Mosul fight unleashes new horrors on civilians
IRBIL, Iraq — As security forces bear down on Mosul, the Islamic State group has moved hundreds of civilians from villages around the city to use as human shields, and the United Nations said the militants may have executed nearly 200 people. Near the Kurdish-controlled city of Kirkuk, Sunni Arabs who fled there to escape violence are being forcibly displaced as officials worry about terrorist sleeper cells.
The toll of war added to news that arose earlier in the week. A sulfur plant set on fire by the Islamic State has sent dozens of people for treatment for respiratory problems, and several journalists have been hurt, and two killed, covering the fighting. And a wayward attack hit a Shiite mosque in northern Iraq, killing more than a dozen women and children.
And in the historically Christian town of Bartella, when the gunfire stopped Tuesday, the 700 villagers initially were jubilant that they were free of the militant group’s stern Islamist strictures. Men cut their beards, women removed their veils. But freedom brought new problems. The villagers found themselves treated with suspicion, held under guard, searched and questioned even before arriving at the residential camps for Iraqis displaced by the war.
Just 10 days into the offensive to retake Mosul from the Islamic State, the campaign has unleashed a fresh set of horrors. Although the government’s military operation itself is largely meeting its goals in progressing toward the city and the U.S.-led coalition is beginning to set its sights on the Islamic State’s de facto capital of Raqqa, Syria, the turmoil surrounding it is a sign of just how difficult it would be to secure a lasting peace across Iraq’s many divisions even after a victory.
The human toll and factional distrust are examples of the humanitarian crisis that many believed would unfold once the fight to oust the Islamic State from its last major Iraqi stronghold began.
U.N. officials said Tuesday that Islamic State fighters had killed close to 200 people in and around Mosul in the past week.