Iraq forces in street by street fight in battle for west Mosul
mosul (Iraq) — Elite Iraqi forces said they were battling house by house in the Old City of Mosul on Saturday, inching towards the mosque where the Daesh group proclaimed its “caliphate” in 2014.
Commanders said that progress in the densely populated warren of alleyways was slow, but that government forces had made new gains from Daesh in the ancient central district. “Our forces are 800 metres from the mosque,” said Captain Firas Al Zuwaidi, spokesman for the interior ministry’s elite Rapid Response Force.
He was referring to the Al Nuri Mosque, where Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi declared the cross-border “caliphate” in his sole public appearance in July 2014.
“We are encountering difficulties — bad weather and streets too narrow for our military vehicles which cannot enter,” Zuwaidi said.
“The fighting is street by street, house by house,” he said, as the sound of mortar fire rang out from the heart of Iraq’s second city.
The battle for the Old City was always expected to be the toughest of the campaign to retake Mosul from Daesh, further complicated by the presence of hundreds of thousands of civilians believed to have stayed on under militant rule.
Iraqi forces in January retook the east of the city, which is divided by the Tigris River, before setting their sights on its smaller but more densely populated west bank. The Old City lies at the heart of west Mosul.
The Rapid Response Force is being backed up by the federal police who have made steady gains in recent days. They have now taken the Al Arbiaa market and a grain silo overlooking the Old City, federal police commander Lt-Gen Raed Shakir Jawdat said on Saturday.
That came after Jawdat announced the capture of the Al Basha Mosque and the Bab Al Saray market on Friday.
“The federal police and the Rapid Response Force led a surprise attack and besieged Daesh cells in the Old City, killing 13 of them with grenades,” Jawdat said.
Iraqi forces had already taken a string of key targets in west Mosul, including the airport, the train station, Mosul Museum and the provincial government headquarters.
The fall of Mosul would be a major setback for Daesh following losses in Iraq and Syria. Iraqi authorities launched the fight to retake Mosul from the militants on October 17 last year. —