Tag Archives: Tigris River

Islamic State makes desperate stand in Mosul, commanders say

Military vehicle of Iraqi security forces are seen during fighting between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq July 6, 2017. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Islamic State fighters holding out in Mosul on a strip of land along the Tigris River are increasingly using suicide bombers in a desperate attempt to slow the steady advance of Iraqi forces, military commanders said on Thursday.

Iraqi forces pushing toward the al-Maydan and al-Shareen districts in the northern Iraqi city broke the militants’ defenses and have reached within 200 meters (yards) of the riverbank.

But they encountered stiff resistance from a few hundred militants lodged among thousands of civilians in the Old City’s maze of alleyways, particularly from foreign suicide bombers, Iraqi commanders said.

The military has predicted final victory this week after a grinding eight-month assault to oust Islamic State from the once two-million-strong city.

Mosul is by far the largest city ruled by Islamic State. It was here, three years ago, that the group declared the founding of its “caliphate” over parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Lieutenant General Sami Aridhi of the elite counter-terrorism service said Islamic State fighters were increasingly detonating explosives among civilians fleeing toward security forces and had even resorted to using women suicide bombers.

“They have begun to wait for the troops to reach them and then blow themselves up. They can’t do any more than that,” he told state television.

“They surge forward just to obstruct the troops, not to hold land or retain any other positions because God willing their end is clear to everyone and they are convinced that this is their end,” he said.

Once Mosul has gone, Islamic State’s territory in Iraq will be limited to areas west and south of the city where some tens of thousands of civilians live, and it is expected to keep up asymmetric attacks across the country.

Air strikes continued to rain down just beyond the frontline, and wounded soldiers, some displaying blast wounds, were evacuated.

Civilians interviewed on state TV said they had fled al-Maydan district, which is one of a handful of districts along the riverbank still in Islamic State hands.

Prime Minister Haider Abadi declared the end of Islamic State’s “state of falsehood” a week ago, after security forces took Mosul’s medieval Grand al-Nuri mosque.

Months of grinding urban warfare have displaced 900,000 people, about half the city’s pre-war population, and killed thousands, according to aid organizations.

The United Nations predicts it will cost more than $1 billion to repair basic infrastructure in Mosul, while Iraq’s Kurdish leader said on Thursday in a Reuters interview that the Baghdad government had failed to prepare a post-battle political, security and governance plan.

(Reporting By Stephen Kalin; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

At former jihadist training camp, Iraqi police face drones, crack snipers

Iraqi federal police

By Michael Georgy

MOSUL (Reuters) – As a walkie-talkie carried word of another casualty from an Islamic State mortar attack, an Iraqi policeman peered through leaves at enemy positions just across the Tigris River. He kept his head low to avoid snipers but also had an eye on the sky.

Minutes later, the militants sent a drone overhead. It carried out surveillance and dropped an explosive. Then mortar bombs landed nearby, sending the policemen running for safer ground.

More than three months into the battle to drive them from their biggest stronghold, the hardline Sunni militants of Islamic State remain lethal and determined, despite being driven from the eastern half of the city of more than a million people.

Few are more acutely aware of the danger they pose than police Lt-Colonel Falah Hammad Hindi, who instructed his men to take cover as mortars landed ever closer.

“The weapon of choice is the drone,” said Hindi, whose unit faces sometimes 16 drone attacks in a single day as well as mortar bombs and snipers.

His unit, charged with holding ground while Iraqi troops prepare to expand their offensive to west Mosul, is stationed on a former Islamic State training ground and closed military area on the east bank of the Tigris.

He has gained insight into the militants’ thinking and strengths and gave a frank assessment of their capabilities, starting with the snipers he can spot without binoculars.

“The snipers are highly effective. They are foreign fighters, the most committed,” Hindi told Reuters.

When Islamic State swept into Mosul in 2014 and declared a caliphate on land straddling Iraq and Syria, they attracted volunteers from as far afield as Afghanistan and Tunisia and also won many sympathizers in Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city.

POTATOES AND DATES

Mosul’s predominantly Sunni population was angered by Iraq’s Shi’ite-dominated army, accusing it of widespread abuses of their minority sect, allegations rejected by the government.

Islamic State exploited that resentment, hunting down and executing members of the army and police as it tightened its grip on Mosul and simultaneously attracting local volunteers who saw it, initially, as a bulwark against Shi’ite power.

New recruits were trained at the site where Hindi and his men are now based, a former plant nursery, family park and state-owned honey farm.

Here they learned the group’s credo, a version of Islam even more radical than its predecessor in Iraq, al Qaeda.

Trees and lush greenery provided ideal cover from air strikes, so jihadists could become indoctrinated in relative safety. To be extra cautious, the militants built an underground tunnel with sandbags for air raids.

Aside from weapons training, jihadists learned discipline. They were made to suffer in the cold when it rained or snowed.

“Some men were fed only a few potatoes per week,” said Hindi, who lost a brother to an Islamic State attack. “Others were only allowed to eat three dates per day. They became battle-ready here.”

In order to battle Islamic State militants positioned about 500 meters across the river at a hospital and hotel, policemen study their training for clues.

They also rely on intelligence from residents of west Mosul, turned against Islamic State by the brutality of its rule.

“They hide in their homes and provide information about the jihadists. Their movements, their weapons,” said Hindi, 32.

The risks are high. Some informers have been executed.

The campaign for west Mosul will likely involve far tougher and more complex street fighting because the west’s narrow streets mean far fewer tanks and armored vehicles can be deployed against Islamic State.

The militants are also expected to put up a much fiercer fight in the western half of Mosul because the battle will determine whether their self-proclaimed caliphate will survive.

“They have no escape route in the west so they will fight to the death,” said Hindi.

The conflict will play to the group’s strengths: suicide bombers, whom Hindi said were being reserved and positioned for that battle, car bombs and booby traps.

Just as Hindi and his men made it to what they thought was a more secure area, they took cover behind trees, after concluding another drone was circling above. A mortar bomb landed a few hundred meters away.

Eventually he sat in his office, discussing future challenges over cups of sweet tea. Another senior officer, who also lost a brother to jihadists, paid a visit.

“Two days ago, 38 terrorists snuck over the river in a boat to carry out an attack,” he told Hindi. The men were killed.

“They want to show they are still a threat and in control.”

Even if Islamic State is defeated in all of Mosul, the Shi’ite-led government and army faces the daunting task of easing sectarian tensions and winning over the Sunni city, once a vibrant trade hub.

“It all depends on how the army behaves,” said Hindi. “If there are abuses again, a new generation of Daesh (Islamic State) fighters will be back.”

(Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Islamic State fighters redeploy in west Mosul after Iraqi forces take east

Iraqi rapid response

By Maher Chmaytelli

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Islamic State fighters have taken up sniper positions in buildings on the west bank of the Tigris river ahead of an expected government offensive into that side the city, locals said on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday his forces had taken complete control of eastern Mosul, and the commander of the campaign to retake Islamic State’s last major stronghold in Iraq has said preparations to cross the Tigris are under way.

IS fighters have moved in recent days into Mosul’s main medical complex made up of a dozen buildings located between two of the city’s five bridges – positions that can be used for observation and sniper fire, local residents told Reuters.

The tallest is seven storeys, one resident said, asking not to be identified as the militants execute those caught speaking with the outside world.

Some 750,000 people live in western Mosul, according to the United Nations which has voiced grave concerns for civilians in an area beyond the reach of aid organizations.

It took 100,000 Iraqi troops, members of regional Kurdish security forces and Shi’ite Muslim paramilitaries, backed by air and ground support from a U.S.-led coalition, almost 100 days to retake eastern Mosul in what has become the biggest battle in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

Taking the west side – the location of Mosul’s Grand Mosque where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a “caliphate” in 2014 – could prove even tougher as it is crisscrossed by streets too narrow for armored vehicles.

The Sunni Muslim jihadists are expected to put up a fierce fight as they are cornered in a shrinking area but the narrow streets could also deprive them of one of their most effective weapons: suicide-car bombs.

The group released drone footage on Wednesday of cars driving at high speed into clusters of army Humvees and armored vehicles before blowing up.

In some cases, Iraqi soldiers can be seen running away as the car bombs speed toward them. The recordings also show munitions dropped from the drones.

Iraqi forces estimated the number of militants inside Mosul at 5,000-6,000 at the start of the battle, and have said 3,300 have been killed in the fighting.

More than 160,000 civilians have been displaced since the start of the offensive in Mosul, which had a pre-war population of about 2 million, U.N. officials say. Aid agencies estimate the dead and wounded – both civilian and military – at several thousand.

“The reports from inside western Mosul are distressing,” U.N. humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande said on Tuesday.

“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.”

(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 push further into northeast Mosul, military says

Iraqi Counter Terrorism units take cover in Mosul as war with Islamic State continues

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces made new advances against Islamic State in east Mosul and fought the militants in areas near the Tigris river on Wednesday, seeking to build on recent gains, military officials said.

The elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) pushed into the northeastern Sadeeq neighborhood, officers on the ground said.

A Reuters reporter in eastern Mosul said CTS forces were engaged in clashes in Sadeeq and were firing into neighboring Hadba, where their units had been fighting the day before.

Securing Hadba, Sadeeq and other nearby districts will allow the CTS to advance further toward the Tigris river that runs through the city, control of whose eastern bank will be crucial to launching attacks on western Mosul. Islamic State still holds all Mosul districts west of the river.

Forces also clashed with the militants further south, a military statement said, seeking to build on gains along the river bank, which they reached last week for the first time in the nearly 3-month campaign.

The U.S.-backed offensive to drive Islamic State out of Mosul, its last major Iraq stronghold, involves a 100,000-strong force of Iraqi troops, Kurdish fighters and Shi’ite militias.

The ultra-hardline Sunni group’s loss of the northern city would probably spell the end of the Iraqi side of its self-styled caliphate, which spans parts of Iraq and Syria.

(Reporting by Stephen Kalin in Mosul; John Davison and Saif Hameed in Baghdad; Editing by Dominic Evans)