Iraq's war against IS terrorism | Updates and Discussions

[TheCamelGuy]

 

[Hindustani78]

West Mosul

 

[Hindustani78]

South of Mosul

Hamam Al Alil, Iraq

 

[TheCamelGuy]

https://twitter.com/x/status/835193033624780800

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Mosul airport sniper team

 

[TheCamelGuy]

US is seeking 'permanent/long-term' military presence in Iraq, and are discussing this with Iraq. According to General Dunford.

 

[ultron]

F-35 not deployed for combat in Iraq yet? These are strike fighters most suitable for the ground attack role.

 

[TheCamelGuy]

MOSUL, Iraq — Iraq’s elite Golden Forces have captured 75 militants of the Islamic State, many of them carrying Russian identity papers, in Mosul’s Maamoun neighborhood where sporadic clashes continued until early Saturday morning. Military officials said the district was fully under government control after the area was cleared of remaining ISIS fighters.

 

[Hindustani78]

By Amir al-Saadi

BAGHDAD
http://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/iraqi-army-takes-major-district-from-daesh-in-w-mosul/759568

The Iraqi army on Sunday captured a major district in western Mosul amid an ongoing offensive to drive Daesh terrorist group from the northern city, according to a military commander.

“The anti-terrorism forces have liberated the Maamoun district and flew Iraqi flag over buildings in the area,” General Abdul-Amir Yarullah, commander of the Mosul operation, said in a televised statement.

“The Maamoun district is the first neighborhood that the Iraqi forces have fully controlled in western Mosul,” he said.

Iraqi forces seized control of several areas in the district on Thursday before fully capturing the neighborhood on Sunday.

Last week, the Iraqi army, backed by the U.S.-led air coalition, began a fresh operation aimed at purging remaining Daesh terrorists from Mosul’s western districts.

The offensive comes as part of a wider operation launched last October to retake the entire city, which Daesh overran along vast swathes of territory in northern and western Iraq in mid-2014.

 

[ultron]

These damn Chechens and Uzbeks. Time to kick their asses.

 

[Hindustani78]

http://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/iraq-takes-another-major-district-in-western-mosul/760009

Iraqi forces have captured another major neighborhood in western Mosul after clashes with Daesh militants, according to a top military commander.

“Our forces have liberated Tayaran district and raised Iraqi flag over its buildings,” Lt. Gen. Abdul-Amir Yarallah, commander of the Nineveh Operations, said in a televised statement on Monday.

The new gain comes one day after Iraqi forces captured the strategic Maamoun district in a major victory against Daesh militants in western Mosul.

Last week, the Iraqi army, backed by the U.S.-led air coalition, began a fresh operation aimed at purging remaining Daesh terrorists from Mosul’s western districts.

The offensive comes as part of a wider operation launched last October to retake the entire city, which Daesh overran along vast swathes of territory in northern and western Iraq in mid-2014.

 

[Solomon2]

Iraqi forces seize Mosul bridge as thousands of civilians flee

By Stephen Kalin and Isabel Coles
ReutersFeb 27, 2017, 2:28 PM

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• Displaced Iraqi women who just fled their home,rest in the desert as they wait to be transported while Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State militants in western Mosul, Iraq February 27, 2017. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra
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• An Iraqi Airforce helicopter deploys flares during a battle with Islamic State fighters at an outskirts of Mosul, Iraq. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
  
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• A displaced Iraqi woman who just fled her home talks on the phone as Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State militants, in western Mosul, Iraq February 27, 2017. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemr
  
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• Iraqi special forces members rests during a battle with Islamic State fighters on the outskirts of Mosul, Iraq. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
  
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• A displaced Iraqi girl who just fled her home, waits to be transported while Iraqi forces battle with Islamic State militants in western Mosul
  
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• A member of Iraqi security forces takes his position during a battle with Islamic State fighters, in western Mosul, Iraq February 26, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani
  

By Stephen Kalin and Isabel Coles

SOUTH OF MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi forces seized a damaged Mosul bridge on Monday which could link up their units on either side of the Tigris river, as thousands of civilians fled the fighting for Islamic State's remaining stronghold in the west of the city.

U.S.-backed army and police units advanced through populated western districts, fighting tough street battles, and announced they had captured Mosul's southernmost bridge.

Once repaired, the bridge could help bring reinforcements and supplies from the eastern side, piling pressure on the militants dug in the western side among 750,000 civilians.

Iraqi forces captured eastern Mosul in January, after 100 days of fighting. They launched their attack on the districts that lie west of the Tigris a week ago.

If they defeat Islamic State in Mosul, that would crush the Iraq wing of the caliphate that the group's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared in 2014 over parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria. The U.S. commander in Iraq has said he believes U.S.-backed forces will recapture both Mosul and Raqqa - Islamic State's Syria stronghold - within six months.

Since government forces broke through the city's southern limits on Thursday, more than 10,000 civilians have fled Islamic State-held areas, seeking medical assistance, food and water, Iraqi commanders said.

About 1,000 civilians arrived in the early hours of Monday at the sector held by the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), the wounded taken to the clinic of this elite unit, while men were screened to make sure they are not Islamic State members.

Among the people treated at the CTS clinic was a little girl with a blood on her face and a woman with shrapnel in her hand, lying immobile, apparently unconscious.

An old man who came with them said about 20 people were sheltering in their house when it was hit by an air strike two days ago in the southwestern Maamoun district.

Those who managed to escape have had to walk through the desert for at least an hour to reach government lines.

RUNNING FOR COVER

Several thousand militants, including many who traveled from Western countries to join up, are believed to be still in Mosul, prepared for a fierce standoff amid a remaining civilian population of 750,000.

The United Nations World Food Programme said on Monday it was extremely concerned about dire humanitarian situation facing families in western Mosul.

A Reuters reporter saw several trucks teeming with people, lifting columns of sand and dust as they drove away from the city.

One had two women and infants riding in the cabin. The rest stood on the open bed, held on to the truck from outside, or sat on top of the cabin. "They booby trapped our homes and our cars," said an old woman.

A Western volunteer medic at the CTS clinic said a boy with a gunshot wound that shattered his knee was among those treated on Monday, and a pregnant woman who had both legs amputated.

"Most of those who arrive to this point are hungry and thirsty and suffering neglect, and need medical care," CTS Brigadier General Salman Hashim told Reuters.

Army, police, CTS and Rapid Response units forces attacking Islamic State in west Mosul are backed by air and ground support from U.S.-led coalition, including artillery fire. U.S. personnel are operating close to the frontlines to direct air strikes.

Iraqi troops have already captured the southern and western accesses to western Mosul, dislodging the militants from the airport, a military base, a power station and three residential district, al-Maamoun, al-Tayyaran and al-Josaq, according to military statements.

"The more we advance, the fiercer the resistance," said Lt. Colonel Abdel Amir al-Mohammadawi, from the Rapid Response units that are fighting near the southernmost bridge, one of five spanning the Tigris.

All of them were damaged in strikes by the U.S.-led air coalition, and later by Islamic State fighters trying to seal off the western bank still under their control.

Iraqi forces have reached 1 kilometer (less than 1 mile) from the old city center and the main government buildings, the capture of which would effectively mean the fall of Mosul.

The militants are using mortar, sniper fire, booby traps and suicide car bombs to fight off the offensive.

They are facing a 100,000-strong force made up of Iraqi armed forces, regional Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Iranian-trained Shi'ite Muslim paramilitary groups.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Dominic Evans)

 

[TheCamelGuy]

https://twitter.com/x/status/836304893589786624

 

[Alshawi1234]

The real battle has started. Fighting is now house to house and street to street with civilians present. IS has forced the people to park there vehicles on the roads as to be used as obstacle.

This is going to be a slow and intense battle. Set backs and losses will occur here and there. But our men are up to the job.

______
Wave after wave, they keep coming and they keep dying.

PMF medic and aide team provide assistant in liveratwd towns and villages.

 

[Path-Finder]

The real battle has started. Fighting is now house to house and street to street with civilians present. IS has forced the people to park there vehicles on the roads as to be used as obstacle.

This is going to be a slow and intense battle. Set backs and losses will occur here and there. But our men are up to the job.

______
Wave after wave, they keep coming and they keep dying.

PMF medic and aide team provide assistant in liveratwd towns and villages.

InShaAllah i will make dua for the Iraqi forces. Allah Grant you success against the enemy of Islam

 

[Hindustani78]

Members of the Iraqi army's 9th Division fire a multiple rocket launcher from a hill in Talul al-Atshana, on the southwestern outskirts of Mosul, on February 27, 2017, during an offensive to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. (AFP Photo)
http://www.hindustantimes.com/world...-to-the-end/story-A4vlIAk0d9dpZuXzsfACZN.html


The families cowered in basements, huddling in the dark as war raged overhead between Iraqi forces and Islamic State militants fighting for control of the streets of Mosul.

Above ground, soldiers from Iraq’s Rapid Response division move from house to house through the same openings Islamic State militants smashed through the walls in preparation to defend their last remaining stronghold in the city’s west.

The passageway led them through living rooms and gardens, into a kitchen with a pot of lentil soup on the counter -- the scenes of domesticity highlighting the chaos of war that is intensifying as Iraqi forces advance.

“It’s strange and terrifying,” said a young woman who was barely visible in the gloom of a basement under her house in the Josaq district, where she went into hiding after giving birth to a baby girl 72 days ago. “I rarely go upstairs.”

Iraqi forces advanced quickly in the early stages of the offensive to recapture Mosul’s western half, retaking the airport and piercing Islamic State defenses around the city within days.

Now they are encountering tougher resistance as they push into residential districts where as many as 750,000 civilians are essentially trapped.

If they defeat Islamic State in Mosul that would crush the Iraq wing of the caliphate its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared in 2014 over parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria.

FOREIGN FIGHTERS BATTLE TO THE END

The Iraqi soldiers climbed through a hole in the wall of a garden strewn with ripe oranges and shattered glass, and emerged to find an Islamic State fighter lying flat on his back where he had been killed by Iraqi forces.

Lt. Colonel Abdel Amir al-Mohammadawi went through the dead man’s pockets after making sure he was not wearing a suicide belt, and pulled out a small address book containing telephone numbers of other fighters, and a contact for “Islamic Police”.

“He’s not Iraqi. He’s probably not an Arab,” said Mohammadawi, judging the man by his appearance and imperfect spelling. “The closer we get to the centre, the more we come up against the foreigners”.

Unlike Iraqi militants who can blend in with civilians and possibly slip through the net of security forces, foreign fighters have no escape and will therefore fight to the end. Mohammadawi said: “They don’t flee like the locals”.

There are noticeably more foreign militants in the western half of the city than the east, which Iraqi forces cleared one month ago after 100 days of fighting, Mohammadawi added.

After losing the east, Islamic State militants prepared for battle in the west, knocking holes through the walls and expelling residents whose homes offered a vantage from which to fire at advancing Iraqi forces.

At one point, the passage led into an empty hall where a motorcycle was parked. Evidently it had been used by the militants because there was a prayer mat in the plastic crate attached to the back, the soldiers said.

“Search upstairs!,” Mohammadawi ordered, sending two men up the stairs, gun barrels first, to make sure no militants were hiding there.

Also found were paper slips granting Islamic State members leave for short periods of no longer than a day, which one officer said indicated they had no time or manpower to spare.

CIVILIANS HIDE IN BASEMENTS

The densely populated terrain is already proving a challenge. Mohammadawi said Rapid Response forces had been forced to pause their advance in Josaq on Sunday because five Islamic State snipers were hiding among civilians.

A tactical unit had then killed the militants in an overnight raid, Mohammadawi said, clearing the way for Rapid Response forces to reach the first of five bridges that straddle the River Tigris bisecting Mosul.

As the sounds of artillery and small arms fire reverberated, a group of civilians came running across the street towards Iraqi forces, the women weeping in fear. The soldiers corralled them into a house where the women went down to the basement.

The women described how the militants had set the upper floors of their homes ablaze to create a smokescreen against coalition aircraft.

Mahmoud, who was amongst the group, escaped after secretly contacting the commander in the area, keeping his phone on silent so the ring tone would not give him away to Islamic State militants. But his brother stayed behind.

“Brother, get out,” Mahmoud said urgently over the phone to his brother. “It’s better. Get your stuff together. Protect your children. No inch is safe.”