breaking news= the battle for mosul(iraq isis capital) begins

[dani67]

the battle for mosul(iraq isis capital) begins

 

[waltky]

Push to re-capture Mosul begins...

War looms in Mosul, tens of thousands of leaflets dropped to warn residents
Monday 17th October, 2016 - Iraqi aircraft dropped "tens of thousands" of leaflets, some bearing safety instructions for Mosul residents, ahead of an operation to retake the city from jihadists, the military said.

Iraq has dropped leaflets over Mosul before, and has also done so as part of operations to retake other cities seized by the Islamic State group in 2014 and 2015. Aircraft dropped "tens of thousands of newspapers and magazines on the centre of the city of Mosul carrying important news... to inform them of updates and facts and victories," said Iraq's Joint Operations Command, which distributed images of some of the leaflets.

One image showed a leaflet containing safety instructions for Mosul residents, urging them to tape over windows to prevent the glass from shattering, to avoid the sites of air strikes for at least an hour after a place is bombed, and saying they should not drive if possible. The launch of the operation is expected to be announced soon, but it will mark only the start of a battle that is likely to be the most difficult and complex yet in the war against ISIS.

A coalition of heterogenous and sometimes rival Iraqi forces will have to fight their way through ISIS defences to reach the city, in some cases over distances of dozens of kilometres. Then they will likely seek to surround the city before launching an assault, marking the start of deadly street fighting with die-hard jihadists in a city with a large civilian population.

The battle may spark a humanitarian crisis, with the United Nations warning that up to one million people may be displaced by the fighting as winter sets in. Even the recapture of Mosul will not mark the end of the war against ISIS, which still holds other territory in Iraq and is likely to turn increasingly to insurgent tactics such as bombings and hit-and-run attacks as it loses more ground.

War looms in Mosul tens of thousands of leaflets dropped to warn residents

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Iraqi PM signals start of operations to drive IS from Mosul
Oct 17,`16 -- Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of military operations to liberate the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State militants on Monday, launching the country on its toughest battle since American troops left nearly five years ago.

State TV aired a brief statement in the early hours Monday announcing the start of the widely anticipated military offensive to drive IS out of Iraq's second-largest city. Broadcasts showed the prime minister, dressed in the uniform of the elite counterterrorism forces, speaking while flanked by senior military officers. "These forces that are liberating you today, they have one goal in Mosul which is to get rid of Daesh and to secure your dignity. They are there for your sake," he told the city's residents, using an alternate name for the militant group. "God willing, we shall win." The thuds of sporadic artillery shelling rumbled across the rolling Nineveh plains in the direction of Mosul, witnesses said. State TV broadcast patriotic music within minutes of the announcement.

The push to retake Mosul will be the biggest military operation in Iraq since American troops left in 2011 and, if successful, the strongest blow yet to the Islamic State. A statement on Al-Abadi's website pledged the fight for the city marked a new phase that would lead to the liberation of all Iraqi territory from the militants this year. In Washington, Defense Secretary Ash Carter called the start of Iraqi operations to liberate Mosul "a decisive moment in the campaign" to deliver a lasting defeat to the Islamic State group. Carter said the United States and other members of the international coalition "stand ready to support the Iraqi Security Forces, Peshmerga fighters and the people of Iraq in the difficult fight ahead." Iraqi forces have been massing around the city in recent days. They include members of the elite special forces, who are expected to lead the charge into the city itself.

Iraq's elite counterterrorism forces gather ahead of an operation to re-take the Islamic State-held City of Mosul, outside Irbil, Iraq. Iraqi forces appear poised to launch their most complex anti-IS operation to date: retaking the country’s second largest city of Mosul. While the country’s military has won a string of territorial victories that have pushed IS out of more than half of the territory the group once held, some Iraqi officials worry that the Mosul fight has been rushed and if the city is retaken without a plan to broker a peace, it could lead to more violence.​

Mosul is home to more than a million civilians. The city fell to IS fighters during a lightning charge in June 2014 that left nearly a third of Iraq in militants' hands and plunged the country into its most severe crisis since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. After seizing Mosul, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi visited the city to declare an Islamic caliphate that at one point covered nearly a third of Iraq and Syria. But since late last year, the militants have suffered battlefield losses in Iraq and their power in the country has largely shrunk to Mosul and small towns in the country's north and west. Mosul is about 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of the capital, Baghdad. The operation to retake Mosul is expected to be the most complex yet for Iraq's military, which has been rebuilding from its humiliating 2014 defeat.

Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, commander of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, said in a statement that the operation to regain control of Mosul could take "weeks, possibly longer." "This may prove to be a long and tough battle, but the Iraqis have prepared for it and we will stand by them," he said. Iraqi forces began moving into Nineveh province to surround Mosul in July, when ground troops led by the country's elite special forces retook Qayara air base south of the city. Thousands of Iraqi troops were deployed there ahead of the planned operation along with large numbers of tanks, armored personnel carriers and heavy artillery. The base is ringed by a series of trenches, sand berms and other fortifications.

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[waltky]

ISIS hangin' victims from power poles...

U.N.: 40 Mosul civilians shot, killed, hung from power poles by Islamic State
Nov. 11, 2016 - The incident was one of several atrocities mentioned in a statement by the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The Islamic State shot and killed 40 civilians in Mosul, Iraq, and hung the dead bodies on power poles, the United Nations said Friday. In a statement outlining human rights abuses committed by the militant group also identified as Daesh, ISIS and ISIL in Iraq, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein reported killings of civilians based upon decisions by self-appointed IS courts. "On Tuesday, ISIL reportedly shot and killed 40 civilians in Mosul city after accusing them of 'treason and collaboration' with the Iraqi security forces. The victims were dressed in orange clothes marked in red with the words 'traitors and agents of the ISF.' Their bodies were then hung on electrical poles in several areas in Mosul city."

The statement detailed other atrocities allegedly committed by IS as Iraqi forces attempt to take back control of the city, which has been under IS control for the past two years. The operation to retake the city involves 50,000 Iraqi security forces personnel, including soldiers, police, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, Sunni Arab tribesmen and Shiite militiamen, the BBC reported.

The U.N. statement reported a man was shot to death for ignoring an IS ban on use of mobile phones. Six civilians also were hanged for carrying banned SIM cards, a data storage element of cellphones; 20 civilians shot to death on charges of leaking information; and boys that IS calls "sons of the caliphate" were deployed to roam the streets of Mosul wearing explosive belts. An underground IS prison holding 961 starving inmates was found; IS is also abducting women and relocating them to Mosul, and has a fleet of loudspeaker-equipped vehicles which announce anyone escaping battles with the Iraqi security Forces will be executed, the statement says.

U.N.: 40 Mosul civilians shot, killed, hung from power poles by Islamic State

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Iraq has never seen this kind of fighting in its battles with ISIS
November 11,`16 — Since pushing into Mosul a week ago, Iraqi commanders say their forces have been shaken by some of the most complex fighting they have ever encountered in battles against the Islamic State.

It is a bitter fight: street to street, house to house, with the presence of civilians slowing the advancing forces. Car bombs — the militants’ main weapon — scream out of garages and straight into advancing military convoys. “If there were no civilians, we’d just burn it all,” said Maj. Gen. Sami al-Aridhi, a counterterrorism commander. He was forced to temporarily pause operations in his sector Monday because too many families were clogging the street. “I couldn’t bomb with artillery or tanks, or heavy weapons. I said, ‘We can’t do anything.’ ”

People carrying a white flag and belongings flee fighting as Iraqi soldiers engage Islamic State militants in Mosul​

Mosul is the most populous city held by the militants, with an estimated 1 million people still living there. Iraqi forces have been closing in from the north and south but have broken into the city only on the eastern front, beginning a slow grind through densely populated neighborhoods. It’s a long, hard slog to the Tigris River that carves through the center of Mosul — and then a whole new battle awaits on the other side. Commanders expressed confidence that they eventually will prevail, but they are less optimistic that they will meet Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s pledge to have the city under control by the end of the year.

Militants wait to move between fighting positions until people fill the streets, using their presence as protection from airstrikes. “They always keep them with them,” Aridhi said. Other officers said the militants occasionally let a flood of people flee as a method of forcing a pause in the fight. At their base on the outskirts of the city, Iraqi counterterrorism troops call in airstrikes where they can, radioing to report militant positions and suicide bombers. Two French advisers sit nearby watching surveillance feeds of the city’s streets.

A boy reacts as Iraqi soldiers help him walk from the front line during a battle with the Islamic State in eastern Mosul​

The voice of a field commander crackled through the radio. “These civilians are making me tired,” he said. “They are coming from everywhere. We don’t know if they are fighters or civilians. They are carrying bags — we don’t know what’s inside.” Col. Arkan Fadhil calls in airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition, but they are less forthcoming than in previous battles because of the presence of families, and are used only to defend Iraqi forces rather than backing them when they attack. Just a few Islamic State militants hidden in populated areas can cause tremendous chaos. Seven would-be suicide bombers were arrested as counterterrorism troops cleared the last corners of the Zahra neighborhood of Mosul on Thursday, nearly a week after they had entered it.

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