IRAQIS CLAIM VICTORY IN MOSUL
Security forces in shattered city still face a hard road, including Daesh sleeper cells and suicide bombers
MOSUL, IRAQ— Dressed in a military uniform, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi arrived in Mosul on Sunday to congratulate Iraq’s armed forces for wresting the city from Daesh.
The victory marked the formal end of a bloody campaign that lasted nearly nine months, left much of Iraq’s second-largest city in ruins, killed thousands of people and displaced nearly one million more.
While Iraqi troops were still mopping up the last pockets of resistance and could be facing guerrilla attacks for weeks, the military began to savour its win in the shattered alleyways of the old city, where Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, put up a fierce last stand.
Hanging over the declaration of victory is the reality of the hard road ahead. The security forces in Mosul still face dangers, including Daesh sleeper cells and suicide bombers. And they must clear houses rigged with explosive booby traps so civilians can return and services can be restored. Nor is the broader fight over: Other cities and towns in Iraq remain under the militants’ control.
“Iraqi security forces need to be on the top of their game, and we need to be over their shoulder helping them as they move through this transition to consolidate gains and really sink their hold in on the west side,” said Col. Pat Work, commanding officer of the 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, as he rolled through the streets of west Mosul recently in an armoured vehicle. “ISIS will challenge this.”
Work’s brigade is carrying out the U.S. advisory effort in Mosul.
‘We have been fighting for each metre.. . literally’
The victory could have been sweeter, though, as the Iraqis were denied the symbolism of hanging the national flag from the Grand al-Nuri Mosque and its distinctive leaning minaret, which was wiped from the skyline in recent weeks as a final act of barbarity by Daesh militants who packed it with explosives and brought it down as government troops approached.
It was at that mosque in June 2014 where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi strode to the top of a pulpit and declared he was the leader of a caliphate straddling the borders of Iraq and Syria, a vast territory where for three years extremists have governed with a strict form of Islamic law, held women as sex slaves, carried out public beheadings and plotted terrorism against the West.
This past week, as fighting raged nearby, Iraqi soldiers took selfies in front of the stump of the minaret and posed at the spot where al-Baghdadi made his speech. Destruction surrounded them, as did the stench of decaying bodies of Daesh fighters, left to rot in the blazing sun.
The battle for Mosul began in October, after months of planning between Iraqis and U.S. advisers, and some Obama administration officials had hoped it would conclude before they left office, giving a boost to the departing president’s efforts to defeat Daesh.
Instead, it lasted until now, and was far more brutal than many expected. With dense house-to-house fighting and a ceaseless barrage of snipers and suicide bombers, the fight for Mosul was some of the toughest urban warfare since the Second World War, U.S. commanders have said. Iraqi officers, whose lives have been defined by ceaseless war, said the fighting there was among the worst they had seen.
“I have been with the Iraqi army for 40 years,” said Maj.-Gen. Sami al-Aradi, a commander of Iraq’s special forces. “I have participated in all of the battles of Iraq, but I’ve never seen anything like the battle for the old city.” He continued: “We have been fighting for each metre. And when I say we have been fighting for each metre, I mean it literally.”
Even as al-Abadi arrived here outfitted in the black uniform of Iraq’s elite Counterterrorism Service, Iraqi forces were pressing to erase a pocket of Daesh resistance by the Tigris River. Speaking from his base in the old city, Lt.-Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi, a senior commander in that service, said the militants’ enclave was about 200 metres long and 50 metres wide and that he expected it to be taken later in the day or on Monday.