ERBIL // Iraqi forces have advanced to 5km from Mosul in an offensive against ISIL’s last major stronghold in Iraq and there are signs of revolt against the group, the interior minister of the Kurdish regional government said on Saturday.
But the battle would not be over soon, he added.
Karim Sinjari, who is also acting defence minister, said ISIL fighters — believed to number between 4,000 and 8,000 — will put up a fierce fight because of Mosul’s symbolic value. It is where their leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi declared a caliphate and himself the leader of the world’s Muslims at a mosque after seizing Iraq’s second largest city in 2014.
“If they resist in the city, especially in old Mosul, it will be a big fight ... The roads are very thin, very narrow. You can’t have vehicles, you can’t have tanks. So it will be a fight, person by person,” said Mr Sinjari.
With air and ground support from the US-led coalition, an Iraqi force of about 30,000, joined by US special forces and under US, French and British air cover, is ready to push into Mosul after recapturing Fallujah and Ramadi, west of Baghdad, and seizing the Sunni stronghold of Tikrit in central Iraq.
“I think the fight for Mosul will be longer than Fallujah and Tikrit, Mosul is a big city,” said Mr Sinjari. So far, Kurdish forces have seized 20 villages and the Iraqi army have taken ten.
There are unconfirmed reports that Al Baghdadi was in Mosul only three days ago and was seen visiting fighters and offering encouragement, said Mr Sinjari. Some Mosul residents were carrying out night-time attacks on ISIL.
“There are many reports that there are elements that have agreed to kill members of Daesh. Some members of Daesh were killed in the street,” he said.
“They don’t want Daesh. Some were killed and some left. These are people who have weapons, who carry out attacks in specific areas at night and slip away.”
The minister said the extremists have built underground tunnels and dug a trench around Mosul which they filled with oil to set on fire when the offensive gets closer to the city.
Nearly 1,000 people were treated for breathing problems linked to toxic gases from a sulphur plant south of Mosul which ISIL militants are thought to have set on fire on Friday. Hospital sources in Qayyarah said there were no deaths in the incident. ISIL militants shot at and fired mortars at Iraqi forces advancing toward a village in Nineveh province. A suicide bomber then drove a lorry rigged up with explosives at them but security forces blew up the vehicle before it reached them, said Second Lieutenant Faruq Ahmed Mohammed of the federal police. A police officer was lightly wounded in the blast.
Iraqi forces were trying to advance close enough to establish a corridor for civilians to exit, he said, but they were targeted by mortar rounds and suicide bombing.
Security forces advanced and fell back, exchanging fire with the militants over several hours and eventually hitting them with mortar rounds.
The resistance they faced demonstrates that even a small number of fanatics can slow down larger and more heavily armed forces, especially when civilians are present — an issue Iraqi troops will continue to face as they push towards Mosul.
Earlier in the day, black smoke rose from fires in the village as Iraqi forces slowly advanced in armoured vehicles along a dusty track through the desert to avoid bombs planted by ISIL on the main road.
Military engineers were working to clear the road — efforts evidenced by periodic explosions that sent clouds of dust rising into the air — but progress was slow. One said ISIL had covered the terrain “like a carpet” with bombs.
Iraqi police and soldiers took position on a hill to the south of the village, while other units later moved in from the east, the main scene of the fighting for most of the day.
IS fired mortar rounds toward the advancing forces, most of which missed by a wide margin, though at least one exploded near a group of Humvees.
The plan, said interior minister Sinjari, is to surround Mosul from all sides.
He conceded the pressure might well spur ISIL on to even more ruthlessness. People who had escaped from them in the town of Hawija paid a heavy price when they were caught on a road. “They killed 118 of them,” said Mr Sinjari. “We expect them to take human shields. We expect everything.”
* Agence France Presse