Not the endgame for Islamic State yet
Battle for Mosul’s Old City will be tough challenge for Iraqi army
TAKING A CHANCE: A man carrying a humanitarian aid package dodges Iraqi special forces vehicles in the al-Mansour district in western Mosul in Mosul SOON after sunrise a large, dark circle of smoke appeared like a halo over Mosul’s Old City — a sign to advancing troops that Islamic State is not about to give it up without a fight.
The Iraqi army had hoped to surprise the jihadists by launching an operation to recapture the historic quarter under cover of darkness on Thursday night.
But IS fighters had a surprise of their own — just as daylight broke they set fire to miles of cloth sheets that had been covering the market, as well as cars and even houses, in order to obscure the view for coalition pilots.
Then came the counterattack. Waves of suicide car bombs and mortar fire so fierce that the elite police units were forced to turn back and hold their positions on the outskirts. “Just when you think they are looking weak, they come back stronger,” said Sergeant Alaa Hassan, from a position 3km south of Mosul.
The battle for the Old City is expected to be the toughest yet. It is densely populated, with narrow streets, and troops will have to abandon their Humvees for house-to-house fighting.
About 50 000 civilians have fled since the offensive on western Mosul began last month.
But more than half a million are thought to be trapped in the 25% of the city still in IS hands.
In the past few days, thousands of civilians have been seen fleeing, some with stories of being used as shields by jihadists who threatened to kill them if they tried to run.
Many had hunkered down in the basements of their homes for days without food or water as the battle raged above them and, on Friday, they walked wearily through the wreckage of burnt-out cars and craters in the al-Mansour neighbourhood and up the hill to a screening centre where men were separated from women and children and loaded onto trucks.
One woman picked up her baby and lifted his T-shirt, his ribs clearly visible and his stomach concave.
“I have had nothing and so I haven’t been producing milk,” Umm Laith, 26, said.
Her older children ran to the soldiers who were handing out bread, but her infant son was too weak to eat the scraps they brought back.
The Iraqi army, under pressure to finish the operation before the northern summer, has been storming through suburbs at a rate of one every few days.
This week they captured the provincial government buildings, the central bank branch and a museum where militants had filmed themselves destroying priceless statues in 2015.
They are now just metres FLYING FISH: Iraqi troops distribute food aid to residents of western Mosul on Friday as government forces advance in the city from the al-Nuri Mosque where, in July 2014, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi first proclaimed the so-called “caliphate” in his only public appearance.
However, this speed of advance has taken its toll. The army was forced to retreat this week after trying to take the government buildings with too few men, repeating a mistake that caused the deaths of up to 100 troops at the al-Salam hospital, on the eastern side of the city, in December.
Three months after this area was liberated, IS is still launching attacks on the eastern side HOLDING ON: Iraqis who have not fled Mosul mill around, waiting to collect aid packages in the war-torn al-Mansour district END OF THE ROAD: Two children stand between destroyed vehicles in western Mosul as Iraqi forces advance in the battle to seize the Old City from Islamic State of th3 city, which is divided by the Tigris River. A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a restaurant last month, killing four and wounding dozens, and, on Friday, IS fired rockets at two mosques in the east as hundreds gathered for prayers.
“Daesh [the Arabic acronym for IS] knows they are losing and they are lashing out at freed areas to punish the people,” said Hassan.
“They will not win this war, but it is about saving the lives of as many people as we can before they are defeated,” he said. — ©
Just when you think they [IS fighters] are looking weak, they come back stronger