of Mosul, west of the river, according to Iraqi security officials.
Islamic State has used suicide bombers, snipers and armed drones to defend the territory under their control. The group has also repeatedly targeted civilians or used them as human shields during the fighting, according to Iraqi and American security officials.
The militant group has lost ground in Mosul but still controls the towns of Qaim, Hawija and Tal Afar in Iraq as well as Raqqa, their de facto capital in Syria.
Even if Islamic State loses its territory in Iraq, Allawi said, it will not simply go away.
“I can’t see ISIS disappearing into thin air,” Allawi said, referring to the group by a commonly used acronym. “They will remain covertly in sleeping cells, spreading their venom all over the world.”
Iraqi forces gained ground in doorto-door fighting in the Old City of Mosul, a military spokesman said on Monday, as the US-backed offensive to capture Islamic State’s de facto capital in Iraq entered its seventh month.
A Reuters correspondent saw thick smoke billowing over the Old City, near the Grand al-Nuri Mosque, from where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” spanning parts of Iraq and Syria.
Heavy exchanges of gunfire and mortar rounds could be heard from the neighbourhoods facing the old city across the Tigris river that bisects Mosul into a western and eastern sides.
The war between Islamic State militants and Iraqi forces is taking a heavy toll on several hundred thousand civilians trapped inside the city, with severely malnourished babies reaching hospitals in government-held areas.
Iraqi Federal Police forces “are engaged in difficult, house-to-house clashes with Daesh fighters inside the Old City”, a media officer from these units told Reuters.
Drones are being used to locate and direct air strikes on the militants who are dug in the middle of civilians, he said.
Troops have had the famous centuries-old al-Nuri Mosque leaning minaret in their sights since last month, as capturing it would mark a symbolic victory over the insurgents.
A police spokesman said the troops were closing in on the mosque without indicating the remaining distance.
Their progress has been slow as about 400,000 civilians, or a quarter of Mosul’s pre-war population, are trapped in the Old City, according to the United Nations.
As many as half a million are estimated to remain overall in neighbourhoods still under control of the militants in western Mosul, the organisation said in a statement on Monday.
“Civilians in Mosul face incredible, terrifying risks,” said the UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, Lise Grande.
“They are being shot at, there are artillery barrages, families are running out of supplies, medicines are scarce and water is cut-off.”
More than 327,000 have fled fighting since the offensive operation started on Oct 17, with strong air and ground support from a US-led coalition. “Mosul has pushed us to our operational limits,” Grande said.
Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, was captured by the ultra-hardline Sunni Muslim fighters in mid 2014.
Government forces, including army, police and elite counter terrorism units have taken back most of it, including the half that lies east of the Tigris river.
The militants are now surrounded in the northwestern quarter including the historic Old City, using booby traps, sniper and mortar fire against the assailants.
Police on Sunday reported a toxic gas attack on its troops that caused no deaths. It also said the militants were increasingly using suicide motorbikes attacks.
The narrow alleyways restricts the use of suicide cars by the militants and tanks, armoured personnel carriers and Humvees by the government forces.
The United Nations said last month that 12 people, including women and children, had been treated for possible exposure to chemical weapons agents in Mosul. But Iraq’s UN ambassador, Mohamed Ali Alhakim, said later there was no evidence for that.
The fighting has killed several thousands among civilians and fighters on both sides, according to aid organisations.
Residents who have managed to escape from the Old City have said there is almost nothing to eat but flour mixed with water and boiled wheat grain. What little food remains is too expensive for most residents to afford, or kept for Islamic State members and their supporters.