Iraq seizes key Mosul bridge In final push
south of mosul — Iraqi forces battling the Daesh group in west Mosul reached the city’s southernmost bridge on Monday, a key step in efforts to defeat the militants in their stronghold, a spokesman said.
The move, a little more than a week into a major push on Mosul’s west bank, could allow Iraqi forces to extend a floating bridge between the city’s two halves and pile pressure on the militants.
“The Rapid Response force and the federal police have liberated Jawsaq neighbourhood and now control the western end of the fourth bridge,” Brigadier General Yahya Rasool said. The spokesman for the Joint Operations Command was referring to the southernmost of five bridges — all of which are damaged and unusable — across the Tigris River that divides the northern Iraqi city.
“That means the bridge is under control on both sides,” said Rasool.
Government forces retook the east bank from Daesh a month ago, completing a key phase in an offensive on Mosul that began on October 17 and has involved tens of thousands of fighters.
Engineering units will be expected to deploy a so-called “ribbon bridge” across the Tigris that will allow the connection of the western side’s active front lines to the already retaken east bank.
Rasool said that the interior ministry’s Rapid Response force had now fully retaken two neighbourhoods on the west bank. —
south of mosul (Iraq) — Iraqi forces seized a damaged Mosul bridge on Monday which could link up their units on either side of the Tigris river, as thousands of civilians fled the fighting for Daesh’s remaining stronghold in the west of the city.
US-backed army and police units advanced through populated western districts, fighting tough street battles, and announced they had captured Mosul’s southernmost bridge.
Once repaired, the bridge could help bring reinforcements and supplies from the eastern side, piling pressure on the militants dug in the western side among 750,000 civilians.
Iraqi forces captured eastern Mosul in January, after 100 days of fighting. They launched their attack on the districts that lie west of the Tigris a week ago.
If they defeat Daesh in Mosul, that would crush the Iraq wing of the caliphate that the group’s leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi declared in 2014 over parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria. The US commander in Iraq has said he believes US-backed forces will recapture both Mosul and Raqqa — Daesh’s Syria stronghold — within six months.
Since government forces broke through the city’s southern limits on Thursday, more than 10,000 civilians have fled Daesh-held areas, seeking medical assistance, food and water, Iraqi commanders said. About 1,000 civilians arrived in the early hours of Monday at the sector held by the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), the wounded taken to the clinic of this elite unit, while men were screened to make sure they are not Daesh members.
Among the people treated at the CTS clinic was a little girl with a blood on her face and a woman with shrapnel in her hand, lying immobile .
An old man who came with them said about 20 people were sheltering in their house when it was hit by an air strike two days ago.
Those who managed to escape have had to walk through the desert for at least an hour to reach government lines. —