Iraqi forces advance into Mosul under fire

The offensive has been going on for a month.

Kurdish peshmerga forces “will not retreat from areas retaken” from Islamic State militants in Iraq, Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani said, according to Rudaw TV station.

The first casualties began arriving at a field clinic on the city s eastern edge after a mortar attack at around 11:00 am (0800 GMT), filling its nine blood-stained cots within minutes. “He poked his rifle into my ribs and said ‘You have to give to us, ‘” she said, explaining that she forked over about $300, while Badriya gave up 15-carat gold to pay the jizya tax.

Mahjoub said children behaved more aggressively than before, and that the games they play now are violent, estimating it would take no less than five years to reverse the damage, even if a plan to rehabilitate them was put into effect.

“We have sources, we have the names of Daesh fighters, we know them”, he told Reuters.

FORDHAM: He doesn’t seem surprised.

Aid worker David Eubank, who has helped to ferry hundreds of displaced people to camps every night for several days, said they would probably be allowed to cross after dark, and taken to camps or for further security and background checks. Ground down by years of what is essentially a siege and under total ISIS control, Shwaily couldn’t see that they would have the resources to fight back.

Although more than 100,000 Christians fled from Mosul and the surrounding Nineveh Plains after IS conquered Christian villages in the area in 2014, some Christians were not able to leave due to sickness, old age, and a variety of other reasons.

“It is correct that the conditions at the border are hard, and for us to get access to the refugees and IDPs [internally displaced people] took some time, because of the security situation and inhospitable terrain”, he said.

“Along with these external attacks and plots, he has also been connected to convoy, reconnaissance and facilitation-extremist travel, finances and weapons in the region”, Dorrian said.

People run in panic after a coalition airstrike hit ISIS fighters positions in Tahrir neighbourhood of Mosul, Iraq, November 17. They would take revenge on the family of any rebels, he said. A commander initially said the fighter was beheaded during a gunfight, then added he may have been decapitated when he was dragged, or later, by animals.

“I think their numbers are small”, he said.

“The majority of them were members of the security forces, army and police”, Lieutenant Yahya Jumma told AFP at the scene.

The offensive to take Mosul, the largest city under Islamic State control in either Iraq or Syria, is turning into the biggest battle in Iraq’s turbulent history since the US -led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. “I can not say when exactly”, he said.

In some cases, men of fighting age were separated from those groups and summarily killed, according to residents and rights groups.

“No auto is allowed here”, said a CTS soldier standing on the main road in Tahrir district where the vehicle bomb had gone off moments earlier. “Our home is just behind that hill, but we can’t get there”, his cousin Mohammed said, pointing in the distance. About two weeks ago, his men were being hit by as many as 40 auto bombs a day.

The US government is propagating online counter-propaganda of its own as well, said Michael Lumpkin, the ex-Navy SEAL who now heads the State Department’s Global Engagement Center.