Daesh bombers slow Mosul advance

Daesh bombers slow Mosul advance

The advance of government troops slowed on Sunday in the last push to drive Daesh group militants from remaining pockets of Mosul, two Iraqi military officers said.

On Saturday, US-backed Iraqi forces began a new offensive to recapture the Old City from three directions. Hours after announcing the push, the government said two military officers were killed in clashes in the Shafaa neighbour-hood on the Tigris River.

Daesh militants have deployed snipers, suicide car bombers and suicide attackers on foot, the officers said. They described the advance on Mosul’s Old City as “cautious” and the clashes on Sunday as “sporadic” without giving details on casualty figures from either side.

The troops captured Ibn Sina hospital, part of the sprawling medical complex in the Shafaa neighbourhood, the officers added.

Mosul’s wide-scale military operation was launched in October and its eastern half was declared liberated in January. The push for the city’s west began the following month.

The Daesh hold on Mosul has shrunk to just a handful of neighbourhoods in and around the Old City district where narrow streets and a dense civilian population are expected to complicate the fight there.

On Friday, Iraqi planes dropped leaflets over the area, encouraging the civilians to flee “immediately” to “safe passages” where they will be greeted by “guides, protectors and (transportation) to reach safe places”, according to a government statement.

The UN estimated that as many as 200,000 people may try to leave in the coming days, while Save the Children warned that fleeing civilians could be caught in the cross-fire, leading to “deadly chaos”.

Desperate civilians trapped behind Daesh lines now face a harrowing situation with little food and water, no electricity and limited access to hospitals.

The push inside the Old City coincides with the start of the holy month of Ramadan. The offensive’s prime target is the medieval Al Nuri mosque with its landmark leaning minaret, where Daesh’s black flag has been flying since mid-2014. Iraqi armed forces hope to capture the mosque – where Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi announced the “caliphate” – in the next few days.

Residents in the Old City sounded desperate in telephone interviews over the past few days.

“We’re waiting for death at any moment, either by bombing or starving,” one said, asking not to be identified. “Adults eat one meal a day, either flour or lentil soup.”

The United Nations expressed deep concern for the hundreds of thousands of civilians behind Daesh lines, in a statement on Saturday from the organisation’s under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, Stephen O’Brien.

The post Daesh bombers slow Mosul advance appeared first on Daily Saudi Arabia News.

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