Mosul residents flee as troops move in
Holding white flags and travelling in convoys of dump trucks, army buses and family sedans, thousands of residents poured out of eastern neighbourhoods of Mosul yesterday, the first significant wave of people to escape the city held by Isis ( Islamic State).
More than 1.2 million people are believed to be still trapped in the northern city, which Iraqi security forces are just beginning to penetrate after launching an offensive to retake it two weeks ago. Newly constructed camps in the area have capacity for just 60,000 people.
The stream of humanity, which included shepherds pushing herds of sheep out of the warzone, crawled along in heavy traffic leaving Mosul and headed toward a swelling camp for displaced persons erected on the banks of the Khazir River, which has space for 1000 families but was rapidly filling up.
Even as they fled, some were almost giddy with relief. Drivers in the convoys blasted their horns and waved V for victory as Iraqi and Kurdish troops passed by on their way to the front lines.
Girls and young women who were forced to wear black veils over their faces in Mosul took them off and let the wind blow though their hair.
For nearly two and a half years, they have lived under Isis’ brutal rule, in the group’s defacto capital in Iraq. It was in the city’s central mosque that the group’s leader Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi declared his caliphate two years ago, calling on the world’s Muslims to follow him.
Now Iraqi commanders say it’s just a matter of time before the city i s recaptured, though no one is sure of the cost civilians trapped inside may pay
s government troops closed in, Baghdadi rallied his followers on Thursday, releasing an audio recording that called on them to remain steadfast and fight and obey their commanders.
“Oh you who seek martyrdom! Start your actions!” Baghdadi said in a translation provided by the Site intelligence group. “Totally decimate their territories, and make their blood flow like rivers.”
Analysts said it was the first time that the Isis leader, whose whereabouts are unknown, had personally called on his fighters to maintain discipline on the battlefield, suggesting he may be concerned about defections.
Some Iraqi commanders have said that Isis fighters and their families have moved from the eastern side of Mosul to the west and even to Syria, although such reports are difficult to verify.
The number of civilians fleeing increased “significantly” yesterday as fighting crossed from villages to more densely populated neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the city, said Alvhild Stromme from the Norwegian Refugee Council. She said at least 1000 families had fled, but new arrivals were still being counted.
Sabah Noori, a spokesman for Iraq’s special forces, said around 5000 people had fled the eastern neighbourhood of Gogjali, which his forces entered on Wednesday, and a similar number had stayed behind. The Iraqi army also said it had stormed the Mosul neighbourhood of Intisar yesterday, pressing farther into the city.
“We were dead to the world, but God did not want us yet,” said Saad Fahad, 46, who fled from Gogjali.
Asked what the last few days were like, Fahad said: “It was a horror, to be honest.”
They hid under the stairwell and in the bathroom.
Fahad came out with 40 members of his extended family in four vehicles, their rooftops piled with chairs, bicycles and mattresses and their pickup truck beds loaded with children. They were down to bread and tea before they ran.
Shops in the neighbourhood ran out of food two or three days ago and then shuttered during the fighting.
One of his cousins was freshly shaved and said it was a relief to be free of the long beard that Isis demanded of men.
But Fahad said: “It wasn’t the beards or the forbidden mobile phones or cigarettes that was the worst. It was the psychological pressure. You refuse anything? They called you an infidel and could take you away.”
Ahmed Mohammad, 33, a labourer travelling with 23 family members, said that after the first Iraqi troops entered his neighbourhood on Wednesday, “I ran out of the house and kissed his boots”.
Ahmed, who asked that his last name not be used because he still had relatives in Mosul, said that the eastern edge of the city was first shelled by Iraqi forces and later by Isis.
“Many civilians are dying,” he said. “If you have a car you will leave, if you don’t you will try to walk,” Ahmed said, predicting that Mosul would empty itself out, at least in districts with heavy fighting. “Only the shepherds will stay to protect their animals.”
Iraq’s armed forces are trying as much as possible to keep families in their homes as they advance, hoping to divert a humanitarian crisis that the country is woefully equipped to deal with. Some 3.4 million people have already been displaced during Iraq’s war against Isis. United States airstrikes yesterday killed at least 30 Afghan civilians, including women and children, in the volatile northern province of Kunduz, officials said, after a Taliban assault left two American soldiers dead. The strike triggered emotionally charged protests in the provincial capital, with the victims’ relatives parading mutilated bodies of dead children piled into open trucks through the streets of Kunduz city. The Taliban last month overran the city for the second time in a year, as Nato- backed Afghan forces struggle to rein in the insurgents. US- backed Afghan special operations forces were conducting an operation against the Taliban on the outskirts of the city when they came under insurgent fire, prompting calls for air support. “In the bombardment, 30 Afghan civilians were martyred and 25 others were wounded,” provincial spokesman Mahmood Danish told AFP. Police spokesman Mahmoodullah Akbari gave the same toll, adding that the dead included infants aged as young as 3 months and other children. At least one person was killed and 30 injured in a powerful explosion outside a police building yesterday in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir, the centre of the Kurdish minority, medical sources told AFP. The local governor’s office said in a statement that the cause of the blast “seems to be a car bomb used by members of the separatist terrorist organisation“, a reference to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party ( PKK). The explosion occurred just hours after police detained the two co- leaders of the country’s main proKurdish party and several other MPs in a major escalation of a broader crackdown against leading Kurds. A 29- year- old man has been accused of holding a teenage girl hostage inside a Sydney house for a month and sexually assaulting her. The man was arrested after police saw him chasing the 15- year- old along a Blacktown street before grabbing the teen and trying to drag her away around 1.30am local time on Thursday. The girl told police the man had been holding her against her will for four weeks inside a Balmoral Street house, where he allegedly raped. her. The girl was reported A missing from a residential out- of- home care facility in October. The Department of Immigration and Border Protection have also been told of the man’s arrest.
It wasn’t the beards or the forbidden mobile phones or cigarettes that was the worst. It was the psychological pressure. You refuse anything? They called you an infidel and could take you away. Saad Fahad
Tensions have flared at a massive demonstration in Jakarta as tens of thousands of protesters marched towards the presidential palace, shutting down major roads in the capital. Not long after police spoke directly to protesters over a loud speaker praising them for holding a peaceful protest, a group of young men waving the green and black flags of the Islamic Students Association began pelting officers with water bottles and sticks. Police responded by putting on riot gear and creating a wall of officers about ten deep. Protesters are calling for the arrest of the Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, commonly referred to as Ahok, over comments he made about the Koran. Thousands of military were stationed behind barbed wire at the palace and streets around Jakarta’s largest mosque Masjid Istiqlal was shut down. Protesters have also turned their attention towards President Joko Widodo who called for calm in the leadup to the rally.