U.S. airstrikes aim to stop ISIL car bombs in Mosul
Warplanes blast holes in roads to constrict militant movements
As Islamic State militants holed up in Mosul put up stiff resistance, airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition are cratering roads to prevent the fighters from using car bombs against advancing Iraqi forces.
The new focus has succeeded in reducing car bombs — one of the Islamic State’s most effective weapons — and preventing militants from moving around the city to reinforce fighting positions, said Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad.
“This pressurizes the enemy, because they run out of effective tactics to use,” Dorrian said.
Jennifer Cafarella, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, said the Islamic State is mounting a tougher defense in Mosul than it did in Fallujah and Ramadi.
The militants fled those Iraqi cities as coalition-backed Iraqi security forces closed in.
Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, is the Islamic State’s last stronghold in the country.
Iraq’s elite counterterrorism forces jumped in when Iraq launched its Mosul offensive Oct. 17, but Iraq’s conventional forces moved slower.
Since then, the counterterrorism forces have pushed deeper into the city, and the conventional forces have started to penetrate the city limits.
Iraq’s military said this week that its forces seized another neighborhood in southeast Mosul as the army moved north.
The Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, has fought back with roadside bombs, snipers and bombs in cars, some reinforced with armor.
Cafarella said targeting car bombs is meant to help Iraqi forces regain momentum.
About 30% of the city is controlled by Iraq’s government forces, the coalition said, and Defense Secretary Ash Carter said this week, “I’m confident of the outcome.”
Since the offensive began, the coalition has launched 283 strikes on Islamic State supply routes, the coalition said.
Dorrian said the pace of those strikes has increased in recent weeks.
The airstrikes disabled four of five bridges that cross the Tigris River and divide Mosul, the Pentagon said.
“The damage to the bridges ... is making it harder for (the Islamic State) to flow fighters and ammunition across the river,” British Maj. Gen Rupert Jones, deputy commander of the coalition, said last week.
Coalition warplanes disabled the bridges without destroying them. “We’ve done that in a very careful manner,” Jones said.
“This pressurizes the enemy, because they run out of effective tactics to use.” U.S. Col. John Dorrian