Iraqi forces push deeper into east Mosul
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[November 04, 2016]
By Michael Georgy and Babak Dehghanpisheh
ALI RASH/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi
special forces recaptured six districts of eastern Mosul on Friday, a
military statement said, expanding the army's foothold in the Islamic
State stronghold a day after its leader told his jihadist followers
there could be no retreat.
An officer in the elite Counter Terrorism Service said CTS troops
launched a major operation against the militants, who are now almost
surrounded in their last major urban redoubt in Iraq.
CTS special forces took over the neighborhoods of Malayeen, Samah,
Khadra, Karkukli, Quds and Karama, the statement said, inflicting heavy
losses on the militant fighters and raising the Iraqi flag over
buildings.
One special forces officer told Reuters the CTS units may try to push
all the way to the Tigris river, which runs through the center of Mosul.
Iraqi television footage from the east of the city showed grey smoke
rising, and a Reuters reporter in the village of Ali Rash, 7 km (4
miles) to the south east, heard helicopter gunships and cannon fire.
Volleys of automatic rifle fire, possibly from the militants, were also
audible.
A senior officer in the village said Iraqi troops had also taken two
thirds of another Mosul district, Intisar, in the same eastern section
of the city.
Islamic State fighters "are trying to get away", Lieutenant-General
Qassem Jassim Nazzal told Reuters.
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In a sign of the fierce resistance which soldiers have encountered since
entering the city on Monday, Nazzal said they blew up six bomb-laden
cars, killed two suicide bombers, and killed 30 other people.
In the village of Ali Rash, retaken by Iraqi forces sweeping toward
Mosul from the south and the east, the bloated and blackened bodies of
three Islamic State fighters, dressed in khaki trousers and military
boots, were left out in the open.
"They're criminals, let the dogs eat them," another officer said.
SPECIAL FORCES
Iraqi regular troops and special forces, Shi'ite militias, Kurdish
peshmerga fighters and other groups backed by U.S.-led air strikes
launched their campaign to retake Mosul nearly three weeks ago.
Winning back the city would crush the Iraqi half of a cross-border
caliphate declared by Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from a
Mosul mosque two years ago.
Islamic State also holds large parts of neighboring Syria, but Mosul is
by far the largest city under control of the ultra-hardline militants in
either country, and the campaign to retake it is the most complex in
Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion which toppled Saddam Hussein and
unleashed a decade of turmoil.
In a speech released on Thursday Baghdadi - whose whereabouts are
unknown - said there could be no retreat in a "total war" against the
forces arrayed against Islamic State, telling fighters they must remain
loyal to their commanders.
Mosul is still home to nearly 1.5 million people, who risk being caught
up in brutal urban warfare. The United Nations has warned of a potential
humanitarian crisis and a refugee exodus, although Iraqi officials say
Islamic State is holding the civilian population as human shields.
The United Nations says 22,000 people have been displaced since the
start of the Mosul campaign. That figure excludes thousands from
outlying villages forced to head back to Mosul by retreating Islamic
State fighters who used them as human shields.
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![](../images/110416pics/news_n27.jpg)
Iraqi security forces launch a rocket towards Islamic State
militants during clashes at the frontline in Ali Rash village,
southeast of Mosul, Iraq, November 3, 2016. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani
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ROCKET LAUNCHERS
Mosul residents, speaking to Reuters by telephone, said Islamic
State fighters were deploying artillery and rocket launchers in and
near residential areas.
Some were hidden in trees near the Wahda district in the south,
while others were deployed on the rooftops of houses taken over by
the militants in the Ghizlani district close to Mosul airport, they
said.
"We saw Daesh (Islamic State) fighters installing a heavy
anti-aircraft machine gun alongside a rocket launchpad, and mortars
as well," one Mosul resident said.
People in southern and eastern neighborhoods reported on Thursday
night that their houses had been shaken by artillery and rocket
barrages launched from their districts toward the advancing troops.
As well as the Islamic State resistance in Mosul itself, the
militants have launched diversionary attacks across the country
since the start of the offensive.
In the town of Shirqat, about 100 km (60 miles) south of Mosul,
militants stormed a mosque and several houses early on Friday, a
local police officer said, killing seven soldiers and fighters from
the Shi'ite Popular Mobilisation force.
The insurgents crossed from the eastern bank of the Tigris into the
town at 3 a.m., taking over al-Baaja mosque and fanning out into
alleyways. Security forces imposed a curfew and said reinforcements
from the Popular Mobilisation, or Hashid Shaabi, forces were being
sent to the town.
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In their drive toward Mosul, Iraqi troops and Kurdish peshmerga
fighters have closed in from the north, from the eastern Nineveh
plains and up the Tigris from the south.
The Hashid Shaabi forces of mainly Shi'ite militias joined the
campaign on Saturday, launching an offensive to cut off the west.
A Hashid spokesman said they had made progress but had not
completely closed off the western flank, and their fighters had seen
some cars leaving Mosul on Thursday.
(Additional reporting by Stephen Kalin in Erbil and Saif Hameed in
Baghdad; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Tom Heneghan and Giles
Elgood)
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