Iraqi aid workers fear the worst
Many civilians trapped as forces prepare to drive IS out of Mosul
MORE than a million civilians in Mosul were in grave danger and aid workers were bracing for the worst, a relief group said yesterday after Iraqi forces reached the jihadist-held city.
Gunfire echoed across the village of Gogjali on the edge of Mosul as elite Iraqi forces nearby continued a push that had brought them to within a few hundred metres of the city’s eastern edge.
Just more than two weeks into the offensive to retake Mosul – the last Iraqi city under the control of the Islamic State (IS) group – Iraq’s military said on Tuesday its forces had penetrated city limits by entering a southeastern neighbourhood.
There were no signs yet of a major push inside Mosul itself, and on other fronts Iraqi forces were still some distance from the city.
But the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), one of the most active relief groups operating in Iraq, warned that a long-feared humanitarian crisis was closer than ever.
“We are now bracing ourselves for the worst. The lives of 1.2 million civilians are in grave danger, and the future of all of Iraq is now in the balance,” NRC Iraq director Wolfgang Gressmann said.
“People in and around Mosul have lived for almost 2½ years in a relentless, terrifying nightmare. We are now all responsible to put an end to it,” he said.
More than 20 000 people have already fled to government-held areas since the offensive was launched on October 17, according to the International Organisation for Migration.
But civilians inside Mosul, who according to aid group Save The Children include up to 600 000 children, are trapped behind IS lines and the United Nations has said thousands are being held for possible use as human shields.
In Gogjali, fighters with Iraq’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service were screening civilians for any remaining IS members.
Backed by air and ground support from a US-led coalition, Iraqi federal forces and Kurdish peshmerga fighters are advancing on Mosul from the east, north and south.
Soldiers pushing down from the north have moved to within 2km of Mosul, military officials say, while forces moving from the south are still some distance from the city.
Paramilitary forces from the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation), an umbrella organisation dominated by Iran-backed Shiite militia, also launched an assault at the weekend to cut off the jihadists’ escape route to Syria to the west of Mosul.
The IS is vastly outnumbered in the battle, with an estimated 4 000 to 7 000 jihadist fighters in Mosul and the surrounding area.
But the jihadists have put up stiff resistance with suicide bombers, mortars and smallarms fire as Iraqi forces advance.
On the southern front, where Iraq’s elite Rapid Response Division is advancing towards the IS-held town of Hamam al-Alil some 20km from Mosul, a captured IS radio provided rare insight into how the jihadists operate.
An AFP journalist embedded with Iraqi forces was present on Tuesday as they listened to IS fighters plan tactics over the radio.
After seizing control of large parts of Iraq and neighbouring Syria in mid-2014, IS declared a cross-border “caliphate”, imposed its harsh interpretation of Islamic law and committed widespread atrocities. – AFP