Iraqi armed forces announce progress in Mosul campaign

Terrified civilians hide from gunfire

BAGHDAD, June 13, (Agencies): Iraqi forces on Tuesday reported progress in the US-backed campaign to dislodge Islamic State from Mosul, announcing the capture of a district just north the city’s historic centre.

With the loss of the Zanjili neighborhood, the enclave still held by Islamic State in the northern Iraqi city has shrunk to two districts along the western banks of the Tigris river - the densely populated Old City centre and the Medical City.

Iraqi government forces retook eastern Mosul in January and began a new push on May 27 to capture the remaining enclave, where up to 200,000 people are trapped.

The Mosul offensive started in October with air and ground support from a US-led international coalition. It has taken much longer than expected as Islamic State is fighting in the middle of civilians, slowing the advance of the assailants.

The fall of Mosul would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate” declared in 2014 over parts of Iraq and Syria by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in a speech from a historic mosque in the old city.

In Syria, Kurdish forces backed by US-air strikes are besieging Islamic State forces in the city of Raqqa, the militants’ de facto capital in that country.

About 800,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war population of Mosul, have already fled, seeking refuge either with friends and relatives or in camps.

The bullets of jihadists rain down outside the Mosul kindergarten, where dozens of terrified Iraqi civilians are sheltering from fighting in their northern city.

Confused, scared and exhausted, the civilians — mostly women, including one in a wheelchair — huddle in the pre-school after Iraqi forces brought them in for protection.

The sounds of sniper fire, air strikes, and shelling echo all around them, as Iraqi forces fight to dislodge Islamic State group fighters from a nearby building.

Iraqi forces are fighting to retake Mosul from IS, after the jihadist group overran the city in 2014, imposing its brutal rule on its inhabitants.

Naja Abdallah, 70, says she didn’t dare leave her house until Iraqi forces arrived in her district of west Mosul, and even then fled with family members under heavy fire.

“We had no more electricity, no water, no medicine — nothing but God’s mercy,” she says, as sniper and artillery fire continue unabated in the Al-Shifaa district outside.

Iraqi forces have managed to retake most of Mosul since launching the battle for IS’s last major Iraqi stronghold

seven months ago, but the advance has slowed in the last districts under jihadist control.

IS’s grip on Mosul has been reduced to the Old City and several nearby areas, but the jihadists are putting up significant resistance and up to 200,000 civilians may be caught in the fighting.

Iraqi fighters inside the pre-school have led women to one room, while they check the identities of the men — young and old — somewhere else.

The anti-IS forces thoroughly screen fleeing civilians in a bid to make sure no jihadists escape among them.

Omran, a 24-year-old who has grown his beard long like all men under

IS rule, is one of those who is separated from his family for vetting.

“We’ve lived through tough, terrifying days. We’ve really been through a lot,” he says, just before he is whisked away. The fighting intensified around his home in recent days, he says, and his family escaped to their neighbour’s house after their own was hit in the fighting.

“I hope to God it all gets better,” Omran says. Women quietly break down into tears after the men are taken away, as an Iraqi commander shouts coordinates over the radio for warplanes and artillery gunmen to target the jihadists.