Streets of fire – the ferocious battle to free Mosul
A Flash of light, a shuddering concussion and a residential street is filled suddenly with flame, smoke and flying debris.
In the battle to liberate Mosul from the Islamic state, death waits at every corner. This brilliant photograph captures the moment yesterday when a convoy of armoured vehicles carrying Iraqi government special forces ran into an Is ambush.
Three of the advancing soldiers, one clutching a grenade launcher, can be seen crouched in the foreground at the rear of a humvee which is flying the national flag. They are sheltering for their lives. Others had no chance.
Up ahead a deadly fog of war has engulfed their comrades and those civilians who were unwilling or unable to flee their homes. When the dust clears there will be casualties.
Mosul in northern Iraq is the largest city still in the hands of the Islamic state. A concerted effort to recapture it began a month ago. for the last two weeks Us-backed coalition forces have been engaged in a brutal slog through the eastern suburbs. They are yet to reach the banks of the River Tigris which runs through the city centre. The street fighting has been bitter and yesterday it was concentrated in the Tahrir district where these remarkable images were taken.
having captured Mosul in June 2014, fighters from the Islamist death cult have had more than two years to prepare their defences for the inevitable assault. Already it appears that they have used that time well.
Coalition forces have found evidence of a network of tunnels and bunkers that Is had constructed under the expected frontlines. Jihadi mortar barrages and sniper fire have been intense and accurate. Coalition infantry have been reluctant to leave the relative security of their troop carriers. Mortar fire reportedly killed seven civilians in
this district yesterday. the Islamic State does not have armoured vehicles or the close air support that the coalition forces were using against them in tahrir yesterday. But they are deploying a weapon which their enemies fear most of all and for which there is little protection: the suicide car bomb.
the column of flame which can be seen rising in the right hand background of the photograph marks the spot where one such device was detonated as the column passed.
the Iraqi army has battle tanks but they are too large to be used in such side streets. the task of forging a path there is left to the comparatively lightly protected Humvee gun trucks you see here.
While small and agile, their armour is no proof against the huge car bombs that IS suicide attackers are driving at and into them.
this blast reportedly destroyed buildings and set the ruins on fire. a number of civilians, including children were killed or wounded. Survivors came under fire.
the number of Iraqi military casualties is as yet unclear. But no one is safe amid the confused battle lines. In recent days such car bombs have accounted for at least one Iraqi army general inside Mosul itself.
the streets are commanded by snipers from both sides. another photograph shows an Iraqi special forces soldier on the roof of a building in tahrir. Using a rifle with a telescopic sight, he is covering his comrades’ advance. Domestic details catch the eye. the sniper is positioned next to a giant water tank which would have supplied the families who once lived below. His seat is a large upturned can which once held vegetable oil. Somebody had been whitewashing the walls in more peaceful times.
to make himself less conspicuous and less of a target for IS’s own snipers, he has hacked a ‘murder hole’ in the roof’s parapet.
there is plenty of evidence that he and his comrades have been very busy here. Hundreds of spent bullet cases litter the floor. ammunition boxes have been emptied. an automatic weapon lies in the foreground and propped up against the wall to his left is a rocket propelled grenade launcher and another weapon.
this battle could last for weeks, if not months. as winter approaches the weather is worsening so that coalition drones and airstrikes will have a harder job seeing the IS positions. this has already slowed the advance this week, it was reported.
On Wednesday Iranian-backed militias announced they had recaptured a vital air base west of Mosul, which is on the IS supply route into Syria. For the moment the eyes of the world are focused on the city of Mosul itself.
the Islamic State is determined to stand and fight and of course, die. the IS leader abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has told his fighters still inside the city – put at more than 5,000 that there should be no retreat.
New evidence of its atrocities against civilians comes to light every day. Mass graves are being uncovered. the battle has to be fought, but the cost will be high – as these pictures show so clearly.
‘Spent bullet cases litter the floor’