FIGHT TO THEIR DEATH
ISIS gets slammed, deploys suicide trucks
ISIS FIGHTERS losing ground in Mosul put up stiff resistance Saturday, turning their desperation into destruction.
The spineless jihadists, who reportedly slaughtered at least 285 innocent people one day earlier, used sniper fire, roadside explosives and suicide truck bombs to combat the charging Iraqi and Kurdish troops.
The army pushed into the town of Hamdaniyah, about 12 miles from Mosul, and raised the Iraqi flag over its central government compound.
The Christian village was believed to be largely uninhabited, but riddled with hidden mines and other booby traps.
Toxic fumes from a sulfur plant set ablaze by ISIS in another village south of Mosul left two Iraqis dead and nearly 1,000 seeking medical help.
The offensive on Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, is expected to become the biggest battle in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and it could require a massive humanitarian relief operation.
Thousands of villagers living outside the main city have already fled. Experts believe as many as 1.5 million people reside in the area. In Iraq, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter was briefed on the operations and met with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. “The campaign is proceeding according to plan and the schedule that we’ve had,” Carter said after meeting Abadi. The defense chief addressed about 50 U.S. service members at Baghdad International Airport and invoked the name of Jason Finan, the 34-year-old U.S. naval officer killed by a roadside bomb last week. Carter said Finan’s death underscored the risk that American troops are taking as they advise Iraqi forces in the fight. He told the crowd he was encouraged by what he has seen so far in the fight to liberate Mosul.
The U.S. is providing air support for the offensive, which began last Monday, as part of an international coalition.
The Pentagon is sending dozens of intelligence experts to Iraq in the hope that the fall of the ISIS stronghold will provide a treasure trove of information, The New York Times reported Saturday.
“Clearly, there’s going to be intelligence that will be able to be exploited,” Maj. Gen. Gary Volesky, commander of American ground forces in Iraq, said earlier last week.
More than 5,000 ISIS militants are believed to be holed up in Mosul, ensuring the fighting will intensify as the Iraqis close in on the city.
The Islamic terror group has been in control of the area for more than two years.
In a dramatic show of barbarism as they lost ground, militants rounded up roughly 550 families from villages surrounding Mosul to use as human shields against air strikes, the United Nations said Friday.
The bodies of 285 murdered men and boys were bulldozed into a mass grave on what was once the campus of the College of Agriculture, CNN reported Friday, citing Iraqi intelligence sources.
Meanwhile, at least 80 people were killed in the northern city of Kirkuk during a chaotic 24 hours that included suicide attacks and numerous gun battles, officials said.
“Nearly all the terrorists who entered Kirkuk have been eliminated, and we have full control, except for maybe one area where they are being flushed out,” Abadi said after meeting with Carter.
The mayhem in the oil-rich town appeared to be intended to divert attention from Mosul, some 100 miles away.
Pockets of resistance remained in the area Saturday as ISIS militants launched rockets and opened fire on an Iraqi convoy near the town.
Another 17 people, mainly women and children, were killed as an air strike hit a funeral procession in Daquq, to the south. Another 50 people were wounded, said Daquq Mayor Amir Khodakram.
Most of the victims were women and children.
While it was unclear who carried out the strike, the Russian Defense Ministry blamed the bombing on the U.S.-led coalition, saying it had “all the signs of a war crime.”
A ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, said two jets were involved in the raid and apparently mistook the procession for a gathering of militants.
To the south of Mosul, the burning sulfur plant choked the air with toxic smoke after being torched by ISIS.
The air took on a grayish hue as it mixed with smoke from earlier oil well fires set by the militants.
“The smoke is from sulfur that was lit by Daesh,” said Alaa Abdullah Khaled, a resident in the nearby village of Awsaja, referring to ISIS by its Arabic acronym. “It is causing suffocation among the children and it gives them nosebleeds.”
Two U.S. military officials said the fire was set two days ago, but the winds shifted early Saturday, sending the smoke south toward Qayara West air field, a staging area for the offensive.
They said troops at the base were wearing protective masks and estimated it could take two to three days to put the fires out.