Iraqi troops advance into eastern Mosul
Northern Iraq city is Islamic State’s last urban stronghold
MOSUL, Iraq — Breaking a two-week lull in fighting, Iraqi troops backed by the U.S.-led coalition’s airstrikes and artillery pushed deeper into eastern Mosul on Thursday in a multipronged assault against Islamic State militants in the city.
Elite special forces pushed into the Karama and Quds neighborhoods, while army troops and federal police advanced into the nearby Intisar, Salam and Sumor neighborhoods. Columns of dark smoke rose overhead as explosions shook the city and heavy machine gun fire echoed through the streets.
Stiff resistance by the militants, civilians trapped inside their houses and bad weather have slowed advances in the more than 2-monthold offensive to recapture Iraq’s second-largest city, the extremist group’s last urban bastion in the country. It is the biggest Iraqi military operation since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
The battle began around 7 a.m. on a bright but chilly December day and continued until shortly before sundown.
The counterterrorism forces, also known as the Golden Brigade, captured about half of the Quds neighborhood by early afternoon.
A statement by the U.S.led coalition said Thursday’s offensive opened two new fronts in eastern Mosul, increasing pressure on the militants’ “dwindling ability to generate forces, move fighters or resupply.”
It said that, at the request of the Iraqi government, coalition warplanes had “re-struck” two bridges over the Tigris River in Mosul on Tuesday, and a day earlier “disabled” the last bridge crossing in the city.
“The strikes were conducted to reduce enemy freedom of movement, and to further disrupt ISIL’s ability to reinforce, resupply, or use vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices in East Mosul,” the statement said.
Another coalition statement said an airstrike Thursday that targeted a van used by IS fighters in Mosul was later determined to have been located at a hospital’s parking lot, “resulting in possible civilian casualties.”
The coalition, it said, “takes all allegations of civilian casualties seriously, and this incident will be fully investigated and the findings released in a timely and transparent manner.” It was not immediately known whether any civilians were hurt by the airstrike.
Coalition airstrikes have been crucial in the fight against IS in Iraq, but a report released this month by Airwars, a London-based project that tracks the coalition’s airstrikes, criticized the coalition’s lack of transparency in assessments of civilian casualties.
Although U.S. officials have acknowledged that 173 civilians have died in coalition airstrikes since the launch of the campaign against IS in the summer of 2014, the Airwars group said the number of civilian casualties is much greater, putting it at at least 1,500.