Iraqis claim ground in west Mosul
Advance expected to slow as they get deeper into area
MOSUL // Iraqi forces backed by jets and helicopters battled ISIL fighters inside west Mosul yesterday but still faced a tough and potentially protracted battle to retake the extremist group’s stronghold. Almost a week into a major push on the city’s west bank, they were gaining significant ground in one of the most intense phases of the four-monthold operation to retake the city.
Elite forces from the interior ministry’s Rapid Response units, which retook Mosul airport on Thursday, pressed north towards the city centre, but their advance was expected to slow as they moved deeper. “Right now we’re heading towards the Mosul governorate building, we’re now about one kilometre from the fourth bridge,” the city’s southernmost bridge across the Tigris river, Lt Col Abdulamir Al Mohammadawi said.
“We’re heading towards the centre and also the Turkish consulate, which we’re about 500 metres from,” he said, as attack helicopters fired rockets at targets in the Jawsaq neighbourhood. As they pushed deeper from the outer edges of the city into more densely populated areas, resistance appeared to stiffen.
“ISIL is using houses full of residents as human shields,” Lt Col Al Mohammadawi said, as tanks and troops rained fire on suspected ISIL snipers.
Moments later, Rapid Response fighters helped two wounded comrades back to the rear for treatment. The pair moaned in pain and one wore a tourniquet above his knee after being shot in the leg by a sniper.
Iraqi reporter Shifa Gardi was killed in west Mosul yesterday when a roadside bomb exploded as she was covering the clashes, her television channel said.
The 30- year- old journalist, who worked for the Kurdish news network Rudaw, became the second reporter to be killed in battle since the Mosul offensive began four months ago.
As ISIL was pushed out, residents told of their lives under the extremists’ rule and celebrated their recovered freedom.
“They made us wear short trousers and beards, cigarettes were forbidden,” said 20- year- old Othman Raad outside his home in Jawsaq as fighting raged blocks away.
“The women had to cover even their eyes, it was forbidden even for their eyes to appear.
“Now we feel relaxed, our children are safe, we are safe.”
Iraqi forces launched a fresh push from the south on February 19, nearly a month after the eastern side of Mosul was declared “fully liberated”.
A few hundred civilians had managed to flee areas on the outer edges of west Mosul between Thursday and yesterday, but aid groups estimated that at least three quarters of a million people remained trapped on the west bank.
Aid groups said that those trapped faced a terrible choice of risking their lives to flee across combat lines or stay home, exposed to shelling and facing starvation as supplies became increasingly scarce.