MOSUL, IRAQ // Iraqi forces moved closer to retaking the last Iraqi stronghold still held by the ISIL, when they launched an assault on Mosul’s Old City on Sunday, three years after the militants seized it and declared it their “caliphate”.
The attack began at dawn after overnight air strikes by the US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces, but the extremists were putting up a fierce fight, the military said.
The push into the densely populated warren of narrow alleyways on the western side of Mosul – Iraq’s second city – marks the culmination of a months-long campaign by Iraqi forces to retake ISIL’s last major urban stronghold in the country.
The loss of Mosul would mark the end of the Iraqi portion of the cross-border “caliphate” ISIL declared in the summer of 2014 after seizing large parts of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.
Machinegun fire crackled and plumes of smoke rose above the Old City as surrounding Iraqi positions were hit with heavy mortar fire.
On the first floor of a building on a street lined with destroyed car repair shops, a commander holding a tablet computer called in coordinates for an air strike against a suicide car bomb approaching his position.
The operation was advancing slowly “to preserve civilian lives as we breach the enemy’s defence lines”, said Staff Lieutenant General Abdulghani Al Assadi, a senior commander with the Counter-Terrorism Service.
“Our forces have moved in on foot because the alleys are very narrow,” he said. “The strategy has changed compared to other operations. There is no room for our vehicles to manoeuvre and there are many civilians.”
The United Nations said on Friday that ISIL may be holding more than 100,000 civilians as human shields in the Old City.
Surrounded by Iraqi forces on three sides and blocked on the other by the Tigris River that runs through Mosul, the extremists had no choice but a fight to the finish, Gen Al Assadi said.
“This is the last episode of the Daesh show,” he said.
“It’s our most difficult operation. Fighting is fierce because it’s their last stronghold ... They have nowhere to flee.”
He said he hoped the operation could be concluded before Eid – expected around June 25 or 26 – “but I think it is going to take longer”.
Iraqi forces launched the battle for Mosul in October, retaking the eastern part of the city in January and starting the operation for its western part the following month.
The International Rescue Committee, a major aid group operating in Iraq, warned of the huge risks facing already-traumatised civilians.
“This will be a terrifying time for around 100,000 people still trapped in Mosul’s Old City and now at risk of getting caught up in the fierce street fighting to come,” the IRC’s acting country director Nora Love said.
“Both coalition and Iraqi forces must do everything in their power to keep civilians safe during these final stages of the battle for Mosul.”
Since the battle to retake Mosul began, an estimated 862,000 people have been displaced from the city, although 195,000 have since returned, mainly to its eastern side.
On Sunday, only metres from Iraqi forward positions and falling mortars, civilians could be seen cleaning their homes on streets lined with rubble.
Some people appeared to have never left while others, carrying boxes of food and canvas bags stuffed with clothes, were returning to areas the security forces retook from ISIL only a few days earlier.
It was in Mosul in July 2014 that ISIL chief Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi made his only public appearance, urging Muslims worldwide to move to the group’s “caliphate” straddling Iraq and Syria.
The militants have since lost most of the territory they once controlled in the face of US-backed offensives in Iraq and in Syria, where an alliance of Kurdish and Arab forces are advancing on their last Syrian bastion Raqqa.
It is not clear how many ISIL members remain in Mosul, where many foreign fighters have joined local extremists since the city was taken.
“The locals in Daesh will shave their beards and try to blend in with the civilians as they always do,” Gen Al Assadi said. “The foreigners will fight hard and eventually get killed.”
The fall of Mosul in 2014 was the Iraqi forces’ worst defeat in the war with ISIL.
Regaining it would cap a major turnaround for security forces, who broke away and ran despite outnumbering the militants who attacked the city.
* Agence France-Presse
