Oil wells south of Mosul burn days after key town retaken
QAYARA, Iraq — The skies above this small northern Iraqi town are black with smoke and ash rains down from around a half dozen oil wells that Islamic State group fighters set ablaze as Iraqi troops moved in to retake Qayara last week.
The apocalyptic scene underscores the sort of destruction that the militants are likely to wreak as Iraqi forces move toward Mosul, the biggest prize still held by IS in Iraq.
Unlike previous ground assaults against IS in Iraq that left entire cities and villages emptied of civilians, thousands of civilians remained in Qayara as militants inside quickly folded up and fled, a sign of their weakening morale and damaged supply lines, commanders say. That means residents did not join the ranks of hundreds of thousands of people displaced by recent fighting with IS and now languishing in camps around the country.
But the situation for the some 9,000 civilians in Qaraya is precarious. The battle left the town without electricity and little running water, and the large international aid groups who normally help the displaced say they cannot deliver aid to people so close to fighting.
Najim al-Jobori, the commander of military operations in Nineveh Province where Qayara and Mosul are located, said Iraqi forces are increasingly trying to keep civilians in place while pushing IS fighters out. The Qayara operation, he said, raises his hopes that the approach on Mosul will become increasingly easier as morale among IS fighters crumbles
He said that previously when an airstrike hit an IS unit, the survivors would stay and keep fighting. “But now, you never see that anymore, they all just run.”
Hundreds of civilians poured out into Qayara’s main street Sunday as a convoy of Iraqi officials pulled into the town after the military retook it. Children rushed to cheer on the Iraqi army Humvees, other families peered cautiously from behind garden gates in the town, which before 2011 had a population of 79,000.