An Iraqi soldier helps a displaced girl
‘Senior IRGC killed fighting IS’
after she and other family members leave their homes west of Mosul on May 26, as government forces continue their offensive to retake the city of Mosul from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. (AFP)
ARBIL, Iraq, May 27, (Agencies): Iraqi forces have launched a broad assault on parts of battleground second city Mosul still held by the Islamic State group, the military announced on Saturday.
The offensive is the latest push in the more than seven-month battle to retake Mosul, a linchpin in IS’s now crumbling attempt to establish a cross-border jihadist “state”.
Multiple security forces units are attacking “what remains of the unliberated areas” on the west bank of the River Tigris, the Joint Operations Command said in a statement.
“Army forces attacked Al-Shifaa neighbourhood and the Republican Hospital, federal police forces AlZinjili neighbourhood, and Counter-Terrorism forces attacked Al-Saha alOula neighbourhood,” it said.
All three neighbourhoods are located north of the Old City, a warren of closely spaced buildings and narrow streets that has posed significant challenges to Iraqi forces seeking to oust IS.
The Joint Operations Command said later on Saturday that two colonels from the Iraqi army’s 16th Division were killed in the Mosul area, but did not provide details about when or how they died.
On Friday, the federal police said they had bombarded IS positions with Grad rockets and field artillery in “preparation for attacking the Old City in the coming hours”.
But the Joint Operations Command did not mention any attack on IS-held areas of the Old City on Saturday.
Earlier this week, the military said it had dropped “hundreds of thousands of leaflets” on IS-held areas of Mosul, urging “citizens to exit via safe corridors towards security forces”.
International aid group Save the Children expressed concern that the call for civilians to leave could expose them to additional danger.
“The Iraqi government must ensure all exit corridors are genuinely safe for people to flee,” it said.
“The call for civilians to leave their homes is a U-turn on former directives that compelled civilians to stay and wait for the battle to pass” -- instructions that also raised concerns about the risks.
IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces backed by US-led air strikes have since regained much of the territory they lost to the jihadists.
Iraqi forces launched a major operation to retake Mosul in October last year, fighting their way to the city and retaking its eastern side before setting their sights on its smaller but more densely populated west.
The battle has taken a heavy toll on civilians, pushing hundreds of thousands to flee, while hundreds more have been killed or wounded.
On Thursday, the United States announced the results of an investigation into a deadly coalition air strike earlier this year.
The probe found that at least 105 civilians had been killed and 36 remained unaccounted for, but said most had been killed by the secondary explosion of IS munitions stored in a nearby house.
There have also been reports that members of an Iraqi interior ministry special forces unit tortured and killed detainees during the Mosul operation.
Iraqi photographer Ali Arkady recounted witnessing the abuse, which he also filmed, in an article for German magazine Der Spiegel. US network ABC News also reported on Arkady’s footage.
The interior ministry has launched an investigation into the allegations.
Abuses such as those described in the reports could sow the seeds of future conflict even as security forces near the end of the battle for Mosul, IS’s most emblematic stronghold.
Meanwhile, a senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) was killed fighting Islamic State west of the Iraqi city of Mosul, the Tehran-based Tasnim news agency reported on Saturday.
It is the first time Iran has announced the death of a senior commander during the operations launched in October to drive the Islamist militants out of Mosul.
“Commander Shaaban Nassiri was martyred in operations to free the area west of Mosul,” the Tasnim news agency quoted the Revolutionary Guards as saying.
The IRGC is the main backer of the Iraqi Shi’ite paramilitary force known as Popular Mobilisation, fighting Islamic State west of Mosul.
Nassiri was killed near Baaj, one of the last cities which remain under Islamic State control, near the Syrian border, according to Mashregh, an Iranian news website.
Baghdadi is believed to be hiding in this region, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.
Nassiri fought in the Iran-Iran war of 1980-1988 and has been involved in the six-year war in Syria, backing President Bashar al-Assad, according to Mashregh.
A general from the Revolutionary Guards assumed the post of Iran’s ambassador to Iraq in April, in a sign of the key role the military force is playing in its neighbouring country.
Popular Mobilisation on Friday announced the capture of the Sinjar military base, near Baaj, moving its presence closer to the Syrian border.
Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government is aiming to control the border in coordination with the Iranian-backed army of Assad.
Linking up the two sides would give Assad a significant advantage in fighting the six-year rebellion against his rule. bombings of churches in April that killed 45 Copts. In December, a suicide bomber struck a church in Cairo, killing 29 Copts.
IS claimed all the bombings and threatened more attacks on the Copts, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s population of 90 million.
It has also killed several Christians in North Sinai, forcing dozens of families to flee.
The latest attack drew global condemnation.
“Terrorists are engaged in a war against civilisation, and it is up to all who value life to confront and defeat this evil,” US President Donald Trump said in a statement.
Pope Francis, who had visited Egypt in April, sent a message to Sisi saying he was “deeply saddened to learn of the barbaric attack”.
Pope Francis prayed Saturday for the Coptic Christians killed a day earlier in Egypt by Islamic extremists, saying that there are more Christian martyrs today than in ancient times.
During a meeting with clergy in the Italian port city of Genoa, Francis urged them to pray “for our brothers the Egyptian Copts, who were killed because they did not want to renounce their faith.”
“Let’s not forget that today there are more Christian martyrs than in ancient times, than in the early day times of the church,” Francis told bishops, priests and nuns gathered in the Cathedral of San Lorenzo.
Twenty-nine people died in the attack Friday on Christians traveling to a monastery south of Cairo. The attack, which took place on the eve of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, was the fourth to target Egypt’s Christian minority since December.
The Egyptian Cabinet says 13 victims wounded in the attack remain hospitalized.
Sisi blamed the attack on suspected Islamic State group extremists in Libya.
After Francis visited Egypt last month, IS vowed to escalate attacks against Christians and urged Muslims to steer clear of Christian gatherings and Western embassies.
Mourners sang, women sobbed and men cried out in anger in a packed Egyptian church at the funeral of some of the 28 Coptic Christians killed in Friday’s bus attack.
Eight wooden coffins were lined up in front of the altar, each bearing a golden cross and a white piece of paper printed with the name of the victim inside.