Determination energizes Iraqi forces to retake Mosul
Government offensive seeks to oust Islamic State from stronghold.
Clean your guns, the burly Iraqi commander told nearly 200 specially trained counterterrorism troops arrayed in front of a dozen armored black Humvees: In an hour and a half, we leave for Mosul.
The troops listening closely to Lt. Col. Ali Hussein were among 35,000 Iraqi security forces leading a government offensive that began Monday to oust Islamic State from the city of Mosul, the extremist group’s last major stronghold in Iraq.
“We depend on each other to move ahead. This is our decisive battle,” Hussein said, warning of booby traps, suicide bombers and mines.
After dismissing his troops, Hussein said that although the army is leading the battle for Mosul, it’s working with Kurdish fighters known as peshmerga, as well as Sunni and Shiite militias, to capture and secure surrounding areas. The force is supported by a military coalition that includes the United States.
Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city with a population of about 1.2 million, was seized by Islamic State in 2014.
The battle to retake the city is expected to be difficult, involving urban warfare among a mix of factions and forces in a place still full of civilians. Iraqi forces, many of them Shiite, are expected to need some level of support by residents of the largely Sunni city for the offensive to be successful.
About 4,000 peshmerga troops
helped in the operation to retake 10 villages surrounding Mosul on Monday, the first stage of the battle, with American warplanes providing air support. The area had been home to Christians and other minorities persecuted by Islamic State, and many civilians already had fled, peshmerga commanders said.
The fighting began hours after Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced on state television about 2 a.m. that the liberation of Mosul had begun.
“The Iraqi flag will be raised in the middle of Mosul, and in each village and corner very soon,” al-Abadi said, dressed in a military uniform and surrounded by officers.
By noon, peshmerga forces had cleared most of the villages, suffering fewer than 10 casualties, peshmerga Brigadier Gen. Salar Jabar said as he stood with dozens of troops near the front lines about 20 miles east of Mosul.
Black smoke billowed on the horizon, where he said Islamic State militants had set fire to a gypsum plant to obscure the area from airstrikes. Soon after, several booms sounded. Some were airstrikes, he said, but they were also still seeing Islamic State suicide bombers, some as young as 13, and snipers.
“We are trying to liberate as much as we can,” he said, but, he added, “They’re resisting.”
Though many Islamic State fighters have fled with their families to Syria, some villages still had 10 to 20, and they leave mines and booby traps behind, he said. At least three peshmerga, including a commander, were killed Monday by mines, fellow fighters said.
Maj. Sarhard Raffat, standing near the front lines, said Kurdish troops had been instructed by commanders not to enter Mosul, but to hold the perimeter and await Iraqi forces. That’s what they intended to do, he said, as more booms sounded in nearby villages.
Peshmerga Division Commander Rashid Abdullah Hader stood with a fellow group of fighters perched on the back of a pickup truck with a machine gun mounted in the bed. They faced a dusty field of golden grass, scanning the plain where smoke still billowed below the surrounding mountains.
“We achieved what we planned,” Hader said. “I’m optimistic that all the people will get back to their families and their land and it will be a victory not just for Kurdistan, but for the Iraqi people.”
Some of the peshmerga and Iraqi soldiers fighting have relatives and friends trapped in Mosul and other Islamic State territory.
Humanitarian groups have said the offensive will displace a million residents, 200,000 in the first two weeks alone.
Families are at “extreme risk” of being caught in crossfire, Stephen O’Brien, the United Nation’s humanitarian chief, said in a statement. Tens of thousands may end up besieged or held as human shields, and thousands could be forcibly expelled, he said.
O’Brien urged all sides “to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and ensure they have access to the assistance they are entitled to and deserve.”
Peshmerga fighter Zir Wa, 28, said Monday he talked to a friend in Mosul, a car salesman, just before the offensive started. He said Islamic State leaders had been fleeing with their families west over the border to Raqqah, Syria, the de facto capital of Islamic State’s self-styled caliphate.
“They are waiting for the security forces to tell them what to do,” he said of the man’s family, who had seen leaflets dropped by the coalition instructing them to shelter in place. “They know they have to stay in their houses. We have information that there are counterterrorism groups in Mosul waiting for forces to get close so they can fight Islamic State.”
It was in Mosul, at the city’s Great Mosque, that the group’s leader, Abu Bakr Baghdadi, declared their caliphate, including portions of Iraq and Syria.
Though some residents alienated from the Iraqi federal government welcomed them, they soon soured on the harsh regime, which meted out severe punishment for violating moral codes, with public executions and beheadings.
Residents are not allowed to have cellphones, although many hide them. They also have televisions and know the offensive is underway.
About 10,000 of the fighters stayed and appear ready to use civilians as human shields, Wa’s friend told him. They zoom around town on motorbikes, he said, forcing families to pay $200 each to fund their fight, digging ditches to halt the troops’ progress and “every time they hear war planes, they are hiding among civilians.”