Daring overnight raid becomes a deadly trap for Iraqi troops

MOSUL, Iraq — Iraqi forces launched a daring nighttime raid in the early hours of Tuesday morning on the sprawling complex of municipal buildings in western Mosul along the Tigris River.

Beginning just after midnight, Iraq’s emergency response division, an elite arm of the Federal Police, led the attack. Initially advancing some half-dozen blocks past the front line in armored vehicles, but breaching the complex itself on foot.

After facing little resistance, regular Federal Police units followed and by 6:30 a.m. Tuesday morning an Iraqi flag had been hoisted above the tallest government building.

But hours after the municipal complex was declared liberated by the country’s top military commanders and U.S.-led coalition officials, the wounded began pouring into a small frontline clinic just a few hundred yards away.

By 11 a.m. clashes inside the compound had intensified and commanders behind the front were getting frantic radio calls for help. Three bulldozers had broken down trying to remove roadblocks, hundreds of troops were trapped and they needed reinforcements.

Snipers fired down on Iraqi forces from the buildings above and previously concealed suicide car bombs rammed their convoys. As the Islamic State group’s counterattacks on the municipality ballooned, Iraqi forces responded with artillery and airstrikes.

By afternoon, Federal Police units were being sent from the Tayran base to try and free the hundreds of troops in and around the municipality buildings and a front line clinic was receiving casualties in waves.