Tag Archives: Battle of Mosul

Iraqi forces free hundreds of civilians in Mosul Old City battles as death toll mounts

Displaced civilians from Mosul's Old City, the last district in the hands of Islamic State militants, flee during fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants in western Mosul, Iraq June 24, 2017. REUTERS/Marius Bosch

By Marius Bosch

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces opened exit routes for hundreds of civilians to flee the Old City of Mosul on Saturday as they battled to retake the ancient quarter from Islamic State militants mounting a last stand in what was the de facto capital of their “caliphate”.

U.S.-trained urban warfare units were channeling their onslaught along two perpendicular streets that converge in the heart of the Old City, aiming to isolate the jihadist insurgents in four pockets.

The United Nations voiced alarm on Saturday at the rising death toll among civilians in the heavily populated Old City, saying as many as 12 were killed and hundreds injured on Friday.

“Fighting is very intense in the Old City and civilians are at extreme, almost unimaginable risk. There are reports that thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, of people are being held as human shields (by Islamic State),” Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, said in a statement. “Hundreds of civilians, including children, are being shot.”

Iraqi authorities are hoping to declare victory in the northern Iraqi city in the Muslim Eid holiday, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, during the next few days.

Helicopter gunships were assisting the ground thrust, firing at insurgent emplacements in the Old City, a Reuters correspondent reported from a location near the front lines.

The government advance was carving out escape corridors for civilians marooned behind Islamic State lines.

There was a steady trickle of fleeing families on Saturday, some with injured and malnourished children. “My baby only had bread and water for the past eight days,” one mother said.

At least 100 civilians reached the safety of a government-held area west of the Old City in one 20-minute period, tired, scared and hungry. Soldiers gave them food and water.

More than 100,000 civilians, of whom half are believed to be children, remain trapped in the crumbling old houses of the Old City, with little food, water or medical treatment.

The urban-warfare forces were leading the campaign to clear the Sunni Islamist militants from the maze of Old City alleyways, moving on foot house-to-house in locations too cramped for the use of armored combat vehicles.

Aid organizations and Iraqi authorities say Islamic State was trying to prevent civilians from leaving so as to use them as human shields. Hundreds of civilians fleeing the Old City have been killed in the past three weeks.

A U.S.-led international coalition is providing ground and air support in the eight-month-old campaign to seize Mosul, the largest city the militants came to control in a shock offensive in Iraq and neighboring Syria three years ago.

U.S.-supported Iraqi government offensives have wrested back several important urban centers in the country’s west and north from Islamic State over the past 18 months.

HISTORIC MOSQUE BLOWN UP BY MILITANTS

Military analysts said Baghdad’s campaign to recover Mosul gathered pace after Islamic State blew up the 850-year-old al-Nuri mosque with its famous leaning minaret on Wednesday.

The mosque’s destruction, while condemned by Iraqi and U.N. authorities as another cultural crime by the jihadists, gave troops more freedom to press their onslaught as they no longer had to worry about damaging the ancient site.

It was from the mosque that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced himself to the world for the first time as the “caliph”, or ruler of all Muslims, on July 4, 2014. Mosul’s population at the time was more than 2 million.

Baghdadi fled into the desert expanse extending across Iraq and Syria in the early phase of the Mosul offensive, leaving the fighting there to local IS commanders, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials. Recent Russian reports that he was killed have not been confirmed by the coalition or Iraqi authorities.

The Iraqi government once hoped to take Mosul by the end of 2016, but the campaign dragged on as IS reinforced positions in inner-city neighborhoods of the city’s western half, carried out suicide car and motorbike bomb attacks, laid booby traps and kept up barrages of sniper and mortar fire.

By this weekend, the area still under IS control was less than 2 square km (0.77 sq miles) in extent, skirting the western bank of the Tigris River that bisects Mosul.

Islamic State retaliated for government advances on Friday evening with a triple bombing in a neighborhood in eastern Mosul, which Baghdad’s forces recaptured in January.

The attack was carried out by three people who detonated explosive belts, killing five, including three policemen, and wounding 19, according to a military statement on Saturday.

The fall of Mosul would mark the end of the Iraqi half of Islamic State’s “caliphate” as a quasi-state structure, but IS would still hold sizeable, mainly rural and small-town tracts of both Iraq and Syria.

In eastern Syria, Islamic State’s so-called capital, Raqqa, is now nearly encircled by a U.S.-backed Kurdish-led coalition.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Anger in Mosul as Islamic State destroys historic mosque

A still image taken from video shows the destroyed Grand al-Nuri Mosque of Mosul in Iraq, June 21, 2017. Iraqi Military Handout/via Reuters TV

By Kawa Omar and Ahmed Rasheed

MOSUL/BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) – The leaning al-Hadba minaret that towered over Mosul for 850 years lay in ruins on Thursday, demolished by retreating Islamic State militants, but Iraq’s prime minister said the act marked their final defeat in the city.

“In the early morning, I climbed up to the roof of my house and was stunned to see the Hadba minaret had gone,” Nashwan, a day-laborer who lives near the mosque, said by phone. “I felt I had lost a son of mine.”

His words echoed the shock and anger of many over the destruction of the Grand al-Nuri Mosque along with its famous minaret, known affectionately as “the hunchback” by Iraqis.

The demolition came on Wednesday night as Iraqi forces closed in on the mosque, which carried enormous symbolic importance for Islamic State (IS).

It was there that its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” as militants seized swathes of Syria and Iraq. He proclaimed himself the caliph, ruler of all Muslims, from the mosque’s pulpit.

His black flag had been flying on the 150-foot (45-metre) minaret since June 2014, after Islamic State fighters surged across Iraq.

Russia said on Thursday there was a high degree of certainty Baghdadi was dead, according to RIA news agency. Moscow said last week its forces might have killed him, but Western and Iraqi officials are skeptical.

Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul to local commanders and is believed to be hiding in the border area between Iraq and Syria.

LIBERATION “IN DAYS”

Some analysts said the destruction of the mosque could in fact speed the advance of government forces, which had been slowed by fear of damaging it.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi went further. “Blowing up the al-Hadba minaret and the al-Nuri mosque amounts to an official acknowledgement of defeat,” he said on his website.

“It’s a matter of a few days and we will announce the total liberation of Mosul,” he later told reporters in Baghdad, pledging to rebuild the mosque and other historical sites destroyed by the insurgents.

The jihadists appear to have chosen to blow up the mosque rather than see their flag torn down by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces battling through the maze of narrow alleys and streets of the Old City, the last district of Mosul still under the control of Islamic State.

In the dawn light, all that remained was the base projecting from shattered masonry. A video on social media showed the minaret collapsing vertically, throwing up a pall of sand and dust.

Defense analysts said the decision to destroy the mosque could indicate the militants were on the verge of collapse.

“They had said they would fight until their last breath defending the mosque,” Baghdad-based security expert Safaa al-A’sam told Reuters. “The fact is that they are no longer capable of standing in the face of Iraqi government forces.”

The minaret had seven bands of decorative brickwork in a type of complex geometric pattern also found in Persia and Central Asia. Its tilt and the lack of maintenance made it particularly vulnerable to blasts.

U.S. Army Colonel Ryan Dillon, spokesman for the U.S.-led international coalition assisting the Iraqi effort to defeat Islamic State, said Iraqi security forces were continuing to push into remaining IS-held territory.

“There are two square kilometers left in West Mosul before the entire city is liberated,” he told Reuters by phone.

The fall of Mosul would mark the effective end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate”, though Islamic State would still hold some territory west and south of the city. U.S.-backed militias are also closing on Islamic State’s Syrian stronghold, Raqqa.

“SYMBOL OF IDENTITY”

The United Nations’ education organization UNESCO said the Mosul minaret and mosque “stood as a symbol of identity, resilience and belonging” and it deplored their destruction.

The mosque was named after Nuruddin al-Zanki, a noble who fought the early crusaders from a fiefdom that covered territory in modern-day Turkey, Syria and Iraq.

The mosque’s military and religious history embodied the spirit of Mosul, a city which supplied Iraq’s armed forces with officers for much of the 20th century.

With the fall of Saddam Hussein in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the Sunni city balked at its loss of influence and some local people joined the insurgency against the new Shi’ite rulers of the country.

When Islamic State swept into Mosul in June 2014, they were welcomed by those who saw the takeover as promising an end to harsh treatment by Shi’ite-led security forces.

The mosque’s destruction comes in the holiest period of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, its final 10 days. The night of Laylat al-Qadr falls during this period, when Muslims believe the Koran was revealed to the prophet Mohammed.

Islamic State fighters have destroyed many Muslim religious sites and Christian churches and shrines, as well as ancient Assyrian and Roman-era sites in Iraq and in Syria.

“Many different enemies controlled Mosul over the past 900 years but none of them dared to destroy the Hadba,” said Ziad, an art student in Mosul.

“By bombing the minaret, they proved they are the worst of all barbarian groups in history.”

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; editing by Ralph Boulton and Andrew Roche)

Islamic State blows up historic Mosul mosque where it declared ‘caliphate’

Al-Hadba minaret at the Grand Mosque is seen through a building window in the old city of Mosul, Iraq June 1, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

By Marius Bosch and Maher Chmaytelli

MOSUL/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Islamic State militants on Wednesday blew up the Grand al-Nuri Mosque of Mosul and its famous leaning minaret, Iraq’s military said in a statement, as Iraqi forces seeking to expel the group from the city closed in on the site.

It was from this medieval mosque three years ago that the militants’ leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a self-styled “caliphate” spanning parts of Syria and Iraq.

”Blowing up the al-Hadba minaret and the al-Nuri mosque amounts to an official acknowledgement of defeat,” Iraqi Prime Minister said in a brief comment on his website.

The Iraqis called the 150-foot (45-metre) leaning minaret Al-Hadba, or “the hunchback.” Baghdadi’s black flag had flown over it since June 2014.

Islamic State’s Amaq news agency accused American aircraft of destroying the mosque, a claim swiftly denied by the U.S.-led coalition fighting the militant group.

“We did not strike in that area,” coalition spokesman U.S. Air Force Colonel John Dorrian told Reuters by telephone.

“The responsibility of this devastation is laid firmly at the doorstep of ISIS,” U.S. Army Major General Joseph Martin, commander of the coalition’s ground component, said in a statement, using an acronym for Islamic State.

The media office for Iraq’s military distributed a picture taken from the air that appeared to show the mosque and minaret largely flattened and reduced to rubble among the small houses of the Old City, the historic district where the militants are under siege.

A video seen on social media showed the minaret collapsing vertically in a belch of sand and dust, as a woman lamented in the background, “The minaret, the minaret, the minaret.”

The mosque was destroyed as Iraq’s elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) units, which have been battling their way through Mosul’s Old City, got within 50 meters (164 feet) of it, according to an Iraqi military statement.

An Iraqi military spokesman gave the timing of the explosion as 9:35 p.m (1835 GMT).

“This is a crime against the people of Mosul and all of Iraq, and is an example of why this brutal organization must be annihilated,” said U.S. Major General Martin.

Iraqi forces said earlier on Wednesday that they had started a push toward the mosque.

”This will not prevent us from removing them, no, killing them not removing them, inside the Old City,” Lieutenant General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi, senior CTS commander in Mosul, said in a video posted over a messaging app.

The forces on Tuesday had encircled the jihadist group’s stronghold in the Old City, the last district under Islamic State control in Mosul.

Baghdadi proclaimed himself “caliph,” or ruler of all Muslims, from the mosque’s pulpit on July 4, 2014, after the insurgents overran vast swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Baghdadi’s speech from the mosque was the first time he revealed himself to the world, and the footage broadcast then is to this day the only video recording of him as “caliph.”

MINARET WAS VULNERABLE

Iraqi officials had privately expressed hope that the mosque could be retaken in time for Eid al-Fitr, the festival marking the end of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting. The first day of the Eid falls this year on June 25 or 26 in Iraq.

“The battle for the liberation of Mosul is not yet complete, and we remain focused on supporting the Iraqi Security Forces with that objective in mind,” said Martin.

The fall of Mosul would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate,” even though Islamic State would still control territory west and south of the city, the largest over which they held sway in both Iraq and Syria.

Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul to local commanders and is believed to be hiding in the border area between Iraq and Syria, according to U.S. and Iraqi military sources.

The mosque was named after Nuruddin al‑Zanki, a noble who fought the early crusaders from a fiefdom that covered territory in modern-day Turkey, Syria and Iraq. It was built in 1172-73, shortly before his death, and housed an Islamic school.

By the time renowned medieval traveler and scholar Ibn Battuta visited two centuries later, the minaret was leaning. The tilt gave the landmark its popular name: the hunchback.

It was built with seven bands of decorative brickwork in complex geometric patterns also found in Persia and Central Asia.

Nabeel Nouriddin, a historian and archaeologist specialising in Mosul and its Nineveh region, said the minaret had not been renovated since 1970, making it particularly vulnerable to blasts even if it was not directly hit.

The Mosque’s destruction occurred during the holiest period of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, its final 10 days. The night of Laylat al-Qadr falls during this period, marking when Muslims believe the Quran was revealed to prophet Mohammed.

Islamic State fighters have destroyed many Muslim religious sites, churches and shrines, as well as ancient Assyrian and Roman-era sites in Iraq and in Syria.

The group posted videos online in 2015 showing the destruction of artifacts in the Mosul museum, some of which dated from the 7th century BC. It is also suspected of selling artifacts.

(additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad and Phil Stewart in Washington; writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Toni Reinhold)

Iraqi forces advance on Mosul mosque where IS declared caliphate

A black jihadist flag hangs from Mosul's Al-Habda minaret at the Grand Mosque, where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his caliphate back in 2014, in western Mosul, Iraq May 29, 2017. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

By Marius Bosch

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – U.S.-backed Iraqi forces on Wednesday began a push towards the mosque in Mosul where Islamic State declared a self-styled caliphate three years ago, military officials said.

The forces had encircled the jihadist group’s stronghold in the Old City of Mosul, where the mosque is located, on Tuesday, they said.

The Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) are 200 to 300 were meters (yards) away from the medieval Grand al-Nuri Mosque, an Iraqi military statement said.

Major General Rupert Jones, the British deputy commander of the international coalition fighting Islamic State, told Reuters the Iraqi forces were about 300 meters from the mosque.

The U.S.-led coalition is providing air and ground support to the Mosul offensive that started on Oct. 17.

The militants’ leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, proclaimed himself caliph from its pulpit after the insurgents overran parts of Iraq and Syria. His black flag has been flying over its famous leaning minaret since June 2014.

Iraqi officials have privately expressed the hope that the mosque could be captured by Eid al-Fitr, the festival marking the end of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month. The first day of the Eid falls this year on June 25 or 26 in Iraq.

The battle for the Old City is becoming the deadliest in the

eight-month-old offensive to capture Mosul, Islamic State’s de facto capital in Iraq.

More than 100,000 civilians, of whom half are children, are trapped in its old fragile houses with little food, water, medicine, no electricity and limited access to clinics.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Monday sick and wounded civilians escaping through Islamic State lines were dying in “high numbers”.

“We are trying to keep families inside their houses and, after we secure their block, we will evacuate them through safe routes,” Lieutenant General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi, senior CTS commander in Mosul, told Iraqi state TV.

The militants are moving stealthily in the Old City’s maze of alleyways and narrow streets, through holes dug between houses, fighting back the advancing troops with sniper and mortar fire, booby traps and suicide bombers.

They have also covered many streets with sheets of cloth to obstruct air surveillance, making it difficult for the advancing troops to hit them without a risk to civilians.

“We are attacking simultaneously from different fronts to fraction them into smaller groups easier to fight,” said an officer from the Federal Police, another force taking part in the assault on the Old City,

The Iraqi army estimates the number of Islamic State fighters at no more than 300, down from nearly 6,000 in the city when the battle of Mosul started on Oct. 17.

The fall of Mosul would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate” even though Islamic State would continue to control territory west and south of the city, the largest they came to control in both Iraq and Syria.

The Iraqi government initially hoped to take Mosul by the end of 2016, but the campaign took longer as militants

reinforced positions in civilian areas to fight back.

The militants are also retreating in Syria, mainly in the face of a U.S.-backed Kurdish-led coalition. Its capital there, Raqqa, is under siege.

About 850,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war population of Mosul, have fled, seeking refuge with relatives or in camps, according to aid groups.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, writing by Maher Chmaytelli; editing by Angus MacSwan)

100,000 civilians behind Islamic State lines in Iraqi city of Mosul

Displaced civilians walk towards the Iraqi Army positions after fleeing their homes due to clashes in the Shifa neighbourhood in western Mosul, Iraq June 15 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – About 100,000 civilians remain trapped behind Islamic State lines in Mosul with a U.S.-backed government offensive to recapture the Iraqi city entering its ninth month, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday.

Islamic State snipers are shooting at families trying to flee on foot or by boat across the Tigris River, it said.

“These civilians are basically held as human shields in the Old City,” said the UNHCR representative in Iraq, Bruno Geddo, referring to Mosul’s historic district where the militants are besieged by Iraqi government forces.

“There is hardly any food, water, electricity, fuel. These civilians are living in an increasingly worsening situation of penury and panic because they are surrounded by fighting.”

The offensive to retake Mosul, Islamic State’s de facto capital in Iraq, started on Oct. 17 with air and ground support from a U.S.-led international coalition.

Iraqi government forces regained eastern Mosul in January, then a month later began the offensive on the western side that includes the Old City.

The Old City “is a very dense labyrinth, a maze of narrow alleyways where fighting will have to be done on foot, house by house,” said Geddo.

“ISIS (Islamic State) snipers continue to aim at people trying to flee because there is this long-standing policy of executing people trying to flee the territory of the caliphate,” he said.

The fall of Mosul would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate” that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared in a speech from an historic mosque in the Old City three years ago, covering parts of Iraq and Syria.

Moscow said on Friday its forces may have killed Baghdadi in an air strike in Syria last month, but Washington said it could not corroborate the death and Western and Iraqi officials were skeptical.

About 200,000 people were estimated to be trapped behind Islamic State lines in Mosul in May, but the number has declined as government forces have thrust further into the city.

About 800,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war population of the northern Iraqi city, have fled, seeking refuge with friends and relatives or in camps. UNHCR has provided many with shelter, food and other necessities.

Geddo voiced deep concern about “collective punishment” of families whose relative may have been an IS fighter.

“Collective punishment means in a deeply tribal society that you see evictions, destruction of property, confiscation of property for families perceived as being associated with ISIS because one family member might have been having that link.

“This is a very critical point for the future of Iraq. Because it is essential to uphold the rule of law, to pursue those who committed crimes through the court system, the judicial system, rather than applying tribal custom,” he said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Iraqi forces say about to encircle Islamic State in Mosul’s Old City

A boy carries a baby as they flee their home. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces said they were about to complete the encirclement of Islamic State’s stronghold in the Old City of Mosul, after taking control of a neighboring district on Thursday.

Iraq’s military said it had captured Bab Sinjar, north of the historic, densely-populated district where the militants launched their cross-border “caliphate” in 2014.

Government forces and their allies still have to take full control of Medical City, a complex of hospitals further north along the bank of the Tigris, to enclose the militant enclave.

The offensive to retake the northern city started in October with air and ground support from a U.S.-led international coalition.

Iraqi government forces retook eastern Mosul in January then a month later began the offensive on the western side where bout 200,000 civilians remain trapped behind Islamic State lines.

The fall of Mosul would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate” that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared in a speech from a historic mosque in the Old City.

About 800,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war population of Mosul, have already fled, seeking refuge with friends and relatives or in camps.

Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-air strikes are also besieging Islamic State forces in the city of Raqqa, the militants’ de facto capital in neighboring Syria.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Iraqi forces repel Islamic State counter-attack in west Mosul – police

Civilians are handed out sacs of wheat and sugar in western Mosul, Iraq June 14, 2017. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi forces repelled a major counter-attack by Islamic State fighters at dawn on Wednesday in a district south of the Old City of Mosul, their remaining enclave in the city, a police commander said.

Dozens of IS fighters were killed in the operation to push back the militants, many of whom wore suicide vests, the commander told Reuters.

Residents said the militants seized a number of blocks in the Danadan district of the northern Iraqi city before being driven out in fierce clashes.

“Terrorists came from the Old City and attacked our forces using mortars and sniper shots. They managed to temporarily seize some buildings but we forced them to retreat after shelling their positions,” said a federal police officer.

A Reuters visuals team heading to Mosul from the northern side reported intense artillery fire in the morning.

Another federal police officer said an operation was still underway to chase some Islamic State militants who might still be hiding in some buildings.

In an online statement, Islamic State said it killed 40 of the federal police forces deployed in west Mosul and destroyed eight military vehicles.

Iraqi forces on Tuesday reported progress in the U.S.-backed campaign to dislodge Islamic State from Mosul, announcing the capture of Zanjili, a district just north the city’s historic center.

The Islamic State-held enclave in Mosul has shrunk to two districts along the western banks of the Tigris river – the densely populated Old City center and the Medical City.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Mosul Old City residents spend hungry and fearful Ramadan under IS rule

Displaced Iraqi family from Mosul eat a simple meal for their Iftar, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan at a refugee camp al-Khazir in the outskirts of Erbil, Iraq June 10, 2017. Picture taken June 10, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – For Salam, a resident in the Islamic State-held Old City of Mosul, the holy fasting month of Ramadan this year is the worst he’s seen in a lifetime marked by wars and deprivations.

“We are slowly dying from hunger, boiling mouldy wheat as soup” to break the fast at sunset, the 47 year-old father of three said by phone from the district besieged by Iraqi forces, asking to withhold his name fearing the militants’ retribution.

The only wish he makes in his prayers is for his family to survive the final days of the self-proclaimed caliphate declared three years ago by IS’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from a nearby mosque.

The eight-month old U.S.-backed campaign to capture Mosul, IS’s de-facto capital in Iraq, reached its deadliest phase just as the holy Muslim month started at the end of May, when militants became squeezed in and around the densely populated Old City.

Up to 200,000 people are trapped behind their lines, half of them children, according to the United Nations.

Hundreds have been killed while trying to escape to government-held lines, caught in the cross-fire or gunned down by Islamic State snipers. The militants want civilians to remain in areas under their control to use them as human shields.

Many bodies of the dead remain in the street near the frontlines. Four of them are relatives of Khalil, a former civil servant who quit his job after IS took over Mosul.

“Daesh warned us not to bury them to make them an example for others who try to flee,” he said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

Those who decide not to run the risk of fleeing are living in fear of getting killed or wounded in their homes, with little food and water and limited access to healthcare.

“Seeing my kids hungry is real torture,” said Salam, who closed his home appliances shop shortly after the start of the offensive as sales came to a complete stop.”I wish the security forces would eliminate all Daesh fighters in a flash; I want my family to have normal life again.”

Where food can be found, the price has risen more than 20-fold. A kilo of rice is selling for more than $40. A kilo of flour or lentils is $20 or more.

The sellers are mainly households who stockpiled enough food and medicine to dare sell some, but only to trusted neighbors or relatives, or in return for items they need. If militants find food they take it.

Residents fill water from a few wells dug in the soil. The wait is long and dangerous as shelling is frequent.

“The well-water has a bitter taste and we can smell sewage sometimes, but we have to drink to stay alive,” said Umm Saad, a widow and mother of four, complaining that the militants are often seen with bottled water and canned food.

“We have been under compulsory fasting even before the start of Ramadan,” she said. “No real food to eat, just hardened old bread and mouldy grains.”

About 800,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war city’s population, have already fled, seeking refuge either with friends and relatives or in camps. But in areas still held by the militants escape has become harder than ever.

“Fleeing is like committing suicide,” said Khalil, the ex-civil servant, who lives near the medieval Grand al-Nuri Mosque, the offensive’s symbolic focus, where Baghdadi proclaimed himself caliph.

IS’s black flag has been flying over its landmark leaning minaret since June 2014, when the Iraqi army fled in the face of the militants, giving them their biggest prize, a city at least four times bigger than any other they came to control in both Iraq and neighboring Syria.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed; editing by Peter Graff)

Iraqi armed forces announce progress in Mosul campaign, say district north of old city captured

Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) ride in a military vehicle on the Iraqi border with Syria, west of Mosul, Iraq June 12, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi forces on Tuesday reported progress in the U.S.-backed campaign to dislodge Islamic State from Mosul, announcing the capture of a district just north the city’s historic center.

With the loss of the Zanjili neighborhood, the enclave still held by Islamic State in the northern Iraqi city has shrunk to two districts along the western banks of the Tigris river – the densely populated Old City center and the Medical City.

Iraqi government forces retook eastern Mosul in January and began a new push on May 27 to capture the remaining enclave, where up to 200,000 people are trapped.

The Mosul offensive started in October with air and ground support from a U.S.-led international coalition. It has taken much longer than expected as Islamic State is fighting in the middle of civilians, slowing the advance of the assailants.

The fall of Mosul would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate” declared in 2014 over parts of Iraq and Syria by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in a speech from a historic mosque in the old city.

In Syria, Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-air strikes are besieging Islamic State forces in the city of Raqqa, the militants’ de facto capital in that country.

About 800,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war population of Mosul, have already fled, seeking refuge either with friends and relatives or in camps.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Islamic State fighters seal off Mosul mosque preparing for last stand

A member of the Iraqi rapid response forces fires a mortar shell against Islamic State militants positions in western Mosul, Iraq May 31, 2017. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State militants have closed the streets around Mosul’s Grand al-Nuri Mosque, residents said, apparently in preparation for a final showdown in the battle over their last major stronghold in Iraq.

Dozens of fighters were seen by residents taking up positions in the past 48 hours around the medieval mosque, the site where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared an Islamist caliphate in July 2014.

Islamic State’s black flag has been flying from the mosque since the militants captured Mosul and seized swathes of Iraq and Syria in the summer of 2014.

U.S.-backed Iraqi government forces retook eastern Mosul in January and began a new push on Saturday to capture the group’s remaining enclave in western Mosul, comprising of the Old City center where the mosque is located, and three adjacent districts alongside the western bank of the River Tigris.

The fall of the city would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the self-styled caliphate. Meanwhile in Syria, Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-air strikes are beseiging Islamic State forces in the city of Raqqa, the militants’ de facto capital in that country.

SYMBOLIC FOCUS

Up to 200,000 people still live in harrowing conditions behind Islamic State lines in Mosul, running low on food, water and medicine, and with difficult access to hospitals, the United Nations said on Sunday.

The Grand al-Nuri Mosque has become a symbolic focus of the campaign, with Iraqi commanders privately saying they hope to capture it during Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month which started over the weekend in Iraq.

“Daesh’s fighters know that the mosque is the most important target and they are preparing for a major battle there,” said Hisham al-Hashemi, who advises several Middle East government including Iraq’s on Islamic State affairs.

But a battle in or near the mosque would put the building and its famed leaning minaret at risk, experts have said.

The minaret, several feet off the perpendicular and standing on humid soil, is particularly vulnerable as it has not been renovated since 1970. Its tilt gave the landmark its popular name – al-Hadba, or the hunchback.

The Mosul offensive, now in its eighth month, has taken much more time than expected as Islamic State is fighting in the middle of civilians and using them as human shields.

Over the past few days, the militants ordered dozens of families living in the Zanjili district to move into the Old City to prevent them from escaping toward the Iraqi forces trying to advance from the northern side, a resident said.

Government forces have been dropping leaflets over the districts telling families to flee but the intensity of the fighting has prevented people from escaping.

The militants been countering the offensive with suicide car and motorbike bombs, snipers, booby-traps and mortar fire.

About 700,000 people, about a third of the pre-war city’s population, have already fled, seeking refuge either with friends and relatives or in camps.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Angus MacSwan)