Iraqi forces capture Mosul bridge
Troops close in on government building complex
MOSUL // US- backed Iraqi forces captured the second of Mosul’s five bridges yesterday, giving a boost to their push to retake the city’s western parts from ISIL.
All of Mosul’s five bridges over the Tigris River have been destroyed but the capture of their ruins enables the movement of forces progressing alongside the river, which splits Mosul.
The bridge seized, Al Hurriya, is the second after one further south. Its capture shields the back of the forces advancing towards a nearby government buildings complex.
“We control the western end of the bridge,” said a senior media officer with the interior ministry’s elite Rapid Response Unit, which is leading the charge towards the complex. Recapturing the complex would help Iraqi forces attack the militants in the old city. It would also mark a symbolic step towards restoring state authority over Mosul, although the buildings are destroyed and not being used by ISIL.
The battle for Mosul, which started last October, will enter a more complicated phase in the densely populated old city.
Civilians have been displaced in greater numbers in recent days, as the fighting rages in the middle of residential neighbourhoods where populations have been suffering for months from food, water and electricity shortages.
Iraqi forces captured the eastern side of Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting and launched their attack on the districts that lie west of the Tigris on February 19.
“In the coming hours our forces will raise the Iraqi flag over the governorate building,” said federal police Brig Gen Shaalan Ali Saleh.
The militants have barricad- ed streets with civilian vehicles and rigged them with explosives to hinder the advance of Iraqi forces who were also met with sniper, machine-gun and mortar fire, as well as explosives dropped from light drones.
Federal police units which are also taking part in the offensive are using similar drones to hit the militants.
The Iraqi military believes several thousand militants, including many who travelled from western and central Asian countries, are among west Mosul’s remaining civilian population, which aid agencies estimated to be about 750,000.