Iraqi troops breach areas of west Mosul
Forces greeted by women celebrating collapse of ISIL rule
Iraqi forces yesterday entered neighbourhoods in west Mosul for the first time since beginning their push to recapture the city from ISIL four months ago.
It came as aid agencies said that for hundreds of thousands of civilians the most dangerous phase of the offensive was about to begin.
The interior ministry’s elite Rapid Response force, which retook Mosul airport on Thursday, kept its momentum and yesterday entered the adjacent Jawsaq neighbourhood. They were met by mortar and sniper fire, but also by ululating women celebrating the end of more than two and half years of ISIL rule, and men begging for cigarettes.
“I don’t have any left, I swear, I don’t have any left,” said one government fighter as his convoy advanced down the street.
The elite Counter-Terrorism Service ( CTS), which has carried out most of the fighting in the Mosul offensive, took full control of the Ghozlani military base adjacent to the airport, said Maj Gen Sami Al Aridi.
It also entered a neighbourhood farther west along the city’s southern limits.
“We entered the outer edge of Al Maamun neighbourhood,” said Staff Lt Gen Abdul Wahab Al Saadi, a CTS commander.
“ISIL is using vehicle bombs. This morning three were destroyed. We have some injuries from the weaponised drones and mortars.”
It was unclear whether Iraqi forces would keep venturing deeper into west Mosul or consolidate their positions on the edges before launching operations to take them towards the centre.
The fight “has moved very fast so far, but we’ll see what happens in the next stage. It might be more difficult”, said Lt Gen Saadi.
Elsewhere in Iraq yesterday, an ISIL suicide bomber in an explosives-laden vehicle and gunmen attacked a military position near Jordan, killing at least 15 border guards, officials said.
ISIL has lost most of the towns it previously held in Anbar province – its traditional western Iraqi bastion – but still has desert hideouts from which it contin- ues to harass the security forces.
Yesterday’s raid was the deadliest to date against border guards.
In Mosul, the army plans to use the newly recaptured airport as a base for its push to drive ISIL from the city’s western districts.
The new stage of the offensive came after government forces and allies cleared ISIL from east Mosul last month, confining the insurgents to the west of the city, which is bisected by the Tigris river.
Commanders expect the battle in west Mosul to be more difficult, in part because tanks and armoured vehicles cannot pass through the narrow alleyways that criss-cross ancient districts there.
The narrow streets of the Old City, home to the mosque where Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi made his only public appearance as ISIL’s leader and proclaimed the caliphate in July 2014, could turn into a death trap.
They will be impassable for some military vehicles, forcing Iraqi forces to raid on foot. ISIL has covered some streets with roofs to block aerial surveillance.
The New York-based International Rescue Committee said the most dangerous phase of the battle was about to begin for the 750,000 civilians believed to be trapped in west Mosul.