Battle focus on Mosul mosque
MOSUL: Iraqi special forces and police fought Islamic State (IS) militants to edge closer to the alNuri mosque in western Mosul yesterday, tightening their control around the landmark site.
The fighting is focused on the Old City surrounding the mosque, where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a caliphate nearly three years ago across territory controlled by the group in Iraq and Syria.
Thousands of residents have fled IS-held areas inside Mosul, the militants’ biggest remaining stronghold in Iraq. But tens of thousands more are still trapped in homes, caught in the fighting, shelling and air strikes as Iraqi forces backed by a US-led coalition advance in the west.
Heavy sustained gunfire could be heard from the Old City area, where militants are hiding among residents and using the alleyways, traditional family homes and snaking narrow roads to their advantage, fleeing residents say.
Rapid Response elite interior ministry troops were advancing on the edge of the Old City, clambering over garden walls. IS responded with rocket fire. Iraqi troops shot down at least one suspected IS drone. The militants have been using small models to drop munitions on Iraqi military positions.
In southern Baghdad, a suicide truck bomber detonated his explosives, killing at least 17 people and wounding about 60, police sources said, in the latest attack on the capital since IS began to lose ground in the offensive.
With the battle entering the densely populated areas of western Mosul, civilian casualties are becoming more of a risk. The UN says several hundred civilians have been killed in the past month. Residents say IS militants are using them as human shields.
Pope Francis said at his weekly audience in St Peter’s Square yesterday that it was “urgent and imperative” to protect civilians in Iraq, and he expressed concern about those trapped in western Mosul. – Reuters