Battle begins for key Mosul district
MOSUL, Iraq — The nation’s forces faced snipers, mortar fire and booby traps as they began an assault on Mosul’s Old City on Sunday, breaking into a maze of narrow streets and alleyways where hundreds of hardened Islamic State militants are expected to make a bloody last stand.
Clouds of smoke rose above the historic city center as a barrage of artillery and air strikes from U.S.-led coalition jets struck militant targets.
From nearby buildings, bulldozers could be seen attempting to break through the barricades that marked Islamic State defense lines, coming under heavy fire but eventually opening the way for counterterrorism forces that led the assault.
Intense gunbattles broke out after they entered. With the winding streets making car bombs more difficult to mobilize, the militants compensated with antitank weapons and mortar fire.
“They are besieged, they will fight to the death,” said Master Sgt. Latif Omran, as his unit, armed with M-4 assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades, waited just back from the front line for Humvees to ferry them forward.
Over the past eight months the militants have been gradually corralled into the Old City — an area of little more than a square mile on the western banks of the Tigris River.
The loss of their last foothold in Mosul, once the largest city the militants controlled, will strike a huge symbolic blow to the Islamic State. It was in the Old City’s Great Mosque of al-Nuri that the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared the formation of a caliphate three years ago. Since then the group has lost the majority of its territory in Iraq, while an offensive for Raqqa, the Islamic Sate’s Syrian capital, began last month.
However, despite the losses few expect an easy fight for the last few inches of Mosul, where the U.N. estimates that as many as 150,000 civilians remain trapped. The tiny lanes of the Old City make the terrain particularly challenging for Iraqi forces, as they can’t enter many areas with their armored vehicles. Much of the fighting will have to be done on foot.
“This is their forward defense line so there’s fierce resistance,” said Lt. Gen. Abdelwahab alSaedi, deputy head of the counterterrorism forces. “They are using the mortar shells heavily.”
On the other side of the front lines, terrified families are trapped in their houses. Sheltering in crowded basements, many have not seen sunlight for weeks. Humanitarian workers have urged Iraqi and coalition forces to use caution and restrain the use of heavy weaponry.
“The buildings of the old town are particularly vulnerable to collapse even if they aren’t directly targeted, which could lead to even more civilian deaths than the hundreds killed so far in air strikes across the rest of the city,” said Nora Love, the International Rescue Committee’s acting country director.
Iraqi commanders and the U.S.-led coalition say they are taking into account the integrity of the buildings and the fact that the militants are using civilians as shields as they carry out strikes. Still, civilians are dying every day in the bombardment.