Iraqi forces free hundreds of civilians in Mosul battles Iraqi advances open escape routes for Mosul civilians Baghdad hopes to declare victory during Eid holiday
MOSUL: Iraqi forces opened exit routes for hundreds of civilians to flee the Old City of Mosul on Saturday, as they battled to retake the ancient quarter from Daesh militants mounting a last stand in what was the de facto capital of their power.
US-trained urban warfare units were channeling their onslaught along two perpendicular streets that converge in the heart of the Old City, aiming to isolate the militant insurgents in four pockets.
Iraqi authorities are hoping to declare victory in the northern Iraqi city during the Eid holiday, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, in the next few days.
Helicopter gunships were assisting the ground thrust, firing at insurgent emplacements in the Old City, a Reuters correspondent reported from a location near the front lines.
The government advance was carving out escape corridors for civilians marooned behind Daesh lines.
There was a steady trickle of fleeing families on Saturday, some with injured and malnourished children. “My baby only had bread and water for the past eight days,” one mother said.
At least 100 civilians reached the safety of a government-held area west of the Old City — tired, scared and hungry. Soldiers gave them food and water.
More than 100,000 civilians, of whom half are believed to be children, remain trapped in the crumbling old houses of the Old City, with little food, water or medical treatment.
The urban-warfare forces were leading the campaign to clear the militants from the maze of Old City alleyways, moving on foot house-to-house in locations too cramped to use armored combat vehicles.
Aid organizations and Iraqi authorities say Daesh is trying to prevent civilians from leaving so as to use them as human shields. Hundreds of civilians fleeing the Old City have been killed in the past three weeks.
A US-led international coalition is providing ground and air support in the eight-month-old campaign to seize Mosul, the largest city the militants came to control in a shock offensive in Iraq and neighboring Syria three years ago.
US-supported Iraqi government offensives have wrested back several important urban centers in the country’s west and north from Daesh over the past 18 months.
Historic mosque
Military analysts said Baghdad’s campaign to recover Mosul gathered pace after Daesh blew up the 850-year-old Al-Nuri mosque with its famous leaning minaret on Wednesday.
The mosque’s destruction, while condemned by Iraqi and UN authorities as another cultural crime by the militants, gave troops more freedom to press their onslaught as they no longer had to worry about damaging the ancient site.
It was from the mosque that Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi announced himself for the first time as the ruler of all Muslims, on July 4, 2014. Mosul’s population at the time was more than 2 million.
Al-Baghdadi fled into the desert expanse extending across Iraq and Syria in the early phase of the Mosul offensive, leaving the fighting there to local Daesh commanders, according to US and Iraqi officials. Recent Russian reports that he was killed have not been confirmed by the coalition or Iraqi authorities.
The Iraqi government once hoped to take Mosul by the end of 2016, but the campaign dragged on as Daesh reinforced positions in inner-city neighborhoods of the city’s western half, carried out suicide car and motorbike bomb attacks, laid booby traps and kept up barrages of sniper and mortar fire.
Three killed in suicide attacks
Suicide bombers attacked a shopping district of east Mosul that was retaken from the militants months ago, killing at least three people, medical and security officials said Saturday.
The attack struck the Muthanna neighborhood late on Friday as residents shopped ahead of the Eid Al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
“The first suicide bomber blew himself up as he was being stopped by a policeman, who died on the spot,” a senior police officer said.
A second bomber managed to enter a shopping arcade and blew himself up among civilians, killing at least two and wounding nine, according to the same officer and a medic at Al-Khansaa hospital.
A third suicide bomber was killed by police before he could detonate his vest, the sources said.