Iraq celebrates ‘big victory’ while ISIS fighting persists
Militants near Tigris River in a ‘fight to death’
MOSUL, Iraq — Iraq’s prime minister congratulated his fighters Tuesday on “the big victory in Mosul” — even as fighting with Islamic State militants continued in Mosul’s Old City neighborhood where Iraqi forces are about 250 yards from the Tigris River and facing increasingly fierce resistance.
“Praise be to God; we managed to liberate (Mosul) and proved the others were wrong. The people of Mosul supported and stood with our security forces against terrorism,” Haider al-Abadi said at a press conference in Baghdad less than a week after he declared an end to ISIS’ self-styled caliphate when Iraqi forces achieved an incremental win by retaking the landmark al-Nuri Mosque in the Old City.
His remarks came on the third anniversary of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s sermon at the al-Nuri Mosque, where he declared an Islamic caliphate on IS ISheld land sin Syria and Iraq.
Al-Abadi added that he has given instructions to rebuild and stabilize areas of the city already freed from the militant group.
Inside Mosul’s Old City, civilians fleeing Iraqi advance are increasingly desperate. The elderly and weak are carried across mounds of rubble in blankets. Soldiers — increasingly fearful of the Old City’s inhabitants after a string of suicide bombings — hurry the groups along.
A middle-aged woman with a gaunt, pale face fainted as she fled past the destroyed al-Nuri Mosque. Two soldiers carried her to the roadside and tried to revive her with cold water.
Largely cut off from food and water for months, humanitarian groups are reporting a spike in the number of displaced people suffering from malnutrition and dehydration.
“None of the previous battles were like this,” said Iraqi Maj. Faris Aboud, working at a small field hospital just outside the Old City.
“In a single day we received 300 wounded,” said Aboud, a father of three. “For me, seeing the wounded children is the hardest. We see children who have lost their entire families under the rubble; they have no one now.”
ISIS militants who remain trapped in just a few hundred meters of territory in the Old City are now in a “fight to the death” near the Tigris River, said Lt. Gen. Abdel Ghani alAsadi, of Iraq’s special forces, earlier that day.
The Tigris divides the city roughly into its western and eastern half, which was liberated from ISIS militants back in January.
Al-Asadi said ISIS fighters are increasingly resorting to suicide bombings and that he expects the fighting to get even heavier as they are pushed closer to the river.
Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake Mosul, the country’s second largest city, in October. The Rapid Response Division of Iraqi forces marked another significant victory earlier this week by retaking Mosul’s main hospital on the city’s western side.