100,000 civilians behind Daesh lines in Mosul

Uncertainty over terrorist leader Al-Baghdadi’s fate after airstrike

GENEVA: About 100,000 civilians remain trapped behind Daesh lines in Mosul with a US-backed government offensive to recapture the Iraqi city entering its ninth month, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday.

Daesh snipers are shooting at families trying to flee on foot or by boat across the Tigris River, it said.

“These civilians are basically held as human shields in the Old City,” said the UNHCR representative in Iraq, Bruno Geddo, referring to Mosul’s historic district where the militants are besieged by Iraqi government forces.

“There is hardly any food, water, electricity, fuel. These civilians are living in an increasingly worsening situation of penury and panic because they are surrounded by fighting.”

The Old City “is a very dense labyrinth, a maze of narrow alleyways where fighting will have to be done on foot, house by house,” said Geddo.

Geddo voiced deep concern about “collective punishment” of families whose relatives may have been Daesh fighters.

“Collective punishment means in a deeply tribal society that you see evictions, destruction of property, confiscation of property for families perceived as being associated with Daesh because one family member might have been having that link.

“This is a very critical point for the future of Iraq. Because it is essential to uphold the rule of law, to pursue those who committed crimes through the court system, the judicial system, rather than applying tribal custom,” he said.

Uncertainty and confusion surrounded the fate of Daesh head Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi Friday as Russia announced it may have killed him in an airstrike targeting a meeting of terrorist leaders just outside the group’s self-declared capital in Syria, but US officials said there was no definitive proof of his death.

Apart from Moscow’s claim that he may have been killed in the May 28 airstrike along with more than 300 militants, there was not much else to back it up. The Russian Defense Ministry said the information about his death was still “being verified through various channels.”

Asked about that claim at a Moscow news conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: “I don’t have 100 percent confirmation of the information.”

A spokesman for the US-led coalition fighting Daesh said he would welcome such news but urged caution.

“There have been several past claims of this kind that have been proven false, and we have seen no definitive proof that this report is true either,” US Army Col. Ryan Dillon said. Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, also said there was no information to corroborate the report.

Lavrov noted that if Al-Baghdadi’s death is confirmed, its importance must not be overestimated. He said that “past examples of similar actions to strike the leadership of terrorist groups were presented with much enthusiasm and pomp, but the experience shows that those structures later regained their capability.”