Casualties mount as Iraqi troops advance in Mosul
Front-line medical stations overflow as wounded pour in.
As Iraqi forces push deeper into western Mosul, the assault is bringing a surge of casualties at — least 30 Iraqi security forces and more than 200 civilians killed or wounded in the last three days. Iraq’s military does not release official casualty reports, but medics at front-line clinics provided figures on condition of anonymity.
The sudden spike in casualty numbers mirrors what played out in Mosul’s east as the fight moved from rural villages to dense urban areas. Front-line medic stations that stood empty for the first days of the assault on Mosul’s west, announced last week, are now overflowing. At one clinic Sunday, the dead had to be moved to the ground to free up beds as more injured arrived.
On Sunday afternoon Iraq’s special forces were still struggling to clear the Mamun neighborhood, returning to grueling urban combat similar to the fight for eastern Mosul in early November when military attrition rates spiked.
Iraqi forces at a base a few miles south of the front called in airstrikes to take out small units of two or three IS fighters who repeatedly managed to halt advancing Iraqi convoys.
The number of car bombs targeting Iraqi forces in western Mosul has been fewer than what forces experienced in the east: approximately four a day in the west compared to more than dozen a day in the east.
But the number of armed IS drones has ballooned. In a singled day drones dropped more than 70 munitions on Iraqi forces. The bombs mostly caused light injuries but they disrupted operations and monopolized the finite surveillance capabilities available from Iraq’s military and the U.S.-led coalition backing the Mosul fight.
The whizz of mortars on the edge of Mamun neighborhood repeatedly sent families scattering for cover as they tried to flee Mosul’s city limits. The route civilians are using to flee Mosul’s west on foot is still within mortar range of IS fighters inside the city and largely out in the open, leaving people more vulnerable than those who fled the city’s eastern side.
“You can see this road is continually being hit by mortars from (the Islamic State group),” said Lt. Gen. Abdel Ghani al-Asadi a few miles back from the front, pointing to the clouds of dust kicked up by the munitions on Mosul’s edge.
At the clinic south of Mosul casualties came in waves: Humvees and pickup trucks swerved in front of the row of simple cots manned by a team of about a dozen doctors and medics.
Rahma Ghanim anxiously looked up as doctors checked her for serious wounds. The 19-year-old had been separated from the rest of her family when Iraqi security forces evacuated them from the edge of Mosul.
Her uncle had stepped on a roadside bomb. The blast killed him instantly, struck her in the back with mild shrapnel wounds and took a finger off her oldest brother’s hand.
A Humvee arrived with the rest of her family and she screamed with joy, pulling away from the doctors treating her when she saw her father and aunt on the hood. The three embraced in tears.
“Where are the rest?” she asked.
Soldiers began opening the doors and six children climbed out, but in one seat was a small body wrapped in a colorful blanket.
“He’s dead! Oh God! Oh God!” Rahma collapsed to the ground with her aunt. She screamed cursing IS, “may God destroy their houses! May God burn their hearts!”
Her father, Ghanim Hussein, staggered to a sofa in shock. “His name was Shukran,” he said, “he was my youngest, four years old.”
“Inside Mamun the streets are full of bodies,” said Rawa Salem, Rahma’s cousin. “I saw 20 dead with my own eyes, many of them children.”