Residents flee neighborhoods under attack
MOSUL: Iraqi forces on Monday were searching neighborhoods of west Mosul they retook weeks ago after a surprise militant attack on their rear that left several dead, officials said.
Militants launched a wave of attacks late on Sunday, trying to take control of a district west of the Old City, Hay Al-Tanak, and the nearby Yarmuk neighborhood of west Mosul.
The attack, which was claimed by Daesh, sowed panic among residents who returned to live there.
A top commander in the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), which sent forces to fight the Daesh gunmen, said the attackers had infiltrated the area by blending in with returning displaced civilians.
“The group came with the displaced and settled in the Tanak district. They regrouped and launched counter-attacks,” Staff Lt. Gen. Abdulwahab Al-Saadi told AFP.
“Yarmuk is being searched house to house,” he said, adding that two groups of Daesh attackers were still believed to be in the area, which lies on the western edge of the city.
“Only a small part remains in the city, specifically the Old City,” said Lt. Gen. Abdul Ghani Assadi, commander of the CTS elite units in Mosul.
A CTS medic said the attack had resulted in several casualties, but he could not say how many.
“There are martyrs who were killed by Daesh,” the medic said. He said 15 to 20 militants were also killed in the battle.
While the exact circumstances were unclear, Sunday night’s attack was described as a diversionary tactic by west Mosul “sleeper cells” to ease the pressure on the Old City, where the militants appear to be on their last legs.
“The sleeper cells carried out a surprise attack against the security forces, in an attempt to ease the siege on the Old City,” a local official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“Operations to flush out pockets controlled by Daesh are ongoing,” he said.
Daesh has carried out sporadic suicide bombings in parts of Mosul using sleeper cells.
Social media carried posts showing black smoke and reports that it came from houses and cars set alight by the militants. Witnesses said residents had fled the two neighborhoods.
Assadi said the attempt to take over the neighborhoods had failed and the militants were now besieged in one or two pockets of Hay Al-Tanak. A curfew was in force over western Mosul, a Reuters correspondent reported.
The fall of Mosul would mark the end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate,” but Daesh remains in control of large areas of both Iraq and Syria.
The CTS is leading the fight in the densely populated maze of narrow alleyways of the historic Old City, which lies by the western bank of the Tigris River. A US-led international coalition is providing air and ground support in the 8-month-old offensive.
The east bank of Mosul, a city divided by the Tigris River, was retaken in January and a push to wrest back the western side was launched in mid-February.
More than 800,000 people have been displaced from the Mosul area since October last year and the security forces are struggling to carry out effective screening. And more than 50,000 civilians, about half the Old City’s population, still remain trapped behind Daesh lines with little food, water or medicines, according to those who escaped.
Up to 350 militants are estimated by the Iraqi military to be besieged in the Old City, dug in among civilians in crumbling houses making extensive use of booby traps, suicide bombers and sniper fire to slow down the troops’ advance.
Hundreds of families, who in some cases had returned to their homes weeks ago, fled the area again overnight, fearing the return of Daesh rule.
The militants last week destroyed the historic Grand Al-Nuri Mosque and its leaning minaret from which their leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi declared his authority spanning parts of Iraq and Syria three years ago. The mosque’s grounds remain under the militants’ control.
Iraqi troops captured the neighborhood of Al-Faruq in the northwestern side of the Old City facing the mosque, the military said on Monday.
Pushing east
Iraqi forces took the eastern side of Mosul from Daesh in January, after 100 days of fighting, and started attacking the western side in February.
Assadi said Iraqi forces had linked up along Al-Faruq and would start pushing east, toward the river. “It will be the final episode,” he said.
Aid organizations say Daesh has stopped many from leaving, using them as human shields. Hundreds of civilians fleeing the Old City have been killed in the past three weeks.
Al-Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul to local commanders and has been assumed to be hiding in the Iraqi-Syrian border area. There has been no confirmation of Russian reports over the past days that he has been killed.