Iraqi leader vows to freeMosul from ‘oppression and terrorism’
HAMAM AL-ALIL, Iraq — U.S.-backed Iraqi forces launched a major air-andground offensive Sunday to retake western Mosul from Islamic State militants and drive the extremist group from its last major urban bastion in Iraq.
Ground units pushed into a belt of villages outside the country’s second-largest city as U.S.-led coalition jets struck militant positions southwest of Mosul and militarized Iraqi police fired artillery.
“This is zero hour, andwe are going to end this war, Godwilling,” saidMahmoud Mansour, a police officer, as he prepared tomove out.
The United Nations warned that hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped inside their homes in Mosul “are at extreme risk,” with dwindling fuel, food and water and scarce electricity.
Iraq declared easternMosul “fully liberated” last month after three months of fierce fighting, but the militants have continued to stage attacks there, including two suicide bombings against government forces on Sunday.
The battle for Mosul promises to western be even more daunting, as the half of the city west of the Tigris River has older, narrower streets and is still heavily populated.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of the latest operation onstateTV. Using theArabic acronym for Islamic State, he said government forces weremoving to “liberate the people ofMosul fromDaesh oppression and terrorism forever.”
Police units entered the village of Athba, about 3 miles southwest of Mosul’s international airport, encountering light resistance. Separately, the Iraqi Army’s 9th Division moved into the village of Bakhira, also southwest of the city, the Ministry of Defense said.
The U.S.-led coalition has been providing close air support throughout the 4month-old Mosul offensive and carried out nine airstrikes against Islamic State near Mosul on Saturday, Central Command said. U.S. special operations forces are embedded with some Iraqi units, and thousands of American soldiers are in Iraq to provide logistical and other support.
“We are very close to it, if not already engaged in that fight,” U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said in Abu Dhabi. He declined to go into further detail, saying he owed “confidentiality” to the troops.
Citing witnesses in western Mosul, the United Nations said nearly half of all food shops were closed and bakeries had shut down for lack of fuel and an inability to purchase costly flour. Prices of kerosene and cooking gas have skyrocketed, and many of the most destitute families are burning wood, furniture, plastic or garbage for cooking and heating.
“The situation is distressing. People, right now, are in trouble,” Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, said in a statement. “We are hearing reports of parents struggling to feed their children and to heat their homes.”
Peter Hawkins, of the U.N. agency for children, said: “Three out of five people now depend on untreated water from wells for cooking and drinking as water systems and treatment plants have been damagedby fighting or run out of chlorine.”
The humanitarian agencies were gearing up to aid 250,000 to 400,000 civilians who may flee because of the fighting, the statement said. The U.N. estimates 750,000 civilians may be left inwesternMosul.