ISIL converts Mosul homes to death traps
BAGHDAD // ISIL militants preparing for a last stand in Mosul are booby-trapping homes with civilians inside and welding doors shut on starving families to prevent the population from fleeing, residents say.
Iraqi forces are closing in fast on the Old City and its narrow streets, where the extremists are expected to focus their depleted military capabilities.
While ISIL often resorts to human shields to cover its move- ments, it seems to be taking the tactic to new depths in Mosul.
“Daesh came to our house and welded the door. They gave us a small amount of water and a white cloth and said: ‘Here’s a shroud for you’,” said one resident of Zinjili neighbourhood. The woman sent a voice message to a relative in liberated east Mosul to say she was trapped in her house with her husband, four children and no food.
Resources were already scarce when the huge government offensive to wrest Mosul from ISIL was launched in October last year.
After more than six months of fighting, the living conditions of residents of the last neighbourhoods ISIL holds are beyond dire. A 35- year- old man who gave his name as Abu Rami and lives in the Old City of west Mosul said ISIL was desperate to keep the population from running away.
“They have been doing this lately. When they suspect a family of intending to escape to the security forces, they lock them in,” he said.
“They have detained several families like this here, and in some cases they weld the doors to be sure,” he said. Houses in Mosul often have barred windows or are built around walled courtyards with a single door on to the street.
“Those families have a choice of dying of hunger, disease or shelling.”
Abdulkarim Al Obeidi, a civil activist from Mosul, said an estimated 250,000 people were still trapped in the Old City and the handful of other areas under ISIL control.
“Daesh is locking doors on families inside those areas that have not yet been liberated. They are detaining people,” he said. He put the number of ISIL fighters defending their redoubts in west Mosul at about 600. This means the militants are vastly outnumbered, making it increasingly important for them to resort to human shields as part of their defence strategy. “Daesh members have everything they need because they raided people’s homes and took their food stockpiles,” Mr Al Obeidi said, advocating air drops to save thousands from starving to death.
“Daesh wants to sow terror among civilians with this filthy tactic of welding doors shut on people,” said Hossameddin Al Abbar, a councillor for Nineveh, the province of which Mosul is the capital.
“There are people dying of hunger and disease now, especially children and elderly people,” he said, adding that it was impossible to know exactly how many.
“At this stage, hunger is killing more than shelling and fighting.” Another method residents said ISIL has used to prevent a civilian exodus is booby-trapping.
A senior officer of the interior ministry’s elite rapid response forces said they had found several families stuck in booby- trapped homes since the launch last week of an operation in north-west Mosul. “The Daesh gangs are booby-trapping houses with people inside them,” Maj Gen Thamer Abu Turab said in west Mosul.
“We found eight such houses, where our EOD [ordnance disposal] teams were able to defuse the devices and get the families out,” he said.
Abu Imad, a middle-aged former restaurant employee who lives with his family of five in the Zinjili neighbourhood, said: “Behind the walls on the streets, there are rooms and cellars packed with people too scared to move. And hunger is killing people now,” he said. “I know some people have started eating plants and are boiling paper. At this rate you will soon see people eating cats and dogs.”