Tensions rise between Iraqi forces, civilians in Mosul
MOSUL, Iraq — “Don’t stop!” the Iraqi special forces lieutenant yelled as a wave of fleeing civilians trudged past his position in Mosul’s Old City in the scorching heat. “Don’t pretend you’re tired! Keep going!”
Nearby, dozens of women and children, their hands raised, dropped their bags for security forces to search. Keeping the crowd at a distance, the soldiers yelled at the women to roll up their sleeves and empty everything they were carrying.
“We know you’re Daesh,” the soldiers said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.
Tensions have escalated in the final days of the battle for Mosul, as suicide bombings carried out mostly by women hiding among groups of civilians target Iraqi forces closing in on the last few hundred square yards of territory Islamic State militants control.
At least one such attack struck Wednesday.
At a screening center, security forces detained boys as young as 14 they accused of belonging to the Islamic State and barred the elderly and sick from stopping to rest during the difficult journey out of the war-torn district, a more than half-mile trek on foot over mounds of rubble in 115-degree heat.
Many civilians are believed still trapped in the Islamic State enclave, with around 1,500 fleeing with every 100 yard advance by Iraqi forces. Those emerging from the Old City at this late stage in the fight were weak, injured, gaunt and pale. For months, the district has been bombarded by Iraqi artillery and cut off from food and water.
The fight for Mosul is taking a “devastating” toll on the Old City’s residents, Doctors Without Borders said in a statement Wednesday.
An elderly man, stripped down to his underwear, staggered toward the soldiers.
“I recognize him from the Daesh propaganda videos!” special forces Lt. Fadhel Hadad yelled as two soldiers grabbed the man and sat him on the side of the road.
Hadad began questioning him, but the man made motions that he was unable to speak.
“Don’t pretend you are too tired to speak. Give him water and he’ll speak,” Hadad said.
Iraqi soldiers increasingly accuse civilians still inside the Old City of being relatives of Islamic State fighters. Some 300 militants are estimated to be inside a 600-square-yard sliver of territory.
“We know they are all Daesh families, but what do we do, kill them all?” said a special forces solider, Amar Tabal, stationed deeper inside the Old City.
Women and children who aren’t found to be carrying weapons are allowed to pass. Men and boys go through a much more stringent process.
Lt. Gen. Abdul-Ghani al-Asadi, a senior special forces commander, defended the screening procedures. He described the Islamic State suicide bombings as “barbaric” and maintained that searching and questioning civilians is essential to protecting his forces and preventing Islamic State fighters from escaping Mosul.
“These are not children. They are cubs of the caliphate,” Hadad, the officer at the Old City checkpoint said, gesturing to a group of young boys being held in custody.
A group of women in black hijabs covered in dust said they had been traveling for about an hour and had been checked at gunpoint three times.
“They suspect we are all Daesh families, but we aren’t,” said Ruqaya Mahmoud, 24, who said she was originally from the Old City.