Heavy fighting in Mosul after Iraqi special forces seize control
Officers from the Iraqi special forces report that a suicide car bomber from ISIS has attacked them in Mosul; on Friday, Iraqi special forces reported pushing deeper into Mosul, despite heavy resistance from ISIS using civilians as cover.
Officers from the Iraqi special forces reported that a suicide car bomber from the ISIS has attacked them in Mosul, setting off heavy fighting in the northern city.
They said the attack took place early Saturday in the Qadisiya neighborhood, which the troops had entered a day earlier, and was followed by a barrage of gunfire, mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades.
Fighting is also underway in the nearby Arbajiya neighborhood.
The Iraqi armed forces do not release casualty figures, but field medics have noted dozens of killed and wounded since the operation to liberate Iraq's second largest city began on Oct. 17.
The officers spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief reporters.
Earlier, on Friday, Iraqi special forces reported they had pushed deeper into Mosul, despite heavy resistance from ISIS militants using civilians as cover and were holding half a dozen city neighborhoods seized in the last 10 days.
The elite Counter Terrorism Service troops broke through ISIS defense lines to enter the city early last week and have since been embroiled in a brutal, close-quarter combat with waves of suicide bombers and snipers.
The special forces are the spearhead of a wider coalition of 100,000 fighters seeking to crush a few thousand ISIS jihadists who have ruled Mosul, the biggest city of their cross-border "caliphate" in Iraq and Syria, for the last two years.
The campaign, nearly four weeks old, is the most complex military operation in Iraq in the 13 years of turmoil since the US invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
Security forces and army infantry divisions, backed by a US-led air force, are preparing to move on southern and northern districts of Mosul in coming days, to step up pressure on the militants.
Kurdish peshmerga and Shi'ite paramilitary forces are holding territory to the northeast and to the west.
On the eastern front, special forces pushed into the Qadisiya al-Thaniya district, on the northern edge of the small pocket of neighborhoods they control so far, Sabah al-Numani, spokesman for the Counter Terrorism Service, told Reuters.
"We have encountered heavy resistance from the enemy," he said, with what he called "obstructive patrols" of militant forces trying to hold up the advance.
"We are facing the most difficult form of urban warfare, fighting with the presence of civilians, but our forces are trained for this sort of combat."
Military officers have said that the fighting is some of the most lethal they have seen, with small groups of militants using a vast network of tunnels and narrow streets to launch an apparently endless sequence of attacks against troops.
US Apache helicopters were reported overhead, as explosions, either from air strikes or suicide car bombs which the jihadists have deployed in the hundreds since the campaign started on Oct. 17, could be heard against a backdrop of artillery fire.
As smoke rose above the city, hundreds of civilians were on the streets of Kokjali, on the eastern edge of the city, some of them local residents but others fleeing the fighting in Mosul itself.
The International Organization for Migration says nearly 48,000 people have been displaced by the fighting, still a relatively low figure compared to a United Nations warning before the campaign of a possible exodus of up to 800,000.
Numani said the army had told civilians to stay indoors for their safety, adding that the counter terrorism unit aimed to hand over neighborhoods that it had secured to other forces. In other cities retaken from ISIS, local police forces have moved in after the special forces have cleared territory.
Killing via chemical weapons
ISIS's two-year reign of fear in northern and western Iraq threatened the country with disintegration, and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says it has cost Iraq $35 billion in economic damage.On Friday, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani praised the forces battling ISIS, including thousands of Shi'ite fighters in the Popular Mobilisation paramilitary forces, for their sacrifices.
Without "the blood of these dear ones and their continuous steadfastness, only God would know what fate would await Iraq and others," said Seyyid Ahmed al-Safi, who delivered the Friday sermon in the holy city of Kerbala on behalf of the aged and reclusive Shi'ite religious leader.
Inside Mosul, a city which is still home to up to 1.5 million people, residents said this week that the militants had killed at least 20 people and displayed their bodies—five of them crucified—as a warning against acting as informants for Iraqi forces.
The UN human rights office said a total of 40 people were reportedly shot on Tuesday for "treason and collaboration" with Iraqi security forces, and a 27-year-old man was shot for using a mobile phone.
Spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani also said the jihadists were reportedly stockpiling ammonia and sulfur in civilian areas, possibly for use as chemical weapons.
Fear and relief at Iraqi checkpoint on escape route from Mosul
A source in the city said the militants were allowing some relatives of ISIS supporters to evacuate and head west to Syria.
Routes out of Mosul to ISIS's Syrian stronghold of Raqqa appear still to be open, despite efforts by the mainly Shi'ite Hashid Shaabi forces to cut them off.
The source said he had seen five families leaving Mosul. One departing person said they had permission from ISIS and "no one will stop us on the road from Mosul to Raqqa".
In the eastern district of Karama, where fighting continued, one resident said militants were riding around on motorbikes. "We can bear the bombardment and the clashes to get rid of Daesh (ISIS). We want to be liberated and despite all this fear we are staying in our houses," he said.
In nearby Qadisiya al-Thania, stormed by special forces on Friday, a woman said the clashes were so fierce she was too scared to go into the kitchen to cook, so she fed her family dates.
"The sound of clashes grew more distant, and then fighters reached us and raised the Iraqi flag and told us they had pushed out Daesh and liberated us," she said via phone interview.
"We never thought we'd be free of Daesh. We can still hear clashes, and we hope they don't come back again".
