Tag Archives: Mosul

U.N. ‘racing’ to prepare emergency aid ahead of battle for western Mosul

buildings destroyed in war for Mosul

By Maher Chmaytelli

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The United Nations said on Tuesday it is “racing against the clock” to prepare emergency aid for hundreds of thousands of endangered civilians in Mosul with an Iraqi army offensive looming to oust Islamic State from the western half of the city.

Iraqi officials said on Monday government forces had taken complete control of eastern Mosul, 100 days after the start of their U.S.-backed campaign to retake Iraq’s second largest city from IS insurgents who seized it in 2014.

U.N. officials estimate 750,000 people remain in Mosul west of the Tigris River that flows through the last remaining major urban center held by Islamic State in Iraq, after a series of government counter-offensives in the country’s north and west.

The west side could prove more complicated to take than the east as it is crisscrossed by streets too narrow for armored vehicles, allowing IS militants to hide among civilians.

The Sunni Muslim jihadists are expected to put up a fierce fight as they are cornered in a shrinking area of Mosul.

“We are racing against the clock to prepare for this,” U.N. humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande told Reuters. Humanitarian agencies were setting up displaced people camps accessible from western Mosul and pre-positioning supplies in them, she said.

“The reports from inside western Mosul are distressing,” she said in a separate statement. “Prices of basic food and supplies are soaring…Many families without income are eating only once a day. Others are being forced to burn furniture to stay warm.”

Government forces on Tuesday finished clearing the last eastern pocket held by militants – the northern suburb of Rashidiya, Major General Najm al-Jubbouri, commander of the northern front, told the local Mosuliya TV channel.

“The northern units completed the liberation of Rashidiya, the last stronghold of Daesh on the left bank,” he said, using one of the Arabic acronyms for Islamic State.

IS LAUNCHED “CALIPHATE” FROM MOSUL IN 2014

It was from Mosul’s Grand Mosque, on the western side, that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” under his rule in 2014, spanning large tracts of Iraq and Syria.

Mosul has been the largest city under IS control in either country, with a pre-war population of about two million.

A U.S.-led coalition is providing air and ground support to Iraqi forces in the battle that began on Oct. 17, the biggest in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

More than 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of regional Kurdish security forces and Shi’ite Muslim paramilitaries known as Popular Mobilisation are participating in the offensive.

Iraqi forces estimated the number of militants inside Mosul at 5,000-6,000 at the start of operations three months

ago, and say 3,300 have been killed in the fighting since.

Military preparations to recapture western Mosul have begun, with Popular Mobilisation militia preparing an operation in “the next two-three days” to pave the way for the main offensive on the western bank of the Tigris, the overall campaign commander, Lieutenant General Abdul Ameer Yarallah, told Mosuliya TV.

Popular Mobilisation is a coalition of predominantly Iranian-trained Shi’ite groups formed in 2014 to join the fightback against Islamic State. It became an official part of the Iraqi armed forces last year.

More than 160,000 civilians have been displaced since the start of the offensive, U.N. officials say. Medical and humanitarian agencies estimate the total number of dead and wounded – both civilian and military – at several thousand.

Islamic State has “continued to attack those fleeing or attempting to flee areas that are controlled by it”, U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said in Geneva on Tuesday, and was also shelling districts retaken by the army.

The militants blew up a landmark hotel in western Mosul on

Friday in an apparent attempt to prevent advancing Iraqi forces

from using it as a base or a sniper position once fighting shifts west of the Tigris. The Mosul Hotel, shaped like a stepped pyramid, stands close to the river.

State television said the army had set up temporary bridges across the Tigris south of the city limits to allow troops to cross in preparation for the offensive on western districts.

Mosul’s five permanent bridges across the Tigris have

been damaged by U.S.-led air strikes, and IS blew up two.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad and Tom Miles in Geneva; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Bomb classes and gun counts: trauma of Mosul children under Islamic State

schoolchildren heading for schools after registering and receiving school bags

By Girish Gupta

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Schools in the east of the Iraqi city of Mosul are seeking to return to a semblance of normality after two years under Islamic State rule when they were either shuttered or forced to teach a martial curriculum that included lessons in bombmaking.

Around 40,000 students – most of whom have been kept at home by their parents since the militants captured Mosul in 2014 – will attend around 70 schools in the coming weeks after the buildings have been checked for unexploded bombs.

U.S.-backed Iraqi forces have retaken most eastern districts of the city and are preparing to push into the western part of Mosul, the largest city held by Islamic State across its self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

Teachers and parents told Reuters about the jihadists’ brand of education received by those children who have attended school over the past two years, including many children of militants. This included chemistry lessons on bombmaking and maths classes devoted to tallying up weapons caches, they said.

“In math, my six-year-old son was counting rifles. In other classes, he was being taught about suicide bombing,” said Mishwan Yunis, a 41-year-old water ministry worker whose son attends Kufa Boys’ School.

“He lost two very important years of his life. He should have been in the third grade; now he goes back to first.”

The northern city is coming back to life with markets and shops reopening and people selling once-prohibited goods such as cigarettes openly on the streets yet the damage of battle is everywhere – and fighting rages just a few kilometers away.

At Kufa Boys’ School, children run around the concrete yard wearing new bright blue school bags provided by UNICEF, in the shadow of neighboring buildings reduced to rubble.

One schoolyard in the area has been turned into a cemetery covered with dozens of freshly dug graves.

Yet a return to normality will not be easy for children, who bears the scars of living in the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Iraq and the bitter battle for the city since late last year when Iraqi forces launched the biggest ground operation in the country since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

They could face psychological hurdles, as might their teachers, many of who told Reuters they had been threatened with being hung from their schools’ walls if they did not continue teaching under Islamic State.

“Our role is bigger now than it was two or three years ago because you need to deal with the children’s psychological state before you can teach them,” said Omar Khudor Ali, headteacher of nearby Badayel Boys’ School.

“For us to do this we need better coordination between the teachers themselves and the entire education system.”

“I need to make them forget Islamic State and be free again,” said a teacher at the adjacent Badayel Girls’ School who asked that her name not be revealed for fear of retaliation by Islamic State, fighting Iraqi forces across a nearby river.

(Editing by Pravin Char)

Iraqi forces claim recapture of eastern Mosul after 100 days of fighting

a military vehicle in the battle of mosul

By Maher Chmaytelli and Saif Hameed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi officials said on Monday government forces had taken complete control of eastern Mosul, 100 days after the start of their U.S.-backed campaign to dislodge Islamic State militants from the city.

The deputy parliament speaker announced the capture of the east of the city, Islamic State’s last major stronghold in Iraq, after a meeting with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

“We completed the total liberation of the left bank of Mosul and this is a gift to the Iraqi people,” said Sheikh Humam Hamoudi in a statement.

The army on Sunday entered Rashidiya, the last district under the control of the militants on the east bank of the Tigris, said military spokesman Brigadier-General Yahya Rasool.

Mopping-up operations were still under way on Monday to flush out remaining militants in a pocket in this northeastern district, he said in a statement.

A resident of Rashidiya said the army had stormed the area after air strikes destroyed a tank and car bomb the militants had been preparing to attack the advancing forces.

A resident of Zanjali, a district on the west side of Mosul, said Islamic State fighters “have arrived from the left bank and are trying to find houses on the right bank”, fleeing from the government forces’ advance. The resident asked not to identified as the militants kill those caught speaking with the outside world.

Iraqi forces launched a campaign on Oct. 17 to retake Mosul from the hardline Sunni group, which captured the city in 2014, declaring from its Grand Mosque a “caliphate” that also spanned parts of Syria, ruled by its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

MILITANTS CORNERED

The defense ministry had earlier on Monday issued a statement announcing the complete takeover of eastern Mosul, adding that Abadi would be making a formal announcement later. The statement was later removed from the ministry’s website.

A U.S.-led coalition is providing air and ground support to the Iraqi forces.

The west side of Mosul could prove more complicated to take than the east as it is crisscrossed by streets too narrow for armored vehicles.

The militants are expected to put up a tough fight as they are cornered in a shrinking area of the northern Iraqi city.

Mosul had a pre-war population of nearly 2 million, and about 750,000 people are estimated to live in western Mosul. More than 160,000 have been displaced since the start of the offensive, according to the United Nations.

The battle for Mosul, involving 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of the Kurdish security forces and Shi’ite militiamen, is the biggest ground operation in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

Iraqi forces estimated the number of militants inside the city at 5,000 to 6,000 at the start of operations three months ago, and says 3,300 have been killed in the fighting since.

The militants blew up a landmark hotel in western Mosul on Friday in an apparent attempt to prevent advancing Iraqi forces from using it as a base or a sniper position when fighting moves west of the Tigris.

The Mosul Hotel, shaped as a stepped pyramid, stands close to the river.

State TV said the army had set up temporary bridges across the Tigris south of Mosul to allow troops to cross in preparation for the offensive on the western bank.

The city’s five permanent bridges across the Tigris have been damaged by U.S.-led air strikes and Islamic State blew up two.

(Editing by Andrew Roche)

Iraqi general’s tour suggests tough fight ahead in west Mosul

destroyed buildings as a result of the battle of mosul

By Michael Georgy

MOSUL (Reuters) – Residents of east Mosul held up their children and took selfies with Iraqi counter-terrorism commander Lieutenant General Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi after his men cleared Islamic State fighters from their neighbourhoods.

But his tour on Saturday of homes once occupied by the militants was a reminder of the dangers ahead as security forces prepare to expand their offensive against the Sunni militants into west Mosul.

Flanked by bodyguards in the Mohandiseen neighbourhood, Saadi got a firsthand view of Islamic State’s meticulous planning and reign of terror as he moved from house to house, greeted by locals as a hero.

In one home were a set of instructions on how to make bombs. A large bucket was filled with screws that were packed into explosives to kill and maim. Beside the leaflets were a pair of industrial rubber gloves, wires and detonators.

Nearby a thick book described how to use Russian machine guns. Militants were also well-versed on how to employ anti-tank missiles.

The battle for Mosul, involving 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of the Kurdish security forces and Shi’ite militiamen, is the biggest ground operation in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

Iraqi security forces have retaken most of east Mosul, with the help of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes which flattened rows of buildings in Iraq’s second-largest city.

The next phase, expected to kick off in a few days, could prove more difficult.

Western Mosul has many narrow streets and alleyways that tanks and other large armoured vehicles cannot pass through.

Jihadists are expected to put up a much tougher fight to hold on to their last stronghold in Iraq.

“We expect to enter the west in the next few days,” said Saadi, shortly after tearing down an Islamic State poster in anger.

Mosul, the largest city held by Islamic State across its once vast, self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and neighbouring Syria, has been occupied by the group since its fighters drove the U.S.-trained army out in June 2014.

Its fall would mark the end of the caliphate but the militants are widely expected to mount an insurgency in Iraq and inspire attacks in the West.

DRONES, TORTURE CHAMBER

The group’s determination and organisation were evident in several homes toured by Saadi.

Laminated guides on the range of various weapons could be found on the floor or on tables.

One house was clearly dedicated to the production of small drone aircraft used for both surveillance and attacks. Several lay scattered on the floor.

A document with Islamic State logos asked detailed questions about the type of drone mission, either bombing, an explosive aircraft, spying or training.

There was section on who will manage the aircraft’s power on any particular mission and a checklist on structural integrity.

Islamic State ruled eastern Mosul with zero tolerance for dissent, routinely shooting or beheading anyone branded an opponent to their radical ideology.

Saadi’s men were tipped off Islamic State had converted a villa on the street he was standing on into a prison and torture chamber. People were held on the top floor in rooms with steel bars.

“We were told that the neighbours would hear screaming from the house,” said Saadi. “They imprisoned anyone that challenged them. Anyone who refused to fight for them.”

Across town, overlooking the Tigris River dividing east and west, the former Ninewah Oberoi Hotel offered another glimpse into Islamic State, which changed its name to Hotel of the Inheritors.

“It was a place for them for the gatherings of the foreigners (fighters) and suicide bombers,” said

Saadi, standing on the hotel’s rooftop. “Five stars … in order to encourage them.”

Gunshots rang out, and explosions could be heard, a precursor to the upcoming campaign in west Mosul.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Most Islamic State commanders in Mosul already killed, Iraqi general says

Iraqi soldiers in Mosul

By Isabel Coles

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Most Islamic State (IS) commanders in Mosul have been killed in battles with Iraqi government forces that raged over the past three months in the eastern side of the city, an Iraqi general said on Thursday.

The fight to take the western side of Mosul, which remains under the jihadists’ control, should not be more difficult than the one on the eastern side, Lieutenant-General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi told Reuters before embarking on a tour of areas newly retaken.

Assadi’s Counter-Terrorism Service announced on Wednesday that almost all of the city’s eastern half had been brought under government control.

“God willing, there will be a meeting in the next few days attended by all the commanders concerned with liberation operations,” he said, replying to a question on when he expects a thrust into the western side of Mosul to begin.

“It will not be harder than what we have seen. The majority of (IS) commanders have been killed in the eastern side.” He did not give further details.

Since late 2015, government forces backed by U.S.-led coalition air power have wrested back large amounts of northern and western territory overrun by IS in a shock 2014 offensive.

On Thursday, regular Iraqi army troops captured the Nineveh Oberoy hotel, the so-called “palaces” area on the eastern bank of the Tigris, and Tel Kef, a small town just to the north according to military statements in Baghdad.

The army is still battling militants in al-Arabi, the last district which remains under their control east of the river, said one of the statements.

Over 50 watercraft and barges used by Islamic State to supply their units east of the river were destroyed in air strikes, the U.S. envoy to the coalition, Brett McGurty, tweeted.

Mogul’s five bridges across the Tigris had already been partially damaged by U.S.-led air strikes to slow the militants’ movement, before Islamic State blew up two of them.

“God willing, there will be an announcement in the next few days that all the eastern bank is under control,” Assai said.

A Reuters correspondent saw army troops deploying in an area by the river as mortar and gun fire rang out further north.

On one of the streets newly recaptured from Islamic State, men were reassembling breeze blocks into a wall that was blown up by a suicide car bomb several days ago.

Prime Minister Hailer al-Badri said late on Tuesday that Islamic State had been severely weakened in the Mosul campaign, and the military had begun moving against it in the western half. He did not elaborate.

If the U.S.-backed campaign is successful it will likely spell the end of the Iraqi part of the self-styled caliphate declared by the ultra-hardline Islamic State in 2014, which extends well into neighboring Syria.

Several thousand civilians have been killed or wounded in the Mosul fighting since October.

(Additional reporting by Saif Hameed; editing by Mark Heinrich and Robin Pomeroy)

As caliphate crumbles, Islamic State lashes out in Iraq

People look into the remains of a car after being bombed

By John Davison

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Two days after Iraqi forces launched a new push against Islamic State in Mosul, bomb blasts ripped through a marketplace in central Baghdad – the start of a spate of attacks that appear to signal a shift in tactics by the Islamist group.

The Sunni jihadists have targeted Shi’ite Muslim civilians. Raids on police and army posts in other cities, also claimed by Islamic State, have accompanied the bombings.

The attacks show that even if Islamic State loses the Iraqi side of its self-styled caliphate, the threat from the group may not subside.

It will likely switch from ruling territory to pursuing insurgency tactics, seeking to reignite the sectarian tensions that fueled its rise, diplomats and security analysts say.

In addition to operations in and around Baghdad, IS has carried out attacks in the region and Europe as it has come under pressure in Syria and Iraq.

In Iraq, U.S.-backed Iraqi forces are driving IS out of Mosul, its largest urban center in the vast territories it seized 2-1/2 years ago there and in neighboring Syria.

Iraq’s government is aware of the challenge it faces in stemming the IS threat after Mosul.

“Terrorism uses the weapon of sectarianism in Iraq and Syria … in order to drive people and communities apart and take control of them,” Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told Iraqi politicians and officials in Baghdad on Saturday.

“(We must) not allow the conditions that existed before Daesh (Islamic State),” he said, urging politicians to shun sectarianism and pledging to fight corruption, which plagued security forces before Islamic State’s big advances in 2014.

As well as improving security, authorities must involve local people in intelligence efforts and improve the lot of marginalized Sunnis, especially the 3 million displaced by fighting, the analysts said.

Failure to do so could give IS, also known as Daesh, ISIS and ISIL, space to regroup and sow sectarian strife.

Islamic State’s main target in a post-Mosul insurgency would likely be Baghdad and surrounding areas, a senior Western diplomat told Reuters.

“What you’re seeing now are elements of Daesh that were left in Anbar (province) following the liberation of Ramadi, Falluja, Hit, Haditha … they’re also being reinforced across the border from Syria,” the diplomat said.

‘HIGHER TEMPO’ OF ATTACKS

Iraqi forces last year drove the jihadists out of strongholds in Anbar, the heartland of Sunni tribes who resent the Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad.

Some militants went to ground in those areas, as Iraqi forces have dealt them a big blow there and in Mosul, the diplomat said. But they are making their presence felt again with recent attacks.

Repeated use of vehicle bombs this month, a trend that had dropped off in Baghdad by late last year, shows that militant networks around the capital have been revived, said Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“We’ve certainly seen ISIS move to a slightly higher tempo at the start of the year,” he said.

“It’s going to be a long struggle because these networks adapt, so you might disrupt them for a six-month period but they’re determined to reappear.”

Through new attacks mostly targeting Shi’ites, the Sunni extremist group aims not only to distract from military losses but to raise sectarian tensions.

Authorities must address grievances such as corruption and Sunni disenfranchisement that IS has exploited if growing violence is to be avoided, foreign and Iraqi observers said.

The battle for Mosul has brought some intelligence successes, according to military officials, who say local informers have been crucial in helping troops take on the militants.

KEEPING SUNNIS ON SIDE

Iraqi troops have tried to avoid killing civilians even as IS hides among and targets them. Residents glad to be rid of the group, which conducted public executions and cut the hands off thieves, have largely welcomed Iraqi forces.

“The question is, can they keep that trust?” said Baghdad-based security analyst Hisham al-Hashimi, who advises the government on Islamic State, arguing this would be tougher in areas closer to Baghdad.

“Intelligence in cities retaken from IS (near the capital) is weak. They’ve used local sources to arrest people, but suspects are often released with a bribe.”

As it swept through Iraq in 2014, IS exploited feelings in some Sunni areas that Shi’ite-dominated security forces were targeting them.

Current gaps in intelligence could be plugged through a delicate handling of relations between the state and those communities, another senior Western diplomat said.

For example, Sunni policemen should be trained and sent into the areas with a Sunni population, the diplomat said.

Ihsan al-Shammari, head of the Iraqi Centre for Political Thought, said Prime Minister Abadi grasps what needs to be done to eradicate the threat from Islamic State. The test will be achieving that in a difficult security environment.

“Rebuilding, bringing law and order, and returning the displaced … could be a road map for achieving calm,” Shammari said.

(Reporting by John Davison; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Iraqi forces push into IS-held pocket in Mosul

Young boy in the Andalus district holds up his shirt to show Iraqi forces that he is not wearing a suicide vest during an operation to clear the al-

By Isabel Coles and John Davison

MOSUL, Iraq/BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi special forces pushed deeper into Islamic State-held districts in eastern Mosul on Tuesday, and army units battled the militants inside a military base in the north of the city, military officials said.

Islamic State has been driven out of most eastern districts of its Iraqi stronghold in the three months since the U.S.-backed campaign began. Iraqi troops have seized large areas along the river, which bisects Mosul from north to south.

Capture of the entire east bank, which military officials say is imminent, will allow the army, special forces and elite police units to begin attacks on the city’s west, still fully held by the militants.

Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) forces pushed into the Eastern Nineveh and Souq al-Ghanam districts, which are flanked by areas held by Iraqi troops, spokesman Sabah al-Numan said.

The special forces have now taken control of the Andalus and Shurta neighborhoods, where they were fighting on Monday, Numan told a Reuters reporter in Mosul.

“Roughly all the eastern axes for which CTS is responsible will be completed and we will announce the liberation of the entire eastern side,” he said, but did not specify when.

A separate military statement said the CTS had also seized al-Muhandiseen district, nearly three miles further northwest, a short distance from the river.

In a parallel advance, Iraqi army troops in the north of the city moved into the Kindi military base, and were fighting insurgents inside, an army officer said.

More than 60 neighborhoods in eastern Mosul – out of a total of around 80 – had been recaptured since the start of the offensive in October, Numan told state television.

Advances have gathered pace in the new year thanks to improved battle tactics and coordination between different military branches, U.S. and Iraqi military officials say.

Further south, rapid response units of the Iraqi federal police have secured much of the eastern bank of the Tigris.

A spokesman for those forces, Lieutenant-Colonel Abdel Amir al-Mohammedawi, said some Islamic State fighters had fled by boat across the river, taking civilians as human shields.

“They fled the eastern bank for the west, and took women and children,” he told Reuters.

Islamic State has fought from among crowded residential areas and Reuters witnesses have seen its fighters shoot at civilians in areas they have been driven out of, in apparent efforts to slow the advance of Iraqi forces.

Several thousand civilians have been killed or wounded in fighting since October.

Advances slowed towards the end of last year as the military sought to avoid hitting civilians, Iraqi military officials say.

(Reporting by Isabel Coles in Mosul, John Davison and Saif Hameed in Baghdad, Stephen Kalin in Erbil; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Iraqi forces battle Islamic State near Tigris river in Mosul

Iraqi rapid response fighting Islamic State in Mosul

By Isabel Coles

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi special forces battled Islamic State militants in districts near the Tigris river in Mosul on Monday as they sought to bring more of the east of the city back under government control.

The latest clashes occurred in the neighboring Shurta and Andalus districts. At least three Islamic State suicide car bombs targeted Iraqi forces in Andalus. There was no immediate word on any casualties. In an online post, Islamic State said it had carried out a “martyrdom operation” in the area.

Iraq’s elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) said the militants, who seized Mosul in 2014 as they swept across much of northern Iraq, only to since lose much of that terrain to government counter-offensives, were fighting back hard.

“We’ve begun breaching (Shurta) but there was an attack a few moments ago. By the end of the day we’ll make some progress,” CTS spokesman Sabah al-Numan said.

Shurta and Andalus are situated close to the eastern bank of the Tigris, separated only by some woodland, and within sight of the city’s northernmost bridge across the river.

Iraqi forces, which have reached three of the five bridges, say they will soon fully control the eastern bank. They have already taken areas of the river bank further south.

Once the east bank is recaptured, they can begin attacks on western Mosul, which the Sunni Muslim extremist insurgents still hold.

Iraqi forces have seized most of the east in a 3-month-old U.S.-backed campaign to oust the militants from Iraq’s second largest city, Islamic State’s last major Iraqi stronghold. The Tigris bisects Mosul from north to south.

A Reuters cameraman in a southern district along the Tigris said snipers from elite interior ministry combat units were firing across the river at Islamic State positions.

Fighting has intensified since the turn of the year as Iraqi forces have renewed an offensive against the ultra-hardline militants. Troops had got bogged down in late November and December after entering Mosul as IS fighters fought back with car bombs and snipers, and concealed themselves among a civilian population of up to 1.5 million.

MORE PEOPLE MADE HOMELESS

The United Nations said a further 32,000 Mosul residents had fled the city in just over two weeks, bringing the total number of people made homeless in the campaign to retake Mosul to 161,000.

A resident in western Mosul, reached by phone, said Islamic State combatants had stopped people living in the west from crossing the river to the east.

Another resident said a number of IS militants, including senior leaders in western Mosul, had left the city in the direction of Tal Afar, a town toward the Syrian border.

Shi’ite Muslim militias have advanced on IS-held Tal Afar, and linked up with Kurdish fighters nearby in November.

The Mosul offensive, supported by U.S. coalition air power, involves 100,000-strong combined forces of Iraqi troops, Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Shi’ite militias.

As IS has lost territory in its Mosul bastion, it has carried out bombing attacks in Baghdad and raids on police and army outposts elsewhere in the country. Since the turn of the year, attacks in Baghdad have killed dozens of people.

New York-based Human Rights watch said on Monday that Islamic State’s bombings, which have targeted crowded markets, amounted to “crimes against humanity”.

“(IS) has routinely carried out devastating attacks that appear designed to inflict maximum death and suffering on ordinary Iraqis,” HRW said in a statement. It urged the Iraqi government to greater assist victims of militant attacks.

(Reporting by Isabel Coles in Mosul, Saif Hameed and John Davison in Baghdad; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Iraqi forces reach second Mosul bridge, enter university complex: military

Iraq Special forces fighting militants

By Isabel Coles and John Davison

MOSUL, Iraq/BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi special forces stormed the Mosul University complex in the city’s northeast on Friday and pushed Islamic State further back to reach another bridge across the Tigris river, the military said.

The militants were fighting back at the university, which they had seized when they took over the city in 2014. A Reuters reporter witnessed heavy clashes inside the campus.

Iraqi forces have recaptured most districts in eastern Mosul in nearly three months of a U.S.-backed offensive, which accelerated at the turn of the year with new tactics and better coordination.

They aim to take full control of the eastern bank of the Tigris river, which bisects Mosul from north to south, before launching attacks on the west, still fully in Islamic State hands.

Driving the ultra-hardline Islamist group out of its Mosul stronghold will probably spell the end for the Iraqi side of the caliphate it has declared, stretching into Syria.

Senior Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) commander Sami al-Aridhi said the university was the most important Islamic State base in the eastern half of the city.

BULLDOZERS

He said the CTS had taken over a hill overlooking parts of the campus, including the technical college. “Forces are heading into the depths of the university,” he said.

Earlier, bulldozers had smashed through a wall surrounding the campus and dozens of CTS troops sprinted through carrying rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

An Iraqi officer said army units backed by air strikes had also taken control of Hadba district, north of the university, and would aid the assault on the complex.

Another CTS commander said the capture of the university would enable further advances as it overlooks areas closer to the river.

Advances by Iraqi forces have gathered pace in the last two weeks after troops got bogged down in fierce street fighting in late November and December and militants hid among the civilian population.

New tactics employed since the turn of the year, including a night raid and better defences against suicide car bombs, have given the campaign fresh momentum, U.S. and Iraqi military officials say.

Better coordination between different military divisions, such as the elite CTS and the regular army, has also helped, a senior Western diplomat told Reuters this week.

FIVE BRIDGES

“As (Islamic State) are pulled away to fight CTS, that’s the opportunity for the Iraqi army to attack against a much weaker defence,” the diplomat said.

Securing areas along the Tigris would be crucial, the diplomat added.

“Once you get to the river, you can then slowly mop it up, because you can then cut the lines of communication.”

CTS spokesman Sabah al-Numan told state television: “God willing, within a short period the complete clearing of the left bank of the Tigris will be announced.”

In a separate advance further south in the city, other elite CTS units reached the Second Bridge, also called Freedom Bridge, one of five across the Tigris, the military said in a statement reported by state TV.

Iraqi forces have now reached Mosul’s two southernmost bridges, having battled their way to the Fourth Bridge several days ago.

Assaults on the western half of Mosul are expected to begin once Iraqi forces have secured the east bank.

All the bridges have been hit by U.S. coalition air strikes in an effort to hamper Islamic State’s movements. U.S. and Iraqi military officials say Islamic State has further damaged at least two of them to try to hamper an army advance.

(Reporting by Isabel Coles in Mosul; John Davison and Saif Hameed in Baghdad; Writing by John Davison; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Iraqi forces link up in north Mosul, make gains in southeast

Iraqi soldier standing guard over civilians who fled Mosul and Islamic State

By John Davison and Stephen Kalin

BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces joined flanks in northern Mosul and drove back Islamic State militants in the southeast on Thursday in a renewed push that has brought them closer to controlling the eastern half of the city.

Forces from the elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) took control of 7th Nissan and Sadeeq districts, linking up with army troops that had pushed through al-Hadba neighbourhood, CTS spokesman Sabah al-Numan told Reuters.

“This is considered contact between the troops of the northern front and CTS. This… will prevent any gap between the axes which the enemy could use,” he said by phone. “The enemy is now located only in front of the troops, not at their sides.”

Numan said more than 85 percent of eastern Mosul was now under control of pro-government forces, up from nearly 75 percent a week ago.

Brett McGurk, Washington’s envoy to the U.S.-led coalition backing the Iraqi offensive with air strikes, training and advice, called the link-up a “milestone” and said in a tweet that Islamic State’s defences were weakening.

The campaign to recapture Mosul, Islamic State’s last major stronghold in Iraq and the largest urban centre anywhere in the sprawling territory it once controlled, has pushed ahead with renewed vigour since the turn of the year after troops got bogged down inside the city in late November and December.

New tactics, including a night raid, better defences against suicide car bomb attacks and improved coordination between the army and security forces operating on different fronts, have helped forge momentum, U.S and Iraqi officers say.

When it launched the offensive in October, the Iraqi government hoped to have retaken the city by the end of 2016, but Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in December it could now take another three months to drive the militants out.

2016 DEATH TOLL

Iraq’s militarised federal police and rapid response division, an elite Interior Ministry unit, are also battling Islamic State inside Mosul.

They made gains on Thursday in southeastern districts where advances have been particularly tough.

Rapid response units advanced in the Sumer district, which lies on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, and also in neighbouring Sahiroun, according to a military statement.

Forces have pressed forward much more slowly in that area than troops in the east and northeast which commanders blamed on the militants’ hiding among civilians and firing at those who tried to flee.

The ultra-hardline group’s loss of Mosul would probably spell the end for the Iraqi side of its self-styled caliphate, which it declared after sweeping through parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014, though militants will likely still be able to wage an insurgency in both countries and plan attacks on the West.

Iraq Body Count (IBC), a group run by academics and peace activists that has been counting violent deaths in the country since 2003, estimated that more than 16,000 civilians were killed in Iraq in 2016, down about 1,000 from the year before.

Around three-quarters of those identified were men, with the rest spilt evenly between women and children, IBC said in a report.

More than two-thirds of the fatalities occurred in the capital province of Baghdad and Nineveh, where Mosul is located, it said.

Reuters could not independently verify the figures.

(Reporting by John Davison in Baghdad and Stephen Kalin in Erbil; Editing by Ralph Boulton)