Iraqi forces ‘trap ISIL in western Mosul’

Iraqi forces battling the Islamic State group in west Mosul reached the city’s southernmost bridge yesterday, a key step in efforts to defeat the jihadists in their stronghold, a spokesman said. The militants are using mortar, sniper fire, booby traps and suicide auto bombs to fight off the offensive.

The Pentagon says around 450 United States military advisers are now assisting Iraqi partners in the fight for Mosul, performing roles including providing guidance and calling in air strikes.

“The situation is unbelievable”, reported a 46-year-old man from inside the city.

Still, he said about 2,000 IS fighters remain in and around western Mosul, defending the last portions of their former Iraqi bastion. He added that Iraqi troops suffered casualties, but didn’t give a specific number.

Iraqi forces captured the eastern side of Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting.

“The coalition supported Turkey and their partner-force efforts in al-Bab with more than 50 airstrikes, taking fighters off the battlefield, destroying [vehicle-borne homemade bombs], mortar and artillery pieces and denying the enemy use of dozens of vehicles, buildings, excavation equipment and weapons caches”, he said.

The artillery units of the Iraqi army and volunteer forces (Hashd al-Shaabi) attacked ISIS’s command center in a region near Tal Afar in Nineveh province, inflicting heavy losses on the terrorists.

“In the coming day we will clear the government buildings”, he told reporters in Abu Saif, a village outside Mosul.

About 14,000 people have fled western Mosul since Iraqi forces started their operation there February 19, said Jassem Mohammad al-Jaff, Iraq’s minister of displacement and migration.

The shocking footage shows three Iraqi soldiers in the fight against the Islamic State bent over the puppy strapped with four bottles containing explosives with electrical wires attached.

The eastern part of Mosul was recaptured by Iraqi forces a few weeks back.

Bulos’s account highlights the tenacity of the remaining ISIS fighters, who are heavily prepared for the Iraqi Security Force’s ongoing assault. Isis commanders must also prepare for an assault on its de facto Syrian capital of Raqqa by the Syrian Democratic Forces, whose main fighting force is drawn from the Syrian Kurds operating in cooperation the US air force and US Special Forces on the ground.