Tag Archives: Mosul

Iraqi forces try to bring civilians out of east Mosul, U.S. pledges more support

A wounded displaced Iraqi girl and her family who had fled their homes wait to enter Hammam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq March 21, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Patrick Markey

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi government forces attempted to evacuate civilians from Mosul’s Islamic State-held Old City on Tuesday so that troops could clear the area, but militant snipers hampered the effort, Iraqi officers said.

They said the insurgents were also using civilians as human shields as government units edged toward the al-Nuri Mosque, the focus of recent fighting in the five-month-long campaign to crush Islamic State in the city that was once the de facto capital of their self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate.

As many as 600,000 civilians remain in the western sector of Mosul, complicating a battle being fought with artillery and air strikes as well as ground combat. Thousands have escaped in recent days.

“Our forces control around 60 percent of the west now,” Defence Ministry spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool told a news conference in eastern Mosul. “It’s the Old City now with small streets and it’s a hard fight with civilians inside. We are trying to evacuate them.

“We are a few hundred meters from the mosque now, we are advancing on al-Nuri. We know it means a lot to Daesh,” he said, using an Arab acronym for Islamic State.

The capture of the mosque would be a huge symbolic prize as well as strategic gain for the government as it was there where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al—Baghdadi declared the caliphate in July 2014 after the militants had captured large areas of Iraq and Syria.

Government forces backed by a U.S.-led international coalition retook several cities last year, liberated eastern Mosul in December, and are now closing in on the west, but the militants are putting up fierce resistance from the close-packed houses and narrow streets.

Baghdadi and other leaders have fled the city for the hinterlands, where Islamic State remnants may regroup and wage a new phase of insurgency. At the same time, IS forces in the Syrian city of Raqqa are under attack in a parallel conflict.

Brigadier General Saad Maan said soldiers had killed nine IS snipers on Tuesday and destroyed a bomb factory.

“There are lots of snipers on top of the buildings in the Old City around the al-Nuri Mosque. We need to evacuate the families from inside as they using them as a shield when we are advancing on the mosque,” he told the news conference.

No precise toll of civilian casualties has been given but a prominent Iraqi politician said last week that the number could be as high as 3,500 dead since the attack on western Mosul started in mid-February.

An emergency field hospital set up by the U.S. medical charity Samaritan’s Purse says it has treated more than 1,000 patients, many of them women and children, since January. They suffered wounds from gunfire, land mines, mortar rounds, car bombings and booby-traps.

Reporters at the frontline on Tuesday said clashes took place around the railway station in some areas troops had held a few days earlier. Troops fired rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-guns at militants around the station as families ran across streets to avoid snipers

“We sitting inside our house and bullets were coming through our door” said one woman fleeing to government lines.

U.S. SUPPORT TO INCREASE

Saad Maan also said the bodies of a colonel and two other officers who had gone missing during the battle had been found. The colonel had been shot. But he said the men had not been captured by the insurgents.

An Interior Ministry official told Reuters on Monday that the insurgents had captured a police colonel and eight other officers after they ran out of ammunition during a skirmish. But a Rapid Response units spokesman denied this when asked for comment on Monday night.

The issue is sensitive as Islamic State have a record of torturing, mutilating and killing military and civilian captives, and such an incident could be a blow to troops’ morale.

The number of displaced people from both sides of Mosul since the start of the offensive has reached 355,000, according to government figures. Some 181,000 had poured out of western Mosul since the start of the operations to retake that side.

In Washington, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said he had won assurances of greater U.S. support in the war in talks on Monday with U.S. President Donald Trump. But Abadi cautioned that military might alone would not be sufficient.

He told a forum in Washington after his meeting with Trump that he had been told U.S. “support will not only continue but will accelerate.”

“But of course we have to be careful here,” he said. “We are not talking about military confrontation as such. Committing troops is one thing, while fighting terrorism is another thing.”

Abadi, who leads the Shi’ite majority government in Baghdad, said it would be crucial to win over the local population in Sunni-dominated Mosul to achieve lasting peace.

He is in Washington this week ahead of a gathering of world leaders of the coalition fighting Islamic State, who as well as waging war in Iraq and Syria have inspired attacks on civilian targets in Europe, Africa and elsewhere that have killed hundreds of people.

Click http://tmsnrt.rs/2mZWV4j for graphic on Battle for Mosul

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Writing by Angus MacSwan in Erbil; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Need to avoid civilian deaths weighs on minds of U.S. forces in Mosul battle

Displaced Iraqis flee their homes as Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State militants, in western Mosul, Iraq March 18, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Angus MacSwan

QAYYARA WEST AIRFIELD, Iraq (Reuters) – As the battle for Mosul moves to the narrow streets and densely packed houses of the Old City, U.S. artillery gunners and helicopter pilots supporting Iraqi forces face an age-old problem – how to avoid killing civilians.

They place their faith in precision missiles which can hit their target with great accuracy. But human instinct also comes into play against an Islamic State enemy which has used civilians as human shields and hides in houses and mosques.

“Our mission is to find and destroy ISIS. We are not here to kill the wrong people,” said Captain Lucas Gebhart, commander of the 4/6th Cavalry’s Bravo Troop of Apache attack helicopters.

The troop is based at this airfield about 60 kms south of Mosul, as is a rocket battery which fires into west Mosul.

A major site at the height of the U.S. occupation, Islamic State captured Qayyara from Iraqi government forces in 2014 and destroyed it. The Iraqis retook it in July last year, and now the U.S. Army is building it up again as a support base for the Mosul operation.

Gebhart, who wore a U.S. Cavalry hat with a crossed-sabre insignia along with his regular uniform, has been here since December. The troop flies close support for the Iraqi army and escorts medical evacuations. It has had more than 200 engagements with Islamic State fighters in that time, he said.

“We fly every day, weather permitting. We are firing missiles most of the time,” Gebhart told reporters.

The Iraqi army started its offensive on Mosul, Islamic State’s last stronghold in Iraq, in October and retook the east side of the city, bisected by the Tigris river, in January. The west, including the Old City, is much harder going.

“The west side is very congested and it will present new challenges for us. We realize the need to be careful as we go forward,” Gebhart said.

One of those challenges is avoiding civilian casualties in a conflict where fighters are mixed in among the population and sometimes hiding behind them.

“Everyone that flies with me are fathers and husbands, so we are very deliberate to avoid casualties we don’t want. We use guided missiles. The things we shoot from an Apache, they go where we want them to go,” Gebhart said.

Targets are identified and approved by the Iraqi army. But circumstances can change in a moment.

“I have personal experience of human shields. I engaged a target and they pulled a family of women and children out of a house. The missile was already in the air but I was able to move it,” he said.

“You’ve got a little bit of time. If something happens post-missile release, we have procedures to move it.”

Gebhart, aged 32, joined the military as a teenager after the 9/11 attacks on the United States. He served in the 82nd Airborne in Iraq in 2003 before going to West Point and becoming a cavalry officer. He also served two tours of duty in Afghanistan.

“I love my job. I don’t lose sleep over it,” he said.

WE LOVE TO FIRE

In another section of the base, the 18th Field Artillery “Odin” battery operates a High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), fired off the back of trucks.

On Friday afternoon, the battery fired 10 rockets, each worth about $100,000, in the space of about 20 minutes. They headed skywards in a cloud of white smoke and a flash of fire as a Bob Marley song played from a platoon tent. They would reach their target in east Mosul in about a minute.

Lieutenant Mary Floyd explained that the rockets were GPS-guided. All fire missions were approved by senior officers at the Combined Joint Operations Center and the coordinates were sent to the battery through computers.

“The rockets go really high so we have to clear airspace -– civilian and military -– along the flight path. We have had to end missions because they saw aviation,” she said.

Although rockets are often aimed at targets in built-up, populated areas, the battery was confident they would hit what they intended. If the rockets are off target, they do not detonate, she said.

“They have very, very low collateral damage, so we like to use them a lot,” Floyd said, using the military term for civilian casualties. “When the rockets hit they land at near a vertical angle. That really confines the blast to one house.”

The battery has fired hundreds of rockets since deploying to Qayyara, she said.

“The tempo changes. We’ll go a couple of days without orders. Then we might be firing all night.”

The issue of civilian casualties has dogged the U.S. military during its long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, from shootings at check-points to drone bombings. In the battle for Mosul, Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition war planes have also been pounding parts of the city.

Figures of such casualties are hard to come by. Washington has stressed its forces take every effort to avoid them.

On Tuesday, a prominent Iraqi politician and businessman, Khamis Khanjar, said at least 3,500 civilians have been killed in west Mosul since the offensive closed in on it.

The U.S.-led coalition said in a statement that up to March 4, it had assessed that “more likely than not”, at least 220 civilians had been unintentionally killed by coalition strikes since the start of Operation Inherent Resolve.

While the men and women of Odin battery were fully aware of the risk, they believe in their work.

“We love to fire. It makes me very happy,” Floyd said. “At night it is very beautiful.”

(Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Iraqi troops seize main bridge, advance on mosque in battle for Mosul

Members of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) sit in a military vehicle during a battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants, in the city of Mosul, Iraq March 15, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

By Patrick Markey and John Davison

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi government forces battling Islamic State for Mosul took control of a main bridge over the Tigris river on Wednesday and advanced towards the mosque where the group’s leader declared a caliphate in 2014, federal police said.

The seizure of the Iron Bridge, linking eastern Mosul with the militant-held Old City on the west side, means the government holds three of the five bridges over the Tigris and bolsters Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s assertion that the battle is reaching its final stages.

The bridge, which was damaged in fighting late last year, was captured by federal police and Interior Ministry Rapid Response units, a police statement said.

The gains were made in heavy fighting in which troops fought street-by-street against an enemy using suicide car bombs, mortar and sniper fire, and grenade-dropping drones to defend what was once their main stronghold.

“Our troops are making a steady advance … and we are now less than 800 meters from the mosque,” a federal police spokesman said.

Losing the city would be a huge blow to Islamic State as it has served as the group’s de facto capital since its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself head of a caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria from the Nuri Mosque in July 2014.

The capture of the mosque would thus be a huge symbolic victory as well as a concrete gain. But many hard days of fighting could still lie ahead as government forces try to make headway in the streets and narrow alleyways of the Old City.

Islamic State fighters have booby-trapped houses, and government forces will also be fighting amongst civilians, ruling out the extensive use of air and artillery support.

Heavy fighting was also reported on Wednesday around the Mosul museum by journalists and combatants. An Islamic State suicide car bomb exploded near the museum. Helicopters strafed the ground with machinegun fire and missiles.

DECISIVE STAGE

The intense combat marked a decisive stage in the battle for Mosul which started on Oct. 17 last year, and in the wider struggle against Islamic State.

In neighboring Syria, three separate forces are advancing on the city of Raqqa, the main Syrian city under Islamic State control.

As well as waging jihad in Iraq and Syria, the militants have inspired attacks in cities in Europe, Africa and elsewhere that have killed hundreds of civilians.

In Baghdad, Abadi said: “Daesh (Islamic State) become day after day surrounded inside a tight area and they are in their final days.”

In a news conference on Tuesday night, he warned the insurgents that they must surrender or face death.

“We will preserve families of Daesh who are civilians but we will punish the terrorists and bring them to justice if they surrender,” he said. “They are cornered and if they will not surrender. They will definitely get killed.”Iraqi officers said cloudy weather hampered air cover on Wednesday morning. Police commander Younes Jabouri said troops were moving forward but it was not easy because of the weather.

“We’re on the edge of the Old City. There are lots of shops, garages and markets and a lot of residents and small streets and alleyways. It takes time because there are a lot of civilians and Daesh uses them as human shields, they don’t let them leave,” he said.

Residents have streamed out of western neighborhoods recaptured by the government, many desperately hungry and traumatized by living under Islamic State’s harsh rule.

Haider Ibrahim Rohawi, a market trader, was fleeing Lagedat district with his family, pushing his possessions in a handcart.

“Yesterday afternoon the army came. Just a day before Daesh were in our houses with us. There was a lot of fighting. They shot one of the Daesh right in front of me. Everyone is threatened by Daesh, that’s why we leave. The area is freed. We have no power, no fuel, nothing.”

As many as 600,000 civilians are still trapped with the militants inside Mosul. The Ministry of Immigration and Displacement said on Tuesday that in recent days, almost 13,000 displaced people from western Mosul had been given assistance and temporary accommodation each day, adding to the 200,000 already displaced.

Staff Brigadier Falah al-Obeidi of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) told Reuters his troops on Wednesday took control over the Dor al-Sikak and al-Nafut areas, site of the militants’ main weapons stores in Mosul just west of the Old City.

“Yesterday resistance was very strong in that area. It’s where their stores are, and the people living there, both men and women, are with them (supporters or members),” he said.

Aerial surveillance photos showed women carrying guns, Obeidi said.

CTS troops also brought in a Russian-made missile and two warheads. They had found 40 more such missiles stored in homes in Dor al-Sikak.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Writing by Angus MacSwan in Erbil; Editing by Louise Ireland and Dominic Evans)

IS Mosul commander killed, government forces battle for bridge

A tank of Iraqi rapid response forces fire against Islamic State militants at the Bab al-Tob area in Mosul, Iraq, March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Ari Jalal

By Patrick Markey and Abdelaziz Boumzar

MOSUL, Iraq, (Reuters) – Iraqi government forces killed the Islamic State commander of Mosul’s Old City on Tuesday as the battle for the militants’ last stronghold in Iraq focused on a bridge crossing the Tigris river.

As fighting intensified on Tuesday after the previous day’s heavy rains, civilians streamed out of western neighborhoods recaptured by the government, cold and hungry but relieved to be free of the militants’ grip.

IS snipers were slowing the advance of Interior Ministry Rapid Response units on the Iron Bridge linking western and eastern Mosul but the elite forces were still inching forward, officers said.

Government forces also pushed into areas of western Mosul, Islamic State’s last redoubt in the city that has been the de facto capital of their self-declared caliphate.

Federal police killed the military commander of the Old City, Abu Abdul Rahman al-Ansary, during operations to clear Bab al-Tob district, a federal police officer said. With many IS leaders having already retreated from Mosul, Ansary’s death comes as blow to the militants as they defend their shrinking area of control street-by-street and house-by-house.

Capturing the Iron Bridge would mean Iraqi forces hold three of the five bridges in Mosul that span the Tigris, all of which have been damaged by the militants and U.S.-led air strikes. The southernmost two have already been retaken.

“We are still moving toward the Iron Bridge. We are taking out snipers hiding in the surrounding building, we are still pushing for the Iron Bridge,” Brigadier General Mahdi Abbas Abdullah of the Rapid Response force told Reuters.

Near the Mosul Museum, Iraq forces used armored vehicles and tanks to attack snipers pinning down troops clearing areas around the bridge.

An air strike targeting one Islamic State position hit a building, engulfing nearby troops in smoke and dust.

Since starting the offensive in October, Iraqi forces with U.S.-led coalition support have retaken eastern Mosul and about 30 percent of the west from the militants, who are outnumbered but fiercely defending their last stronghold in Iraq.

For much of Tuesday, the troops were within 100m (330 feet) of the bridge.

“It’s very key for our forces to secure the riverside and prevent Daesh militants from turning around our advancing forces,” a Rapid Response spokesman said in the morning, using an Arab acronym for Islamic State.

They expected to gain control of the Iron Bridge and the nearby area by the end of the day, he said.

“Seizing the bridge will help further tighten the noose around Daesh fighters entrenched inside the old city,” he said.

HEAVY SHELLING

The boom of shelling and heavy machinegun fire could be heard from the center of Mosul and helicopter gunships strafed the ground from above on Tuesday morning.

Amid the combat, a steady stream of refugees trudged out of the western districts, carrying suitcases, bottles of water and other possessions. Some pushed children and sick elderly relatives in handcarts and wheelbarrows.

Soldiers packed them into trucks on the Mosul-Baghdad highway to be taken to processing areas. Most left in the dark early morning hours or after the army recaptured their neighborhoods. Food had been scarce, they said.

“We fled at 5 a.m. (0200 GMT) after the army had arrived. There has been a lot of shelling by Daesh,” said Hamid Hadi, a teacher. “Mostly we’ve been eating water mixed with tomatoes.”

Ashraf Ali, a nurse who escaped with his wife and two children, said mortar rounds were falling as they fled. They took advantage of the army retaking their district to get out.

“Daesh wanted us to move to their areas but we escaped when the army arrived,” he said.

As many as 600,000 civilians are caught with the militants inside Mosul, which Iraqi forces have effectively sealed off from the remaining territory that Islamic State controls in Iraq and Syria. The Iraqi forces include army, special forces, Kurdish peshmerga and Shi’ite militias.

More than 200,000 Mosul residents have been displaced since the start of the campaign in October. The Ministry of Immigration and Displacement said on Tuesday that in recent days, almost 13,000 displaced people from western Mosul had been received seeking assistance and temporary accommodation each day.

“Whenever we advance there are more people coming out,” said one Iraqi officer directing refugee transport. “There are more people on this side of the city and people are trying to leave because there is no food and no supplies in their area.”

Losing Mosul would be a major strike against Islamic State. It is by far the largest city the militants have held since their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed himself leader of a caliphate spanning Iraq and Syria from a mosque in Mosul in the summer of 2014.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad, Writing by Angus MacSwan in Erbil, Editing by Ralph Boulton)

Islamic State frees Mosul prisoners as grip on last major city slips

Iraqi rapid response members are seen as they try to avoid being hit by Islamic State snipers in western Mosul, Iraq March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State has released dozens of prisoners held in jails in the districts of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul that remain under its control, residents said on Saturday.

The release of the prisoners on Friday is another sign that the militants are being overwhelmed by the U.S.-backed Iraqi offensive that started on Oct. 17 to dislodge them from Mosul, their last major city stronghold in Iraq.

Islamic State has lost most cities it captured in Iraq in 2014 and 2015. It declared a caliphate that also spanned parts of Syria from Mosul in 2014.

Among those released were people who had been caught selling cigarettes, violating a smoking ban, or in possession of a mobile phone and therefore suspected of communicating with the outside world, the residents said.

Iraqi forces dislodged Islamic State from the eastern side of Mosul in January, and on Feb. 19 launched the offensive on the districts located west of the Tigris river.

State-run TV on Friday said about half western Mosul has been taken back from the militants who are besieged in the old city center and districts to the north.

One of the men released on Friday said two militants got him out of a basement where he was held captive with other people, blindfolded the group and drove them away in a bus.

“After driving a distance, we stopped and they told us to remove the blindfolds and then they said ‘go, you are free,'” he said by phone, adding that about 25 prisoners were on the bus.

The man, who requested not to be identified, indicated that had spent two weeks in prison for selling cigarettes.

One Mosul resident said his brother had suddenly reappeared at the house on Friday after spending a month in captivity for possessing a mobile phone.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Islamic State mortars, snipers take toll on Iraqi forces in Mosul

A sniper from Iraq's Federal Police force takes aim at Islamic State positions from the roof of a house on the frontline in Albu Saif, south of Mosul. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

By John Davison

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – At a field clinic near the front line in Mosul, an Iraqi Federal Police officer lay in discomfort on a stretcher, a drip in his arm and bandage plastered over his chest from where shrapnel from a mortar shell had pierced his sternum.

The blast which wounded the 23-year-old, Jaafar Kareem, and two comrades, was in an area where rapid advances against Islamic State earlier in the week have slowed as the militants aim mortar and sniper fire at Iraqi troops.

At least 10 shells had landed there that morning, before hitting their target, Kareem said.

“There have been a lot of our guys wounded today in the same area,” he said, turning his head gingerly to watch an officer on the next stretcher being treated for a leg injury.

The makeshift clinic, an abandoned house manned by American volunteers and Iraqi military medics, was on Thursday regularly treating members of Iraq’s security forces rushed back from the front line in ambulances or armored vehicles.

“We’ve already had around 20 people come in for treatment (on Thursday) – about 70 percent civilian, but it’s been more military (casualties) up until today,” said Kathy Bequary, director of NYC Medics, the organization running the clinic.

Casualties her team have witnessed recently range from superficial wounds to the occasional patient dead on arrival, including one soldier with eight bullet wounds to his torso, she said.

As Iraqi forces fight Islamic State militants deeper into western Mosul, they face increasingly stiff resistance, with the jihadists using mortar and sniper fire to try to hold off a U.S.-backed offensive to drive them out of their last major stronghold in the country.

The fight has taken its toll of dead and wounded on Iraqi soldiers, special forces and police units. The military has not published the number of its own casualties.

Islamic State’s tactics, which include taking cover among the civilian population, have also slowed advances in some areas, the closer the battle gets to the more crowded city center.

The area where Kareem and his comrades were hit was no more than a few hundred meters from the front line, in an area housing the Nineveh provincial government headquarters, a territorial gain trumpeted by the Iraqi military on Tuesday.

Iraqi forces have indeed made progress there. A wide main road leading to the governorate building was firmly under Federal Police control on Thursday, a Reuters correspondent visiting with elite interior ministry units said.

STATIC FRONT LINE

Armored vehicles drove past destruction left by fighting in the former provincial government hub: a collapsed police headquarters dynamited by militants as they retreated, and a large, faded advertisement panel for “Iraqi Airways – Mosul booking office.”

But the front line had been static since early in the week, members of the Rapid Response units said.

Troops on foot had to dash between the more exposed streets for fear of sniper fire.

The whoosh of an incoming mortar shell sent them scrambling for cover against the wall of a building. It landed close enough to feel shockwaves from the blast.

“It’s been a little difficult, recently,” Ali Sattar, a 20-year-old in the Rapid Response said.

“We’ve not really advanced for three days now. Two of our teams went further forward, on a sort of recce mission, and raised the Iraqi flag on top of a tall hotel that (Islamic State) snipers have been using, then came back.”

Federal Police units were now in control of the Mosul museum, a little further forward, but any new advances were being made difficult by snipers who had taken up positions in the Assyria Hotel, less than 200 meters (yards) away, he said.

“The flag will probably be taken down again by the militants,” he said, half joking.

Back at the clinic, the wounded Kareem looked weary.

“The battles have been hard,” he sighed.

(Reporting by John Davison; Editing by Michael Perry)

Iraq aims to drive Islamic State from west Mosul within a month

Displaced Iraqi people, who fled their homes during a battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants, carry their belongings in Mosul, Iraq March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

By Ahmed Rasheed and John Davison

SULAIMANIYA/MOSUL (Reuters) – Iraqi forces aim to dislodge Islamic State militants from west Mosul within a month, despite grueling urban combat in densely populated terrain, the head of the elite Counter Terrorism Service told Reuters on Thursday.

As Iraqi forces advance deeper into west Mosul, they are facing increasingly stiff resistance from Islamic State militants using suicide car bombs and snipers to defend their last major stronghold in Iraq.

Their operation to retake the eastern bank of the city, launched in mid-October with support from a U.S.-led coalition, took more than three months. The offensive to recapture west Mosul got underway less than three weeks ago.

“Despite the tough fighting… we are moving ahead in persistence to finish the battle for the western side within a month,” Lieutenant General Talib Shaghati told Reuters at a conference in Sulaimaniya.

Smoke rises from clashes during a battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

Smoke rises from clashes during a battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

The few thousand militants still fighting in west Mosul are overwhelmingly outnumbered by a 100,000-strong array of Iraqi forces, but their ruthless tactics east of the Tigris river late last year enabled them to hold out much longer than the government’s initial optimistic predictions.

Mosul is by far the largest city which Islamic State has held in its cross-border, self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria. It has been losing ground in both countries, with three separate forces, backed by the United States, Turkey and Russia, advancing on its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.

In Mosul, CTS forces recaptured the Moalimin and Silo districts on Thursday, according to the commander of the campaign Lieutenant General Abdul Ameer Rasheed Yarallah.

Inside the city, CTS are fighting alongside the Federal Police and the elite interior ministry Rapid Response force, which earlier this week recaptured the provincial government headquarters and the Mosul museum.

A federal police colonel said on Thursday there were skirmishes close to the museum, where the militants filmed themselves destroying priceless statues and sculptures in 2015.

“The frontline is just beyond it,” said Lieutenant Colonel Hammeed Habib of the Rapid Response forces. “There are snipers stationed in tall hotel buildings on a road beyond that line”.

A 5-months-old child suffering from dehydration, Batoul Bashir Ahmad, is carried by his mother, an Iraqi displaced woman who fled her home during a battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants, in Mosul, Iraq March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

A 5-months-old child suffering from dehydration, Batoul Bashir Ahmad, is carried by his mother, an Iraqi displaced woman who fled her home during a battle between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants, in Mosul, Iraq March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

The Iraqi army’s ninth division and Shi’ite paramilitary forces said on Wednesday they had cut the main road between the city and the Islamic State stronghold of Tal Afar to the west, tightening a noose around the city.

There is little doubt Iraqi forces will eventually prevail over the militants, who are both outnumbered and overpowered, but even if it loses Mosul, Islamic State is expected to revert to their insurgent tactics of old.

On Wednesday, bomb blasts ripped through a wedding party near Tikrit, which was recaptured by Iraqi forces in 2015, killing more than 20 people.

The jihadist group has lost most of the cities it captured in northern and western Iraq in 2014 and 2015. In Syria, it still holds Raqqa city as its stronghold, as well as most of Deir al-Zor province.

(Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Iraqi forces see off Islamic State attack, seize road out of Mosul

A displaced Iraqi man carries his granddaughter while fleeing his home, as Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State militants, in western Mosul, Iraq March 8, 2017. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

By Isabel Coles and Ahmed Rasheed

MOSUL/SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces saw off an overnight Islamic State counter-attack near Mosul’s main government buildings and took full control on Wednesday of the last major road leading west to the militant-held town of Tal Afar, the military said.

Inside the city troops battled the ultra-hardline Sunni Muslim fighters, who hid among the remaining civilian population and deployed snipers and suicide car bombs to defend their last major Iraq stronghold.

The U.S.-backed campaign to crush the militants saw Iraqi forces recapture the eastern side of the city in January, and launch their assault on the western half last month.

Fighting is expected to get tougher as Iraqi troops get push further into the more densely populated areas, including Mosul’s old city.

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the group’s self styled-caliphate, which has spanned areas of northern Iraq and eastern Syria, from the Nuri Mosque in Mosul’s old city in June 2014.

Militants used car bombs in their nighttime counter-attack around the governorate building, Major General Ali Kadhem al-Lami of the Federal Police’s Fifth Division told a Reuters correspondent near the site. “Today we’re clearing the area which was liberated,” he said.

Military officials had said that Rapid Response troops, an elite interior ministry division, recaptured the provincial government headquarters on Tuesday, as well as the central bank branch and the museum where militants filmed themselves destroying priceless statues in 2015.

“The museum is completely empty of all artifacts. They were stolen, possibly smuggled,” Lami said. Reuters was not yet able to access the museum to verify.

Lami said most of the fighters that had fought around the governorate building were local but there were some foreigners.

“An order was issued for foreign fighters with families to withdraw with them. Those who do not have a family should stay and fight, whether foreign or local,” he said.

The few families remaining in the nearby Dawasa district said the militants had set some of their homes on fire as security forces advanced and that the militants had fought among themselves.

LAST ROAD FROM MOSUL

Later on Wednesday, the Iraqi military said the army and Shi’ite paramilitary forces had taken full control of the last major road leading west out of Mosul towards the town of Tal Afar, state TV reported.

The 9th Armored Division and two Shi’ite fighting groups had “isolated the right bank (western side of Mosul) from Tal Afar”, it said.

The road links Mosul to Tal Afar, another Islamic State stronghold 60 km (40 miles) to the west, and then to the Syrian border.

Shi’ite militias which are part of the Mosul campaign began to close in on Tal Afar late last year, after the offensive was launched, and said they linked up with Kurdish fighters nearby to encircle the jihadists.

A 100,000-strong force of Iraqi military units, Shi’ite forces and Kurdish fighters, backed by a U.S.-led coalition, have fought since October in the intensive Mosul campaign.

Losing Mosul would deal a fatal blow to the Iraqi part of Islamic State’s self-styled caliphate, which its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared from the city’s Nuri Mosque in 2014, and which has spanned large areas of Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Iraq would continue hitting Islamic State targets in Syria, as well as in neighboring countries if they give their approval.

Abadi on Feb. 24 announced the first Iraqi air strike on Syrian territory, targeting Islamic State positions in retaliation for bomb attacks in Baghdad.

“I respect the sovereignty of states, and I have secured the approval of Syria to strike positions (on its territory),” Abadi told a conference in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya on Wednesday.

“I will not hesitate to strike the positions of the terrorists in the neighboring countries. We will keep on fighting them,” he said.

The ultra-hardline jihadist group has lost most cities it captured in northern and western Iraq in 2014 and 2015.

In Syria, it still holds Raqqa city as its main stronghold, as well as most of Deir al-Zor province, but is losing ground to an array of separate enemies, including U.S.-backed forces and the Russian-backed Syrian army.

The group has carried out bombings in Iraqi and Syrian cities as its caliphate has shrunk.

(Writing by John Davison in Erbil; Editing by Angus MacSwan and Dominic Evans)

Iraqi forces recapture Mosul government buildings, museum

Military vehicles of federal police are seen during a battle with Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq, March 7, 2017. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

By Isabel Coles and John Davison

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi government forces fighting to drive Islamic State from western Mosul on Tuesday recaptured the main government building, the central bank branch and the museum where three years ago the militants had smashed statues and artifacts.

The government buildings had been destroyed and were not used by Islamic State, but their capture still represented a symbolic victory in the battle over the militants’ last major stronghold in Iraq.

An elite Rapid Response team stormed the Nineveh governorate building and government complex in an overnight raid, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Abdel Amir al-Mohammadawi said.

They also seized a building that housed Islamic State’s main court of justice, known for its harsh sentences, including stonings, throwing people off building roofs and chopping off hands, reflecting Islamic State’s extreme ideology.

“They killed tens from Daesh,” Mohammadawi said, referring to Islamic State by one of its Arabic acronyms. The raid lasted more than an hour.

The militants looted the central bank when they took over the city in 2014 and took videos of themselves destroying statues and artifacts.

Illegal traffic in antiquities that abound in the territory under their control, from the sites of Palmyra in Syria to Nineveh in Iraq, was one of their main sources of income.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi flew into to Mosul to visit the troops engaged in the fighting.

“Iraqis shall walk tall when the war is over,” he told state TV as he arrived there.

The breakthrough paves the way for the U.S.-backed forces to attack the militants in the old city of Mosul, the most complicated phase in the nearly five-month campaign due to the density of the population and the narrowness of the alleyways. The militants are dug in amongst civilians in the historic district.

It was from the Nuri Mosque in the old city that the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared in 2014 a caliphate also spanning parts of neighboring Syria.

The old city lies on the western bank of the Tigris river that cuts Mosul in two. About 750,000 people were estimated by aid organizations to live in west Mosul when the offensive started on this side of the city on Feb. 19.

The Iraqi forces took the eastern half in January, after 100 days of fighting. They are backed by air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition.

Defeating Islamic State in Mosul would crush the Iraqi wing of the self-declared caliphate, which also suffering setbacks in Syria.

U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces cut the last main road out of the Islamic State capital there, Raqqa, on Monday. Islamic State is also fighting off the Russian-backed Syrian army as well as and Turkey and allied Syrian rebels.

The number of Islamic State fighters in Mosul was estimated at 6,000 at the start of the offensive on Oct. 17, by the Iraqi military who estimate several thousands have been killed since.

Lined up against them is a 100,000-strong force of Iraqi troops, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Iranian-trained Shi’ite Muslim paramilitary groups.

Some of Islamic State’s foreign fighters are trying to flee Mosul, U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Matthew Isler told Reuters at the Qayyara West Airfield, south of the city.

“The game is up,” Isler said. “They have lost this fight and what you’re seeing is a delaying action.”

SNIPER FIRE

Islamic State snipers continued to fire at the main government building after it fell into government hands, restricting the movements of the soldiers.

Rapid Response sharp-shooters were firing back from the building. One of them said four enemy snipers had been killed.

“The fighting is strong because most of them are foreigners and they have nowhere to go,” said the head of a sniper unit for the Rapid Response, al-Moqdadi al-Saeedi.

More than 40,000 people fled their homes in the past week, bringing the total number of displaced since the start of the offensive to more than 211,000, according to the United Nations.

Dozens more streamed out of the Mamoun district in southwestern Mosul toward U.S.-trained Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) troops as machinegunfire rang out in the background.

U.S. special forces were also seen walking between buildings in the same area, some of them carrying assault rifles with scopes and silencers. Helicopters attacked targets just north of their positions as thick smoke filled the sky from various explosions.

Agencies say camps to accommodate them are nearly full even though the United Nations said last month that more than 400,000 people still in western Mosul could be displaced.

Several thousand have been killed and wounded in the fighting, both civilians and military, according to aid organizations.

(For map of Mosul click http://tmsnrt.rs/2fd0nGE)

(Writing by Maher Chmaytell; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Twelve treated for chemical weapons agents in Mosul since March 1: U.N.

Iraqi special forces soldiers walk on a street during a battle with Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq March 3, 2017 REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Twelve people, including women and children, are being treated for possible exposure to chemical weapons agents in Mosul, where Islamic State is fighting off an offensive by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces, the United Nations said on Saturday.

The U.N.’s World Health Organization has activated with partners and local health authorities “an emergency response plan to safely treat men, women and children who may be exposed to the highly toxic chemical,” the agency said in a statement.

It said all 12 patients had been received since March 1 for treatment which they are undergoing in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region, east of Mosul.

Four of them are showing “severe signs associated with exposure to a blister agent”. The patients were exposed to the chemical agents in the eastern side of Mosul.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday that five children and two women were receiving treatment for exposure to chemical agents.

The ICRC statement did not say which side used the chemical agents that caused blisters, redness in the eyes, irritation, vomiting and coughing.

Iraqi forces captured the eastern side of Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting and launched their attack on the districts that lie west of the Tigris river on Feb. 19. The eastern side remains within reach of the militants’ rockets and mortar shells.

Defeating Islamic State in Mosul would crush the Iraqi wing of the caliphate declared by the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in 2014, over parts of Iraq and Syria.

The U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, Lise Grande, called for an investigation.

“This is horrible. If the alleged use of chemical weapons is confirmed, this is a serious violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime, regardless of who the targets or the victims of the attacks are,” she said in a statement.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Catherine Evans)